Hi, guys.

Welcome to another article on MTGO Block Staples to Watch. This time we will be going through singles from Kamigawa block. This block is full of legendary creatures inspired by Japanese myths and powerful spells that are core components of top tier decks in many formats.

Let's start with some core components of a combo deck: Grishoalbrand. Three cards from the deck are actually among the picks I would like to talk about today.

Grishoalbrand

Goryo's Vengeance is one of two spells in Grishoalbrand that can put creatures into play at instant speed. For only two mana, it can reanimate powerful creatures like Griselbrand and Borborygmos Enraged from the graveyard, and combo off from there.

As you can see from the graph, this card's price reached 20 tickets five different times in a two-year period, while the average price is somewhere around 15 tickets. If you want to invest in this card, the best timing to do so is when it drops below 10 tickets, like now. Keeping this card on your watchlist should be an easy way to earn some free tickets.

Nourishing Shoal wasn't a popular card until some players figured out that it can combo with Worldspine Wurm or any huge green creature to make the reanimator deck more consistent. The ability to gain 11 life means extra activations of Griselbrand. With this card in the deck, the combo is extremely hard to interrupt and unlikely to fizzle.

As you can see in the graph, the average price is around 1 ticket. Whenever the price drops to about 0.5 ticket, that's the moment you should decide whether to buy copies for investment.

Through the Breach is another piece in Grishoalbrand that can cheat big creatures into play. It requires more mana than Goryo's Vengeance, but benefits from seeing play in other combo decks. In the current meta, there are a few decks that play Through the Breach: RG Valakut, UR Breach, and of course Grishoalbrand.

Through the Breach used to be extremely expensive. Since being reprinted as a Masterpiece, the price has rarely gone above 15 tickets, but it's not impossible to make a profit from it. If you manage to catch the moment when Breach is really low—let's say 7 tickets—I believe you won't want to miss the opportunity to buy them up.

Format Staples

Next let's look at some format staples. Kataki, War's Wage is a great sideboard card in white creature decks, against Affinity and other artifact-based decks like KCI Combo and Lantern Control. Another card that will fight with Kataki for a spot in Modern is Stony Silence, so the price of these two cards depend greatly on the metagame.

Currently this card is heavily played in Humans, even though it's not a Human itself. Now is definitely not the right time to buy Kataki, but if you're patient enough, you can wait for the price to drop below 4 tickets to purchase them.

Ninja of the Deep Hours is not played much in Modern. The reason it's so high in price is because of Pauper. Ninja is one of the best cards in the Pauper format as it can gain plenty of card advantage just by swapping out a flier with the ninjutsu ability. Any Pauper player that wants to play blue is likely to buy a playset of Ninjas, so whenever more than one blue deck is doing well online, the price for Ninja is likely to increase.

It's hard to predict when the price will go down unless you're actively playing Pauper online. But if you follow my suggestion and maintain this on your list of cards to watch, you shouldn't miss out on the opportunity when it arises.

Gifts Ungiven became part of Modern Storm relatively recently, making the deck more consistent than the older Pyromancer Ascension version. Since then, the rate of price fluctuations has increased significantly. Keep in mind that Storm is not the only deck that plays Gifts Ungiven, as many decks also play it alongside Unburial Rites.

I predict that the price of Gifts will be going down soon, as there isn't much Storm action going on lately. When the price drops below 5 tickets, I would suggest picking up some playsets as investment.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner used to be a popular card in Modern when it was played in Merfolk as a kind of virtual card advantage. Kira also provides a little bit of evasion with the ability to deal damage in the air.

The current price below 1 ticket is definitely too low for this card, as it used to hover between 3 and 5 tickets. I strongly recommend grabbing some copies of Kira for investment as the price shouldn't be going any lower. It will only be a matter of time before Merfolk comes back into popularity and Kira's price rises again.

Threads of Disloyalty is another card that fluctuates a lot depending on the metagame. When cards like Tarmogoyf and Grim Flayer occupy a big portion of the metagame, Threads of Disloyalty is one of the best sideboard cards in a blue deck to combat the cheap, powerful creatures. Although cards like Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse can destroy it, players often trim or remove such removal spells against a blue control deck.

At only 0.6 tickets each, I can't think of a reason you wouldn't want to buy several playsets of this card for investment.

Alright guys, that’s all for this week. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you again next week.

Adrian, signing off.