Welcome back, fellow speculators! We have another installment of MTG Stock Watch (after the brief hiatus due to GP Charlotte).

Penny Picks

#1 Nourishing Shoal (+1961.4%) - This was the sleeper breakout card from GP Charlotte. It's played in a Tinfins style deck (i.e. discard and reanimate Griselbrand as fast as possible, draw a bunch of cards, win) as a way to gain a lot of life for free to continue drawing cards. The deck's new win condition is Borborygmos Enraged, who throws a bunch of lands at your face after they've all been drawn.

Another cool aspect of this card is that it's arcane, which allows you to splice Through the Breach at instant speed. The card that is most often pitched to the Nourishing Shoal is Worldspine Wurm (which happens to play well with Through the Breach as well).

#2 Lantern of Insight (+1730%) - Another breakout star from GP Charlotte. This card ended up in prison style deck that uses the information it provides as a way to control your opponent's draw. The deck runs cards like Codex Shredder and Pyxis of Pandemonium to mill the top card of the opponent's library and keep them locked out.

However, as you'd expect the key card to the deck is actually Ensnaring Bridge, as any prison style deck needs to keep itself alive before setting up it's lock and Ensnaring Bridge allows the Lantern player to keep themselves from getting killed via attacks. The deck also runs Sun Droplet as a clever solution to Burn decks as opposed to Leyline of Sanctity which could get stranded in the hand and allow creatures under the Bridge.

#3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader (C14) (+261.2%) - The winner of GP Charlotte was CoCo Elves, and Ezuri provides not only the win condition (Overrun on a stick) but also a way to protect your other pieces with the targeted regenerate ability. The original Scars of Mirrodin version also showed spectacular growth (+235.7%). We saw some of the other CoCo Elves pieces jump as well--namely Heritage Druid (+36.4%) and the next item on our list.

#4 Nettle Sentinel (+242.6%) - Following in Ezuri's and Heritage Druid's footsteps, one of the key components of all Elves deck (Modern or Legacy) is Nettle Sentinel as its ability when paired with Heritage Druid allows for large amounts of mana very quickly. Its ability gets around summoning sickness (which is key to keeping the deck's velocity high).

#5 Ancient Stirrings (+231%) - While Elves may have won GP Charlotte, the two decks going in with the biggest targets on their head were R/G Tron and Titan Bloom, both of which use Ancient Stirrings to help find key components. With only the singular printing in Rise of the Eldrazi, it's not a huge surprise to see a mini-tutor for one green breach the $3 mark (and almost the $4 mark).

#6 Terminate (+176%) - Arguably the best creature removal spell in Modern (with the other possibility being Abrupt Decay), with the resurgence in modern Jund decks as well as the new Grixis Control decks popping up, it's no surprise to see this card finally get some love.

Having two different color requirements makes it difficult to splash (and typically requires running both colors as opposed to splashing one), but with the advent of Titan Bloom style decks, Modern has a strong need to kill creatures with a converted mana cost higher than three.

#7 Chromatic Star (+161.7%) - A key card in the R/G Tron lists, this one seems more like a buyout of the 10th Edition copies than an overall increase in demand--the regular Time Spiral (TSP) copies have only moved by about 25% in the same time period. However, it's important to keep an eye on this one as if we continue to see TSP copies move upward we may likely see the other R/G Tron pieces begin to grow.

#8 Chord of Calling (+46.9%) - I've been calling this one for a while now and it seemed like an obvious speculation target. With CoCo Elves's win at the GP and the fact that it's running a full four-of Chord of Calling, this once-$40 Modern staple is finally getting its upward push after the reprinting in M15 caused it to plummet.

While its old price tag seems very unlikely, this is easily a $15 card, thanks to its reprinting hailing from a core set, which overall lacked any strong card to drive demand to open packs.

#9 Melira, Sylvok Outcast (+46.5%) - This one isn't all that surprising either. While the Junk CoCo lists prefer Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit to assist with their combos as it's more powerful on its own, Modern Infect decks are still very good and Melira is the best solution to them. Having a creature type of elf doesn't hurt either.

#10 Sylvan Scrying (+27.6%) - Similar to Ancient Stirrings, a green tutor for lands is incredibly powerful in both Modern and EDH. With its last printing coming in 2007 it's no surprise that the number of copies in the supply is beginning to dwindle.

#11 Darkness (+25%) - This Legends common (reprinted as a Timeshifted card in TSP) got some time on air during GP Charlotte via the commentators (despite not actually being cast). The relatively small number in the market meant that any sort of increase in demand would likely cause a decent rise.

As innocuous as Fog is, it's very unexpected coming from black. Also, the fact that Grixis strategies in many cases are tempoing the opponent out and winning at a low life total does mean that the ability to Fog and then Snapcaster Fog back may very well give the player the time needed to win.

Blue Chips

#1. Jace, the Mind Sculptor (+3.76%) - It seems that the continued strength of Miracles, as well as a resurgence in Deathblade decks, has made the best planeswalker of all time see a bit of a resurgence as well.

Granted he's typically kept to a two-of (or less), but there is no doubting the power level. It also helps that he provides an alternate win condition for decks that typically only have one way to win (a great example is when Sneak and Show decks bring him in against slower decks that may run Ensnaring Bridge).

#2 Dark Confidant (-3.68%) - Poor Bob continues his downward slope, despite seeing an uptick in Modern play thanks to the resurgence of Jund decks. I honestly do believe he'll reach his low point soon and should those Jund (and/or some Junk) decks begin to perform better, I think we'll see a return to greatness. Though it is unlikely he'll get all the way back to his old $75 days...at least as long as he keeps showing up in Modern Masters print runs.

#3 Sneak Attack (-2.84%) - It does seem that the Sneak and Show players have for the most part swapped to Know and Tell decks (given Show and Tell itself is actually up 1.5%). However, this archetype will always be a strong choice for smaller Legacy events (as I found out running the Legacy challenges/side events at GP Charlotte) and giving your threat the first attack is also hugely important in any type of mirror. (I had a Lands player side in Emrakul during our game two; unfortunately for him, I dropped Omniscience and then cast my own Emrakul).

#4 Volcanic Island (-1.89%) - It looks like Volcanic's shot at passing Underground Sea is slowly diminishing as the death of U/R Delver decks (with the loss of Treasure Cruise) and the change from Sneak and Show to Know and Tell is reducing the need for Volcanics over all. The resurgence in RUG Delver strategies, however, should help offset this trend a bit moving forward.

#5 Taiga (-1.88%) - As expected, Taiga still sits near the bottom of the dual land barrel. We can see it's now back to its pre-spike price. This emphasizes how the post-GP Richmond spike last year was due to an opportunistic short-term demand (when players realized they could convert some of their Modern staples that recently skyrocketed in price into something more stable).