Commanding Your Budget: Bans Equal Opportunities

“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.

Hello, everyone. I'm sorry I've been out for a while. I am a teacher by trade, and I guess getting Covid was only a matter of time (I'm exposed to hundreds of people every single day). My family and I were lucky enough to get through it without any respiratory distress. I will say that the worst part of it, for me, was the “brain-fog” that I've been battling. I couldn't read, write, or concentrate for any length of time. I couldn't Magictate. I tried, and I couldn't do it. I had all of my hobbies stripped away from me—no lifting, no reading, no writing, no Magictating. I'm still not 100%, but I'm working up to what I was before. I do feel I'm getting better. Hence, I thought I'd try and finish this article (I updated, because of the time lapse). I had started this around January 25th when the banned and restricted announcement came out. I wish you all health and wellness, and I hope that you can escape this Pandemic without contracting this crummy virus.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, “Bans are exciting things for Commander players! We get cool cards for cheaper prices.” Seriously, you can quote me on that. Actually, let me quote myself from a little over a year ago, “When a card like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath gets banned, well, it's time to start thinking about picking one up.” Uro was a nearly $30 card at the time, but is now down to around $10. I was tempted to pick one up when it quickly dropped to around $15, but I decided I had already waited this long, and I was going to buy in at $10. I just felt that was the likely bottom for such a powerful card in the Commander format. I just picked one up, but it'll probably find a spot in one of my cubes, but I digress. Time and again cards getting the ban hammer mean freshly affordable cards for Commander players. Sure, lots of prices are driven by Commander. I have long been touted that multiplayer has been a hidden driver behind prices. Even before Commander existed there were many cards that commanded price tags that were silly when only considering tournament viability. Today we know that Commander has become the default multi-player format, thus we see many cards for this format driving prices—Doubling Season is a great example. It's not terribly good in any format other than Commander. Now, the ban announcement is recent, so the prices might not tank immediately, but the odds are that lots of competitive players don't want these cards in their collections anymore—or at least they don't need playsets of them. So, they will be looking to unload them for whatever they can get.

I love that there are so many different types of players and formats. Granted, I usually only play Commander these days, but I'm afraid of getting vile with Vintage, packing some Pauper, living up Legacy, cranking the Cube, moonlighting with Modern, or even slumming with Standard. My mode of choice is Commander. It just satisfies so many of the things that I grew to love about Magic. Like many “older players”, I am a sucker for nostalgia. Yet, when bans in any of these formats happen I am immediately looking to see what those cards prices should look like in the short and long term.

Some cards absolutely tank when they get banned. This is directly related to how many places those cards are still viable. So, when Hullbreacher got the ban hammer in Commander it absolutely tanked. This is no surprise, as it wasn't viable in any other format. It was a house in Commander, and one that people increasingly wanted in order to completely demoralize the entire table. However, it's just not good enough in any of the other formats it was legal in. Vintage laughs at that card, and it's grossly inefficient for Legacy as well. Keeping in mind the format viability of these cards, let's take a look at where these cards can expect to find themselves in a year from now.

Alrund's Epiphany

As I'm writing this, Alrund's Epiphany is dropping. It's just below $10, where back in October it was as high as $16 or so. That's a pretty big drop, and it's been dropping even faster than our old pal Uro. That's because Alrund's Epiphany is nowhere near as viable of a win con as Uro or anywhere near as powerful of a value engine. Alrund's Epiphany is an excellent extra turn card, but Commander has many other options, and those others usually find themselves conveniently in the graveyard awaiting immediate recursion. I expect that Alrund's Epiphany, which began its life as a $3 mythic, will eventually drop back around $5 or so. I wouldn't be averse to picking one up under $10 now if you want to play with it, but overall, if you've waited this long, then waiting a bit longer will probably pay off. Again, there's no broken combos that allow you to recur this over and over again, but if one arises, then this could become the new Commander go-to extra turns card. For now though, it's probably going to drop back to bargain mythic prices.

Divide by Zero

Well, it's banned in standard, and it's already crazy cheap. It never got expensive, and it's a cheap uncommon, so why waste anyone else's time here…moving on!

Faceless Haven

So, I knew this was going to get nerfed fairly soon, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen until the next set of bans. Unfortunately, for me at least, they had the foresight to ban it as it would've taken over the Standard meta. I was a bit bummed because I did pick up a few extra copies of this card when it was at rock bottom: $0.40 each. I knew it was too good of a rare to be worth such a paltry amount. I should've cashed in the extras when it was at $6 each, but I was being a little greedy. I suspect that this card will dip down to around $2 or so. I think that if another snow set does come out, then this will become a popular pick up. I also believe that by that time there will be enough “new snow” cards that are powerful enough to let people get some creative Commander snow decks totally off the ground. I suspect that Wizards will lean into the snow concept even more next time, and that will allow people to be creative with it as well. Basically, this card will eventually become semi-valuable again, but in the meantime it's going to be a cheap card to own. Will you find a place for it in your Commander decks? Well, if there's a snow deck available, then you should probably pick one up for its new discounted price…thank you Standard bans!

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

So, this is the last of the bans worth discussing. Ragavan is a disgustingly good card. It has been banned from Legacy because it was warping the format. It was mostly because it was just too good with Daze and Force of Will backup. I think the craziest thing is that this monkey is still in Modern. I guess it would be sad if a Modern Horizons card got banned from the very format it was designed for. And yet it remains in Modern, so its price hasn't even budged from where it was. People are going to hang on to this monkey and keep jamming it in Commander, Modern, and maybe even Vintage (though probably not). I don't expect this price to budge for a while. Ragavan is so popular and people's price memories are going to be hard to break on this thing, unless it gets the ban hammer in Modern as well. I honestly don't think that's going to happen, but if Ragavan starts to warp the Modern metagame, then even this nimble monkey will get squashed. I suspect that Ragavan isn't going to be a cheap pick-up unless it loses play in Modern, and even then I expect it will be a long and slow fall from the $75+ price tag it commands.

That's all for today. I hope that you found this bit of news informative and inspiring. I know that acquiring new cards is fun, and getting them at a discount is exciting as well as enticing. I hope that your health and wellness and the cards are ever in your favor!