It’s that time again! Set review and prerelease time, that is. Also known as an extremely fun period of time.

And this one is a little different for me.

I have what amounts to a copy/paste I put at the beginning of every one of these set reviews I write (and I’ve been writing them since I wrote the first financial set review in 2010). It’s something very important to me, since when I first began I was a random college kid speaking up and sometimes disagreeing with the “major voices” of the time. Speaking out with an unpopular opinion is not usually well-accepted in anything, and it was no different in the Magic finance world, where all the time I saw “pros” bragging about the calls they got right while ignoring the calls they got wrong.

That’s why I decided then to do set reviews for every single set, and to later do a retrospective of them. These are always hard to do, because even if you’re totally right on a card’s playability, the price fluctuates based on other things as well that are harder to see coming (like how much people like a given set).

Anyway, set reviews are hard, and critiquing yourself on them later is also hard, and sometimes dry reading. I get that. But accountability is important to me.

Before we get any further, let’s get the copy/paste out of the way, and then I’ll explain why this set is a little different for me.

For those of you not familiar with how I do set reviews, I start by giving you all a little credit. I don’t go card-by-card through the entire set and waste thousands of words telling you that obviously bulk rares are, in fact, bulk rares. Instead, I try to hit on the cards drawing the most hype as well as those I feel like you need to have on your radar for one reason or another, whether they be sleepers, overpriced, or so forth.

If you want to hear some financial thoughts besides mine on the new set, make sure to check out the latest episode of Brainstorm Brewery when it comes out next Friday at GatheringMagic.com. This week we were lucky enough to have the one and only Conley Woods as our guest on the cast, and it turned out well.

Caveats

With that said, I want to take a moment for a brief aside. We’ve got a ton of new readers here on QS lately, and that’s great. It means more opinions in the forums and more collaboration in general. It also means that, as writers, we have to keep our game up because some people reading this have maybe never read a single thing I’ve written before.

I feel like I should make a point that I’ve made elsewhere but not necessarily in a while. Here goes.

Do not blindly trust me.

I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve been a weekly columnist for more than three years and I’m highly active in the community. I’ve been responsible for some of the best call shots on prerelease primers, from Stoneforge Mystic to Huntmaster of the Fells to Boros Reckoner. I like to think I’m pretty decent at this speculating game.

That said, guess what? I’m wrong, too. Everyone is. No one can bat 1.000, and in baseball you’re a pro if you’re successful one out of three times.

So don’t take my advice just because it’s my advice. Consider my reasoning on cards, take it into account along with what other people are saying, and at the end of the day make your own decision.

…

Here I am, posting a copy/paste about not blindly trusting others when it comes to predictions, but I have to admit that I was a hypocrite with Fate Reforged.

To be perfectly blunt, I put too much faith in what Conley Woods had to say when he did the set review with us on Brainstorm Brewery. Conley is a great guy and a great player, and he sees things no one else will, and certainly sees more than me. The problem was that I forgot about a key fact: I know finance.

When Conley suggested Flamewake Phoenix could respawn Mono-Red Devotion, he was absolutely right that it could, even if that’s not how it panned out. The problem was that I gave far too much credence to those possibilities rather than trusting my own gut about how those cards would play out financially even if they fit in a deck. That led me to be far too optimistic about cards like Soulflayer, Phoenix and Brutal Hordechief. The only card I really felt personally strongly about was Whisperwood Elemental, and I nailed that prediction.

The lesson here? The same one I copy/paste into every set review. If I’m wrong, I’m going to be wrong because I made the wrong call, not because I put all my faith in someone else’s read and forgot my own financial instincts.

So, now that I’ve put that out there and built myself up to have a good set review, let’s dive into the part where I embarrass myself by being totally wrong.

Dragons of Tarkir

The Dargons! The durdly Dargons!

Seriously, looking over the set as a whole it feels like a better Dragon’s Maze. The cards are cool and all, but the set as a whole doesn’t feel pushed power-level wise.

That’s fine with me. And this will do better than Dragon’s Maze long-term because it has so many dragons. But outside of a few big cards, I don’t see most of these creatures making an impact in Standard.

But yeah, dragons. Casual players love them, and I love stocking up on the bulk mythic dragons. This is actually an interesting experiment since there are so many dragons in this set, and it seems unlikely they can all be worth money. As Jason puts it, Commander can support the best 25-35 dragons, and the rest will be left solely to the kitchen-table crowd. And when only a couple of those 25-35 are coming from this set, it’s not a recipe for an expensive set.

