2011)

Modern. It’s all the rage these days and us speculators have either made out like bandits or bitterly wept at our poor trading decisions of the past few months.

So what has jumped up dramatically because of the modern announcement? Here’s a top 10 list (these are not necessarily in a specific order) :

1. Vesuva
2. Vendilion Clique
3. Ravnica Shocklands
4. Dark Confidant
5. Tarmogoyf
6. Grove of the Burnwillows
7. Noble Heirarch
8. Bridge from Below
9. Thoughtseize
10. Mutavault

Now the real question is, which ones are over-priced and thus you should trade/sell and which ones are the real deal. First off, the real deal cards.

1. Dark Confidant - This one’s the easy call. Bob has been a staple in EVERY format he’s legal in and many believe that he overshadows Tarmogoyf for the best 2 drop ever. I tend to agree. Standard rules of Magic design usually dictate that any card that provides card advantage cheaply needs to have a downside, and Bob’s requires deck design thoughts. There’s a reason people don’t try and play Bob with Progenitus in any sort of legacy BUG deck. It’s quite possible to suicide yourself with him but as with his predecessors (Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, and Phyrexian Arena), history has shown players are more than happy with trading life (for cards. It is my firm belief that Dark Confidant will someday surpass Tarmogoyf in value barring a reprint of him but not Goyf).

2. Thoughtseize - This is another easy pick because similar to Dark Confidant it is used in every single format it’s legal in. Duress has always been used while it’s been legal (barring a better substitute) and this is just a better substitute. I don’t foresee it going much higher than it currently is (around $30) because it was in the first set of a block which was drafted heavily and played in the #1 Standard deck of the time (Faeries). It provides cheap/unrestricted disruption with a minor downside in a color that can easily handle creature damage (mainly via removal).

3. Noble Hierarch - Another card that sees play in all formats it is legal in (granted not much in Vintage, although it has been seen in Oath decks before). It is an all-around good “staple” card from a set that didn’t get drafted a lot and lacked any “chase” rares from which to encourage people to buy and crack boxes.

Now for the ones in which I believe are overpriced.
1. Tarmogoyf (And yes, I am prepared for catching flack on this one) - I am by no means claiming he is a bad card nor am I saying he shouldn’t be valuable. But as of me writing this he’s going for about $100 dollars online. Now if Wizards wants to prevent Modern from becoming the next Legacy they can’t allow a “staple” for a lot of decks to be $100. This tends to make me believe that he will see a reprint. However, even if he doesn’t, ‘Goyf is a creature that grows and becomes far more powerful for such a little mana investment that there are few creatures you can compare him with. HOWEVER, he’s a big dumb creature with no evasion and no self-protection. He is an amazing control card because they expect the games to go long and therefore expect him to grow big. But currently he is thrown into EVERY deck that plays green in it even if he’s not a good fit. Personally, I’ve been testing Domain Zoo for Modern and seeing that everyone puts him in their list…except for the most part you win on turn 3-4. And given your deck is creatures/lands/instants (excepct Tribal Flames) and you have no disruption unless your opponent is playing sorceries and sacrificing artifacts, your ‘Goyf will max out at 3/4 and more often than not 2/3 within the course of your game…2 mana for a 2/3? No thanks, I’d rather run Steppe Lynx and hit them for upwards of 8 on turn 2 (Fetchland and a Might of Alara for +4/+4).

(Editor’s note: Due to a pretty major computer problem, I was not able to get this article posted before the announcement of the new bannings for Modern. But David instructed me to leave in any predictions, whether they were accurate or not. So here you go.)

2. Vesuva - This card has skyrocketed thanks to Twelve Post (and isn’t used in anything else save EDH). However, Wizards’ own reasoning behind their banned list was that they wanted the games to go to at least turn 4 so the thought of turn 3 Emrakul (of course against another Post Deck), but still. But there’s still a decent chance of them banning Cloudpost and being done with the deck (as they’ve neutered every other deck save Zoo/Jund). I wouldn’t count too much on that, but having tested against Twelve Post any deck that can get any land disruption can crush it. Zoo decks can use Knight of the Reliquary to search up Ghost Quarters/Tectonic Edges and just lock 12-Post out of the game. Vesuva is the card I am most confidant will drop as it ONLY sees play in one deck archetype.

3. Bridge from Below - As much as I love this card (playing Legacy Dredge myself when there’s not a ton of hate in the metagame), the Dredge deck was decapitated by the bannings. The best cheap card draw is not Modern legal (Breakthrough, Careful Study, Deep Analysis), the sacrifice outlets are not legal (Cabal Therapy due to the set it was in, and Dread Return due to it being banned), and finally the best Dredger (Golgari-Grave Troll) has been banned. If Bridge is used in Modern it will most likely have to be a different type of deck archetype. And Dredge in Legacy/Vintage has the unfortunate effect of being very vulnerable to hate. While it can obviously win past it, the fact that it’s such a linear strategy tends to mean that when you throw hurdles in front of it the deck just plows into them and hopes to be fast enough to overcome the set back.

4. Ravnica Shocklands- The fact that these lands jumped from the $10-$12 dollar range to the $30+ range in a matter of days AND are basically the “dual lands” of Modern means that the demand has skyrocketed. These lands will basically stay at their current values (minor fluctuations will occur if one deck just overshadows all others and uses a couple of them and the cheaper ones may drop a little if they don’t see any play). If Wizards comes out and says they will not reprint them, then they will start to mirror regular dual lands in cost, however, that’s a huge and unlikely “if”. As part of Wizard’s reasoning for creating Modern was to make it more financially accessible to players and to tip toe around their promise of never reprinting from the reserved list. There’s a lot of speculation that given Wizards revisited Mirrodin (the sets in which the most people actually FLED Magic) there’s good reason for them to revisit Ravnica (the sets that many call their favorites) and in doing so can reprint the shocklands again in order to resupply Modern. The fact that they have reprinted Ghost Quarter in Innistrad emphasizes that they are not concerned with reprinting lands from that block.

Unfortunately, I can’t see the future and thus there are several cards I am unsure about. I will simply state the pros/cons of each and allow the reader to make their own decisions.

Grove of the Burnwillows
Pro: Combos with Punishing Fire for repeatable/recurring removal.
Con: Gives opponent life, Requires multiples in play to kill any creature with toughness 5 or greater, isn’t very good w/o Punishing Fire.

Mutavault
Pro: Amazing land in tribal decks, gets around most sorcery speed removal, source of colorless damage. Used in Legacy Tribal Decks.
Con: There currently aren’t any major tribal decks seeing play in Modern save elves, which doesn’t want land that doesn’t tap for green mana. It jumped pre-bannings and now that Faeries is neutered (read: without Bitterblossom) there’s little reason to believe it’ll be a Modern staple.

Vendilion Clique
Pro: Amazing in Legacy as the sexy solution to Show and Tell, good beater and disruption, very versatile. Used a lot in Legacy.
Con: In a format with recurring cheap burn and a toughness of 1 he’ll very often by a bad 3 mana Thoughtseize (without the life loss).

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