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Daily Stock Watch – Ward of Bones

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Hello, everyone and welcome to the Friday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! I'm starting to love the idea of writing about a card that's under everyone's radar every Friday, so I think I'll make it a fixture starting today. Today's card is definitely a seldom-heard one as it is one of those cards that hovered around bulk territory when it was still Standard legal, but is now one of those cards that you could flash in your binders for selling.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ward of Bones

Ward of Bones just hit its all-time high of $6.11 today, and the trend of casual cards rising in prices has been steady. This is usually the tricky part when speculating on what cards are good buys because some cards are just deceivingly expensive when there really is no market for them. I'm quite sure it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that this is one of the cards that I'm referring to, as this would only make some sense if it appears in a multiplayer EDH list that would annoy your playgroup. But then again, I'm not really a Commander guru, so maybe it has other uses that ticks other people's fancies.

For reference, let's check out this Oloro list that has Ward of Bones in it.

Oloro and his Friends

Commander

1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Artifacts

1 Azorius Signet
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Cursed Totem
1 Dimir Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Mindlock Orb
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Sol Ring
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Ward of Bones
1 Well of Lost Dreams

Other Spells

1 Aura of Silence
1 Future Sight
1 Humility
1 Karmic Justice
1 Land Tax
1 Lethal Vapors
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 No Mercy
1 Overburden
1 Painful Quandary
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Polluted Bonds
1 Psychic Surgery
1 Rhystic Study
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Spreading Plague
1 Tainted Æther
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Dovin Baan
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace Beleren
1 Karn Liberated
1 Nahiri, the Lithomancer
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Instants and Sorceries

1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Condemn
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Dark Ritual
1 Dissipate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Hinder
1 Path to Exile
1 Return to Dust
1 Spell Crumple
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Void Shatter
1 Wipe Away
1 Council's Judgment
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Terminus
1 Wrath of God

Lands

1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mystic Gate
1 Orzhov Basilica
3 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Prairie Stream
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Sunken Ruins
3 Swamp
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Temple of Silence
1 Underground River
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Watery Grave

One look at this deck and you'd see that this is a superfriends type of list that tends to maximize the power of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and the Esper-colored planeswalkers. Planting a Ward of Bones midgame would mean that your opponents can't play any other spells besides planeswalkers once you've cleared the board with a Council's Judgment. I would have inserted an Armageddon somewhere in here to make it more unfun, but I might just end up playing Commander with myself. Even so, I don't see any justice in having to spend $6 for a card that is asking for too much before it even becomes relevant.

EDH Gainers

Above are some of the cards that I've already featured on the Daily Stock Watch as financial gainers for varying reasons. Some of them have enjoyed buyouts from online sites, while others just "matured" eventually and are seeing some fringe play in Commander lists. Ward of Bones is another one of those cards that are expensive for all the wrong reasons, so being able to move out your copies for its current price is definitely the best way to go. This isn't going to get reprinted anytime soon because there's just no reason to do so. If the price is right, you should definitely let loose and just dispose all your copies.

At the moment, you could find lots of copies of Ward of Bones from online stores such as StarCityGames, TCGPlayer, ChannelFireball and Card Kingdom for anywhere between $5.65 up to $8.36. Foil copies are somewhere between $12.99 up to $17, and I see no reason for you to purchase them unless you really need them in your funky deck. This is one of those cards that will lose its value eventually and would often rot in your card collections because of the price tag that it demands. Move them around if you could find a new home for them.

And that’s it for this week's edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again next time, 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!

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