Welcome back readers! It's been two weeks since my last Stock Watch article, so it's time for another one. Let's jump right in.

Penny Stocks

#1 - Seize the Day (+274.2%) - I don't mean to brag too much on this one, but I've been saying for a while that the old single-print rares that play well with Narset were likely to get the Nekusar treatment. This is just the latest of many that have already jumped (Waves of Aggression being the first).

However, just like the Nekusar specs I don't think these jumps will fully stick. If you look back at one of the big Nekusar cards, Wheel and Deal, we saw a big spike from $1 to $4 and then a gradual decline back to $3. This isn't surprising as everyone wanted to build the new super powerful/synergistic commander at first and gradually some players lost interest or took the decks apart and traded off the components to build the next big thing.

#2 - Amulet of Vigor (+110.8%) - This jump is solely thanks to a Titan Bloom deck making Top 8 of the last Modern PT. The deck looks like a lot of fun to play (after all Prime Time was a blast to cast while he reigned supreme in Standard) and can be really powerful. However, it's still a bit of a glass cannon. If you can kill their Primeval Titans they have a real hard time winning.

Either way, this card previously spiked the last time the deck went big and then dropped back down in value (though nowhere near it's previous bulk status). If you have them, unload them now; despite the fact that they likely flew under the radar for a MMA2015 reprint, the deck has proven rather unstable.

#3 - Summer Bloom (+81.5%) - This one is tied to the same PT deck as Amulet of Vigor, though it has two printings and is only an uncommon. However, those two printings are Visions and 6th Edition, both sets that came out long ago, so the number in circulation is likely closer to that of a modern day rare than a modern day uncommon.

#4 - Ward of Bones (+78.5%) - This one isn't tied to any one particular deck (that I'm aware of), but rather a powerful card in any prison-style EDH decks. It can be a major beating if its controller can rush it out fast enough to lock down the board, but it's very "unfun" to play against, so it's really only going to appeal to griefer players. Having played both with and against it in EDH, I don't think its spike will hold, and it looks to me like a buyout.

#5 - Hive Mind (+60.2%) - This is the third card in our list tied to the Titan Bloom deck from the PT. Serving as an alternate win condition should your Titans get ko'd, it has only one printing in M10, and coupled with various Pacts can serve as a two-card combo in any format it's legal in. This is the only card of the top 5 which I think can actually maintain this new price (seeing as how the "big jump" only went from $2.50 to $4).

Blue Chip Stocks

#1 - Force of Will (+11.22%) - Force has been on a tear lately and it's finally exceeded $100 on the average. With the banning of Treasure Cruise, Legacy has been shaken up quite a bit and it looks like people are falling back on old favorites, including this, the glue that holds the format together. This card is one of the major things that differentiates Modern and Legacy--without access to a powerful free counterspell we see a lot of midrange and combo decks in Modern but no real control ones.

#2 - Tarmogoyf (+5.07%) - Not surprisingly the king of creature efficiency is back on top. With a Treasure Cruise filled format, graveyards are often reduced to zero to one card pretty consistently and Tarmogoyf thrives most in a format in which both players have a stocked graveyard. I expect he'll continue upward given TC was banned in both Legacy and Modern.

#3 - Sneak Attack (-3.18%) - This one still hasn't really rebounded yet. A lot of people (myself included) expected to see a big resurgence in Sneak and Show with the banning of Treasure Cruise and all the tempo/control decks it held together. Legacy still has Dig Through Time which is arguably a better fit in the Sneak and Show deck anyways as it's a combo deck and the best two cards out of seven are far more useful than just the top three.

#4 - Wasteland (+2.52%) - With the banning of Treasure Cruise we'll likely see a shift away from U/R Delver decks back to the tri-color decks of pre-Khans Legacy. This means that the Wasteland/Stifle combo will pick up in power level and we'll see more ex-RUG Delver players returning to the flock.

#5 - Show and Tell (+2.43%) - This seems odd given the other half the deck is one of our biggest losers of the week. Sneak Attack saw a massive increase in price this year, whereas Show and Tell saw a much less dramatic jump, so it could be that the deck is slowly picking up steam, but the playerbase hasn't accepted the new Sneak Attack price yet.

Opportunities

I've decided to retire the term "value stocks," as the more research I did on the term the more I felt it's not appropriate for what we want to use here. From now on this section will be titled "Opportunities," which I think reflects the intent better.

This week's opportunities focus on the Tiny Leaders format. This format is rapidly growing in playerbase and while it's not supported like Modern was, any time a new format is created the staples of that format quickly jump in value as demand increases. I saved a lot of money when Modern was announced by buying a playset of all the original shocklands and other cards I assumed would be staples (like Cryptic Commands at $7.5). But enough of the past; let's look to the future.

#1 - Ertai, Wizard Adept - (Full disclosure: I own 32 copies of this guy already. I want to be up front about that not because I want everyone to go out and buy copies so his price goes up, but because it's important as a writer to not use your writing as a platform to inflate your own specs; I don't recommend you ever speculate on a card you don't 100% believe in).

Ertai has quite a few things going for him. He's mono-colored and a legend which means he can both be a general and can fit in the largest number of decks. He is a wizard which is a tribe that has a lot of options and support throughout Magic's history. His ability is quite powerful, he's blue, and most importantly, he's on the reserved list, so as long as that stands there won't be any more of him printed.

#2 - Back to Basics - Anyone who has played Modern knows just how powerful a Blood Moon can be and while Back to Basics may not completely screw someone out of playing a game, it can greatly slow them down (though it can still mana screw them hard enough that they are out whether they know it or not).

EDH is often a format of two-, three- and five-color decks where the total number of basics is often pretty low. Tiny Leaders is very similar, except given a smaller deck size the multicolor decks often play even fewer basics (typically 1-4 at most). Granted they also have a higher chance of drawing them thanks to deck size, the point is that the percentage of lands not affected by BtB in their deck is likely somewhere between 0-10%. BtB is also blue, which in eternal formats like Tiny Leaders often leads to it seeing more play.

#3 - Order of Whiteclay - I owe the heads up on this one to QS's Charles House who brought up its possibilities in the format. This card seems like a very powerful addition to any deck that utilizes creatures from its graveyard (or simply wants additional value out of the ones it's already lost). It's also mono-colored (in case you hadn't seen the theme so far, I think mono-colored cards have the most potential due to their ability to go into the most number of decks).

#4 - Engineered Explosives - Wrath effects are not that plentiful in this format (Toxic Deluge, Martial Coup, Black Sun's Zenith, Pernicious Deed, Gaze of Granite, Oblivion Stone, and maybe a couple others) and EE is one of the two that can go in any deck (with Oblivion Stone being the other).

EE used to be a $15-20 card before its Modern Masters printing and while it hasn't really found a home yet in Modern, it plays so well with Academy Ruins it will likely find a home eventually. It will mostly find its way into tri-color decks because there it can act as a complete board wipe more than in mono- or dual-colored ones, so its upside is somewhat limited there. However, it's always a great colorless way to beat decks that rely on tokens or one-drops.

#5 - Mental Misstep - Full disclosure: I own probably 60 copies of this card. While I originally speculated on this card with a hope for an eventual unbanning in Modern, it may just be too powerful for that format. Luckily, a new format was created where one mana represents 33.33% of the spell options for decks.

The fact that it's one of the format's few free counterspells (with Daze and Disrupting Shoal being the other two I can think of) and can be cast without reducing your next turn's mana options or giving you card disadvantage definitely means it's one of the best options. It's, again, mono-colored and blue, so it can go in a lot of possible decks and it's still really cheap right now (sub $0.75).