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Aloha, readers and welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! I know that we've already covered cards from Iconic Masters last week, but I just need to talk about a few more cards from that set in the coming days if you don't mind. Today, I'll be featuring a card that I have high hopes for, especially with the influx of supply that will enter the market.
Without further ado, I bring you!
Yes, let's talk about this uncommon from Coldsnap that was sitting at $57 per piece last April. It will still be an uncommon in IMA, but the price has gone down drastically, despite of its high usage rate in Modern nowadays. I believe that some people are thinking that the supply will be enough to bring the price down, but I honestly think that its current price tag is way too low.
Before I provide you with more statistics, take a look at this 5C Death's Shadow Deck:
5C Deaths Shadow
There are four copies of Mishra's Bauble in that deck for two reasons -- one, it allows the players to look at the opponent's hand and see if there is anything that needs to be discarded immediately via Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek; and two, getting the Bauble to the graveyard helps in setting up the delirium mechanic which fuels Traverse the Ulvenwald. In case you're not aware, Grixis Death's Shadow has been the most popular archetype of them all, but people are suddenly realizing that it could go five colors for a more straightforward approach. This means that there's a high probability that Mishra's Bauble's price should be able to rebound as soon as supplies of IMA dry up.
Free Spells in Modern
Not all of these spells are really "free" to cast. The real costs of the pact have to be paid on the next turn, and it takes two life to cast the Phyrexian spells if you don't have the mana to pay for it's actual cost. The Bauble belongs in the company of the other artifacts that you'd usually find in an Affinity deck, and it's really not hard to find a home for these cards given their utility. Mishra's Bauble is a very strong card that's well positioned to put some mediocre decks into rarefied air once pros figure it out. Including it in the Death's Shadow deck is just the beginning; bear in mind that Lantern Control also uses it, and that some crazy development (think Second Sunrise) might happen if anything gets unbanned in Modern next February.
Using the Utility Checker, I found out that 6.4% of top performing decks this year have used an average of 3.6 copies of Mishra's Bauble in their lists. It hasn't made its way to Legacy yet, and I'm inclined to think that it's not a case of having not enough copies to play with that's causing it, but more of there are better cards that's suited to make the lists of Stacks or Affinity decks there. However, I still think that $6.99 is too low for this card. If you could get more copies for a lower price, that would be great. I'm expecting some positive movement within days of a complete buyout from online stores of the IMA copies.
At the moment, you can find Coldsnap copies of Mishra's Bauble from online stores such as Card Kingdom, Star City Games, Channel Fireball, and TCGPlayer for anywhere between $8.55-$11.99 for the normal ones, while the foil copies go for $33.99 up to $69.99 each. You could get the IMA version for as low as $4.50 from TCGPlayer, while Star City Games is out of stock and is expected to put them back up at $6.99 each. The foil version is in the $15-$26 price range. I'll be buying normal copies of this card for $5 and foil ones for $15 while supplies last.
And that’s it for the Tuesday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again tomorrow, as we take a look at a new card. As always, feel free to share your opinion in the comments section below. And if you want to keep up with all the market movement, be sure to check in with the QS Discord Channel for real time market information, and stay ahead of the hottest specs!