Hello, everyone and welcome to the Christmas edition of the Daily Stock Watch! I hope you're enjoying this day, wherever you might be, and we'll try to add to your wonderful day with some cool Magic news via this segment.

Our card for the day is actually a Modern staple that has been making great strides towards the end of the year, and is poised to enter the new year as one of the more valuable lands in the format, both financially and strategically.

Celestial Colonnade has positioned itself as one of the biggest threats in any UW shell, and is one of the main reasons why decks such as Blue White Control and Jeskai variants have remained competitive in Modern throughout the years, regardless of the metagame environment that the format is enjoying. It is a "sleeping" threat that lies dormant as the game goes by, and is only animated once board control has been established, or a solution to a troublesome planeswalker is needed.

Today, this card just hit its all-time high of $53.49 for non-foil copies, and it's possible that it has only scratched the surface, as more Jeskai players and decks are showing up in the top eight of recent Modern tournaments. Let's take a look at one of these decks that I'm talking about.

There are a couple of reasons why Celestial Colonnade is quite expensive right now: first, it was only printed in Worldwake, and the only other version out there is its buy-a-box promo; second, almost every player who would use it in their deck would like to have a complete playset, and that alone is enough to drive the demand for it; and lastly, (although this is just my opinion) players are fond of the idea that it has dodged possible reprints from the Masters sets over the last couple of years, and that a return at Masters 25 still seems unlikely for these manlands cycle.

Celestial Colonnade hasn't found its niche yet in Legacy, but the Utility Checker shows us that 7% of winning decks in Modern uses an average of 3.5 copies of this card. That says a lot about this card, as it is the most used manland in the format, and is only overshadowed by fetchlands, shocklands, fastlands, and the old reliables Cavern of Souls and Eldrazi Temple. There will always be a demand for this card, and we've also discounted the fact that this is also an auto-include in Commander decks that are running UW. The rise in its price could continue for at least the next two weeks, unless something really drastic happens on the next announcement of restricted and banned cards. If nothing happens by then, we could be staring at another $60-$70 card by then.

If there's something that we learned about Modern and WotC, it's very likely that this cycle of manlands will be reprinted together in a new Masters set (or perhaps in the returning Core Set?) within the coming year(s). Although Lavaclaw Reaches and Stirring Wildwood has found very little to no success at all in Modern, singling them out by adding the other three manlands in a supplemental product could leave a bad taste in the mouth of other players. However, history tells us that crazier things have happened in Magic.

I am a natural UW player, and I love Celestial Colonnade because it's a very good card, but I think that every good run has to end (financially, at least.) Right now, Star City Games is out of stock across the board for all versions of this card, but Channel Fireball has lots of it at $54.99. You could also find copies for the same price via Card Kingdom if you really need them, but I'd like to stay away from these cards for now. I'd usually wait for the next announcement before I make any moves on Modern staples that's as good as this one, but my gut tells me that you could move your copies around if you don't need them, as that will always be the safer play at this point in time.

And that’s it for the Christmas day edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again tomorrow, as we check out a new card that should be on the go, or good enough for speculating. 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!