Two Grands Prix for the price of one! This weekend featured Grand Prix New Jersey and Grand Prix Madrid. New Jersey featured some sweet Legacy card slinging, where players were either playing [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] or playing around it, and Madrid featured some great Modern action where players were… basically doing the same thing. Let’s see what happened at the events.
Grand Prix New Jersey (NJ, USA)
Format – Legacy
BBD took down the event piloting the Jeskai Stoneblade deck. The most obvious innovation in the list is the removal of [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] for [card]Young Pyromancer[/card]. Young Pyromancer foils have already spiked to $40 and I don’t see them moving from there, especially because a deck other than UR Delver featured them. [card]Meddling Mage[/card] is still hovering around $6 TCGplayer mid (all cited prices moving forward will use TCGplayer mid unless otherwise stated) and could continue its upward trend in price since it is so good out of the sideboard in the current Legacy metagame.
Second place went to The Boss, Tom Ross, who as usual was piloting his famous Infect deck. One [card]Become Immense[/card] in the main deck is the takeaway here. Watch out for foils of this card over the coming months. If you can snag them for under $1, I think that is a good pickup.
Rounding out the Top 8, we have Storm, two Miracles, UR Delver, Metalworker, and something called UR Landstill.
[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] showed up in both Miracles and the UR Landstill lists. Snapcaster Mage seemed to wane in popularity due to [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. However, since more players decided to get on the UR Delver bandwagon to play [card]Treasure Cruise[/card], it seems that Snappy is back in action again in Legacy in addition to the Modern play he sees.
There were four copies of [card]Containment Priest[/card] across the sideboards of the Top 8. Sell into the weekend hype, then when more copies of the Forged in Stone mono-white Commander deck hit the market, you can pick up the Priests on the cheap.
[card]Flusterstorm[/card] was a popular card during the weekend. Many players were looking for copies in trades and it will continue to be popular in Legacy. [card]Forked Bolt[/card] was also a popular card at New Jersey, as many vendors seemed to be selling out of them at $5. I would expect this card (which is from the same set as [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card]) to maintain that price until a reprint. Another card that that will continue to go up in price is [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]. This card has hit $4 and will continue to trend upwards since it is a popular option for Burn and UR Delver players both in Modern and Legacy.
[card]Chalice of the Void[/card] could be a potential sleeper. There were four of them in the main deck of the [card]Metalworker deck[/card], and in addition, [card]Blood Moon[/card] decks and even Merfolk lists were main-decking a playset of this card in order to fight through all the cheap cantrips of UR Delver and similar variants. At $6, this could be a very good buy-in point.
Another card out of the Metalworker deck that has been trending is [card]Metalworker[/card] itself (which spiked when it was unbanned from EDH from $13 to $30, but has been trending down to $27 at this point). If you were savvy enough to get in on foils before the unbanning, they are now going for $220—though these results are misleading since there are only three listings.
[card]Kuldotha Forgemaster[/card] foils are up to $20 while regular copies are still below $1. There is a ton of buzz surrounding this card and its exclusion from the Built from Scratch mono-red Commander deck. I think eventually this could affect its price, and $2 or more certainly isn’t out of the question.
Lastly, the UR Landstill deck was the most unique deck of the Top 8 to come out of post-[card]Treasure Cruise[/card] Legacy format. The deck played one copy of the newly infamous spell and instead opted to play three [card]Standstill[/card]s, manlands [card]Mishra’s Factory[/card] and [card]Faerie Conclave[/card], and a control package featuring cards like [card]Spell Snare[/card] and [card]Sudden Shock[/card] in order to control the game until either Jace, Snapcaster Mage, or manlands kill the opponent. The cards to watch from this deck include Standstill and Sudden Shock, especially foils.
Outside of the Top 8, Omni-Tell placed ninth and a Grixis Control deck placed thirteenth. Omniscience is around $8.50 and I think that it could continue to trend upwards because it is also a popular Commander card. Foils are $40 and I could also see this price increasing over time as well. Grixis Control featured two [card]Dack Fayden[/card], which is a card already poised to go up based from casual demand alone. The possibility of it being featured in Legacy will also have price implications for the future.
Grand Prix Madrid – Modern (Madrid, ES)
Format – Modern
Immanuel Gerschenson won Grand Prix Madrid piloting a Temur Delver build. Based off the longstanding Canadian Threshold/RUG/Temur Delver lists that have been a staple of Legacy for years, Gerschenson adopted the archetype to Modern with great success. The deck plays playsets of ‘Goyf, [card]Young Pyromancer[/card], and Delvers, along with a ton of one-mana cantrips and disruption/removal spells in order to cast [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] as fast as possible and to keep casting more spells. Highlights from this deck include two [card]Vapor Snag[/card] in the main deck and [card]Dragon’s Claw[/card], [card]Hibernation[/card], and [card]Molten Rain[/card] out of the sideboard. I would be looking to pick up foil copies of these cards since they hadn’t been seeing much play before Treasure Cruise and may continue to see play based on Temur Delver winning the GP.
Second place went to Till Riffert who was piloting Scapeshift. The notable card here was [card]Dig Through Time[/card] (three copies), which seems to have boosted the power of Modern combo decks because it allows you to look seven cards deep. Another Scapeshift deck made the Top 8, but it didn’t have blue cards and instead utilized [card]Through the Breach[/card] as an alternate way to combo off and win with an Emrakul if the Scapeshift plan didn’t work out. Notables from the Breach Scapeshift deck include Through the Breach, three [card]Summoning Trap[/card]s, and three [card]Chalice of the Void[/card]s in the main deck.
Rounding out the Top 8 we have three Birthing Pod decks, Abzan, Martyr Life, and another Scapeshift deck. Martyr Life is the outstanding deck here. Cards to watch from this deck include [card]Serra Ascendent[/card], [card]Ranger of Eos[/card], [card]Proclamation of Rebirth[/card], and [card]Ghostly Prison[/card]. [card]Flagstones of Trokir[/card] also appeared as a playset. These cards could see an uptick in price based on the results.
What a weekend! Plenty of cards seem like great opportunities based on the shaken up Modern and Legacy formats. Until next week!
