This week the biggest financial news involves a card that hasn't even been printed yet: Thing in the Ice shot up 52% to $19.77. While it isn't impossible for an in-print rare to maintain a value in the $20 range (see: Kolaghan's Command and the fetchlands), it is exceedingly rare, and these cards are almost always multi-format staples. The scary thing about the price of Thing in the Ice is that no one's even played with it yet. Kolaghan's Command started at $5 and climbed to $20 on the back of Modern and Legacy play. Meanwhile Thing in the Ice is starting at "eternal staple" prices, but is it really an eternal staple? Maybe, but there's no guarantee. I'd steer clear of Thing in the Ice at current prices unless you're planning to play it in a Modern or Legacy deck the weekend Shadows over Innistrad releases.

In Modern, it appears that Goblins (or "8 Whack") is becoming a real deck. It managed to Top 8 a SCG Modern Primier IQ last weekend and is still doing well in Leagues on Magic Online. As a result of this success, Goblin Piledriver is up 25% to $4.07 and Legion Loyalist is up 41% to $8.00. While these prices might come back down a little, I wouldn't be surprised to see them stick for the most part. People love tribal strategies and inexpensive decks, and even with these increases, Goblins is incredibly cheap for a Modern deck that can Top 8 an event. If Goblin Guide ever gets reprinted (which will happen sooner or later), watch out; the others rares in the deck will likely shoot up even further as even more people buy the deck.

Finally, on Magic Online I've started selling off cards that are part of Modern Eldrazi, or benefit from the Eldrazi presence in the format. While Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple have already crashed hard (down about 75% in the past couple weeks), many of the good-against-Eldrazi cards like Ensnaring Bridge (over 50 tix) and Worship (over 5 tix) are still significantly more expensive than they were a couple months ago. While I think these cards will maintain some value after the banning, once the Eldrazi deck gets banned there is much less incentive to be playing these type of cards. I'd rather cash them out today and buy them back after the bans to hedge against a potentially large loss of value, even if it means being without Ensnaring Bridge for a few weeks.

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The five most viewed cards on MTGGoldfish this past week were:

1. Thing in the Ice (Shadows over Innistrad)
2. Legion Loyalist (Gatecrash)
3. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy (Magic Origins)
4. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (Oath of the Gatewatch)
5. Thought-Knot Seer (Oath of the Gatewatch)