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Weekly Update (Nov 03): Fish Tank Pioneer Edition

by mtggoldfish // Nov 4, 2019

Theros: Beyond Death Spoilers — October 30, 2019 | Leaks & Elspeth

Theros: Beyond Death leaks, including the new Elspeth and set mechanics.Read more

Budget Magic: $100 (76 tix) UR Prowess (Pioneer, Magic Online)

Pioneer is all the rage these days, which means it's time for the first ever Budget Magic of the format: UR Prowess with the ever busted Treasure Cruise!Read more

Finance Update w/ Saffron Olive

This week, the biggest finance news once against comes from Magic's newest format: Pioneer (which you can now explore on its own movers and shakers page). Leading the way this week was Thassa, God of the Sea, up 75% to $25 and more than double its price from a couple of weeks ago, as a potential four-of in Mono-Blue Devotion. Beyond Thassa, the list of winners is long, with Hangarback Walker (Hardened Scales), Sylvan Caryatid (Green Devotion) and Thing in the Ice / Arclight Phoenix (UR Phoenix) all posting solid gains on the week. Just be warned, Wizards clarified this week that, leading up to the Pioneer Players Tour event in the beginning of 2020, there will be a Pioneer-specific banned and restricted announcement every Monday (Pioneer will move to the normal B&R schedule in 2020). While this doesn't mean that something will be banned each week, it does make the odds of a Pioneer banning significantly higher than most other formats, so invest at your own risk. Personally I'd be especially wary of investing in decks that are dependent on: Felidar Guardian / Saheeli Rai combo, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise, cards at the top tier on the Pioneer ban watch list.

Meanwhile in Modern, price of staples are down almost across the board for the third week in a row. While Urza, Lord High Artificer (down 10%) and Mox Amber (down 12%) can be explained away by people preparing for a potential Urza ban in the format, seeing Liliana of the Veil, Cavern of Souls, and fetchlands trend down seem to suggest that Pioneer is siphoning away Modern players already. How to handle this decline is an interesting problem. If you believe that Pioneer is currently in hyperdrive thanks to being a new format and that Modern will remain one of the premier formats of Magic, it's probably worth waiting a few weeks until prices floor and buying into Modern at a discount. On the other hand, if you expect Modern to go the way of Legacy with Pioneer taking its place as the non-rotating format of the masses within the next year or two, it might be smarter to sell while prices are still high. Personally I wouldn't bet heavily on Modern at this point, even though I love the format, the immediate response to Pioneer from both the community and from tournament organizers has been much greater than expected.

Finally, in Standard, the more information we get about the format, the more it seems like something from the Oko, Thief of Crowns Food shell will end up banned. The archetype dominated two Grand Prix this weekend, making up 57% of the day two meta in Nagoya and taking 7 of the 8 slots in the top eight. Considering the most popular Food deck (Sultai Food) is nearly $800, the easy answer is to sell, although if you actually look at the individual cards in the deck, I'm not sure a banning with have that huge of an impact financially. Of the most expensive cards in the deck, Oko, Thief of Crowns and Once Upon a Time are cross-format all stars and should maintain value even if they were banned in Standard, while shocklands are actually on the rise thanks to Pioneer demand. Hydroid Krasis might be the riskiest investment of the bunch, mostly because it doesn't see much play outside of Standard and rotates next fall, although it was an expensive Standard staple before Oko, and could remain at the top of the format post-banning. The risk averse plan is to simply sell out of Food entirely until after the next banned and restricted announcement in a couple of weeks, but because so many of the staples see heavy-play in other formats, holding and continuing to play the deck doesn't seem completely irrational from a finance perspective. If something like Oko, Thief of Crowns or Once Upon a Time gets banned, its price will drop some, but it will likely remain expensive thanks to Pioneer and Modern play.

Much Abrew: Fires Turns (Modern, Magic Online)

Can Fires of Invention make a new style of taking turns deck work in Modern with the help of some less traditional extra turn spells like Savor the Moment? Let's see!Read more

Ready to Brawl? Part 5—Tarkir’s Wedges	Ready to Brawl? Final Part—Five-Colour

Yesterday Jess covered Shards, so today we're moving on to three-color Wedges in our special brawl series! Read more	Today, we come to the end of Ready to Brawl with a look at five-color Brawl decks! Read more

The Fish Tank: Pioneer Edition (Oct. 21-26, 2019)

People are hyped for Pioneer, so let's do a special all-Pioneer episode of The Fish Tank and show off some sweet viewer submitted decks!Read more

Going Infinte, October 28th	Brawl Bash: Azorius Brawlers (Brawl, Magic Arena)

A weekly update of the infinite project Read more	Brawl has arrived! Let's kick off Brawl with a crowd favorite and see how it pairs up against an Oko dominated field! Read more

Against the Odds: Pioneeramonicon (Pioneer, Magic Online)

What are the odds of winning with Panharmonicon in Pioneer? Let's find out!Read more

Vintage 101: A Fresh Perspective	Fish Five-0: Orzhov Foretold (Standard, Magic Arena)

Joe Dyer sits down with a newer Vintage player in the format to talk about their experiences getting into Vintage! Read more	TheAsianAvenger attempts to be a doom bringer with a grindy Orzhov deck! Read more

Commander Clash S7 E7: Halloween Special | Karador vs. Lyzolda vs. Morophon vs. Ulrich

It's time for the spookiest episode of the year! Enjoy our Halloween special!Read more

Budget Commander: Zada, Hedron Grinder \| $25, $50, $100	The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Submitted Decks (Oct. 27–Nov. 2, 2019)

Draw tons of cards with draft chaff using this Go Wide Combo commander! Read more	What interesting decks did viewers submit this week? Let's find out! Read more

Babel Fish: What are the Odds? With SaffronOlive	Podcast 248: Standard (Oko), Pioneer (Oko), Brawl (Oko)

Saffron Olive joins Fletcher to discuss the origins of Against the Odds and play some janky Magic! Read more	Richard and Seth break down the latest in a bunch of formats, which means talking a lot about Oko. Read more

Instant Deck Techs

Each day we'll be posting a short, three minute deck tech featuring some of the coolest decks that come across the site. The most popular deck will be made into videos the following week based on your views, likes and comments in the videos. Here's this week's Instant Deck Techs: