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Hello, everyone and welcome to a new week of the Daily Stock Watch! Masters 25 is coming out in a few days, but people have been busy checking out the cards from Dominaria. The very early spoiler has allowed people to somehow fiddle with their imagination and brew their new lists for every format out there. I'm thinking of covering some of the cards that I think should be good buys when the set comes, but I'll stray away from that for the time being and focus on the hot cards nowadays. My pick for today is a card that has slowly made its way to uncharted territory as a pricy rare in an ultra aggressive deck that could challenge the best that the Modern meta has to offer.
Budget and new players have had this liking for 8 Whack because of its solid foundation as an aggro deck, and its ability to pull off quick and painful wins against legitimate tier one decks in Modern. With a plethora of creatures (30 plus of them at the very least in this kind of list) and some heavy artillery spells that could throw people off in a few hits, Legion Loyalist functions well as the pseudo-Overrun effect for Goblin Piledriver and Foundry Street Denizen to get through. Besides granting them trample, the extra leverage that having first strike and the evasion from creature tokens (hello, Lingering Souls) is exactly what these little goblins wanted in the first place to go over the top in creature-based matchups. And it's almost always certain that the Loyalist won't push through as a meager 1/1 crit without the backing of a Goblin Bushwacker, Reckless Bushwacker or Goblin Chieftain at the very least. I think that this deck is something that's worth considering if you're really looking to blitz your opponent to the ground.
In case you're wondering about the deck that I'm talking about, take a look at this 8 Whack list that has taken down tons of unsuspecting players in MTGO.
8 Whack
I'd be honest with you that I was really mugged by a player using a list that's very much identical to this one. We might be looking at these pesky 1/1 goblins as mere fodder (pun intended) but they are functioning well as one group of pundits that would just run over the ground. At the forefront of this lethal assault is Legion Loyalist, as it allows your best creatures to get past any defenses with the trample effect that its batallion trigger brings to the table. Its new price tag of $14.99 just might be as real as its gets if we see some actual success for the deck in the big leagues.
The Goblin Goons
These are the only main creatures on this deck that's really going to cost you more than the usual for a casual deck, and it might actually be a good thing if you're on a budget but you'd like to play competitive Modern. Legion Loyalist is slowly climbing in price as stocks online are starting to disappear one by one, and now might be the best time to pick them up before it reaches Goblin Guide territory. With the recent leak, we're all aware that it won't be making an appearance there, and its batallion mechanic won't make it any easier for it to appear in a supplemental product anytime soon. There could still be room for growth for this card.
At the moment, StarCityGames is alreaydy out of stock for normal copies of the card at $7.99. They should be up and about soon with more copies at the $15 range just like how TCGPlayer and ChannelFireball are already selling their copies for now. Before I started writing this article, I was still able to see a few copies of it via CardKingdom at $7.99 each, but it has since disappeared much to my dismay as I'm about to post this. The foils are nowhere to be seen as well, so it would be best to try and get copies from those who aren't updated with the price spike yet. Offering them good trades or deals by valuing Legion Loyalist at around $8 would be a good start.
And that’s it for the Monday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again tomorrow, as I preview new cards that should be on the go, or good enough for speculation purposes. 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!