Again, this is all fine with me from both a player and financial perspective. I don’t want every single set to put 5+ cards into Modern and Legacy. I want the game’s power level to grow at a snail’s pace, not a dragon’s. It creates more certainty in the market, and as a player and dealer that’s something I’m all about.

The Cards

Narset Transcendent

At the risk of repeating my mistake with Ugin (which I called to fall from $30), I’m going to also say that Narset won’t be $30 for long.

I think she definitely has a place in Standard, but the mana for an Esper deck isn’t perfect right now, and that hurts. It’s also difficult to see her in a non-control build, even as powerful as she is.

Still, I think this probably moves to 20 or so in three months. The card is super powerful, and even giving a Wrath variant rebound is actually really good because it pseudo-Time Walks an opponent. A lot to like here.

Sarkhan Unbroken

Another super powerful card, and this is one I think will fall to $10-12 or so in the next few months but be primed for a rotation spike.

The tools Temur will have available after rotation: Sarkhan, Rattleclaw Mystic, Savage Knuckleblade, Shaman of the Great Hunt. Hell, even Sagu Mauler. All of these are really good and rise in value after Caryatid/Courser leave the format and make the color fixing a little more difficult for non-Temur Green decks.

Also, a Birds reprint would be insane with all of these cards. Basically, Temur has a lot of tools, and I like all of these for a future deck, especially if Sarkhan gets cheap.

Ojutai Exemplars

If this card is good, I think it will be because of the middle ability. There’s actually a plethora of 4- to 6-cost cards that can protect themselves from spot removal right now, but not many of them can race as effectively as this guy can.

Still, I think this comes down from $8, mainly because I can’t see what deck it goes in. The Jeskai tempo/burn decks don’t really need a four-drop when they’re already iffy running Mantis Rider. The power level here is high for sure, but it’s a question of finding a home.

Deathmist Raptor

I don’t think this has much of a chance before rotation. In theory he’s a good fit in the Whip or Abzan decks, but there are so few ways to actually trigger him that I don’t think he can maintain a $7 pricetag.

Dragonlord Atarka

This guy is going to get cheap just based on the set being opened, and that’s when we’ll want to move in. This is one of the ones I like long-term.

Shaman of Forgotten Ways

I think this is actually garbage in current Standard outside of maybe fitting into a devotion deck. I doubt that keeps him at $6. Things may definitely change when the Eldrazi return, but that’s a ways off.

Dragonlord Ojutai

Probably better than Prognostic Sphinx, but still not great. The blue-white control decks that have no other creatures are just going to lose this guy when they attack, or he’s going to run into a bee and get deathtouched. Don’t like at $6.

Thunderbreak Regent

Another dragon I like long-term, but he’s coming down from the $5 pricetag before he goes up in that long-term. Easy trade away early and then reacquire at half the price in a few months.

Collected Company

This card is extremely powerful. I think this weird midrange format may not give it a chance to shine, but this is a good card with a high power level, and it’s going to find a home before it rotates. Not to mention it may have some Modern applications (Elves?).

I don’t like picking these up at $5 because I don’t think the current metagame is great for it, but the power level is there. Another good target once it gets cheaper.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier

Great, great Commander card. Foils are $20 right now, and once those copies seem to bottom out this is a huge pickup. Rune-Scarred Demon was in a precon and is still $5+. All versions of this are going to be great targets in about six weeks.

Commands

Of these, I actually really like Kolaghan's Command. Feels like this thing is always going to be a two-for-one in a more consistent way than the others. It affects the board, it’s got some utility, and it’s burn on top of that.

That said, I don’t see too much upside at the current $3-4, but I do like having these around my binder. The other one I want is Ojutai's Command, which will likely only be used for the last two abilities but has nice utility with the first two. I think this sees a little Standard play along with Narset, and that’s enough reason to keep some around even if there’s not much upside.

Dragon Tempest

This is going to get cheap. Crucible of Fire cheap.

And then you buy them all.

I think this is nearly an auto-include in all the dragon Commander decks that are and will continue to pop up, and this is probably a four-of at the mythical kitchen table as well. Another longer-term call, but one I like a lot.

There you go. Those are the cards I feel strongly about in the set. I realize some of this is post-rotation talk, but we’re getting to that point of the season already, and it’s good to have our eye on stuff as we approach the summer.

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter