transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This week, we're talking about cards that used to be super expensive, but have gotten a lot cheaper, and you just might want to put them in your decks. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Commander Clash Podcast, where the Commander Clash crew talks all things Commander. And this week, we're talking about cards that used to be really pricey, but have gotten a lot cheaper recently. And joining me, we got the full crew here today. We got Tomer, we got Grimm, we got Phil. How's it going today, guys?

Speaker 2:
[00:29] Very good.

Speaker 3:
[00:30] I always like knowing what powerful cards are cheap now as a budget brewer.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] I know. These are the cards that Tomer will beat us with with his next $50 deck, and we all die. I know how this goes.

Speaker 2:
[00:42] I was looking for cards that are cheap, but then I get the expensive version anyways.

Speaker 3:
[00:47] Now we can get the foil version, right?

Speaker 2:
[00:49] Yes. The foil is almost also cheap.

Speaker 4:
[00:52] That is how it always goes.

Speaker 1:
[00:56] So yes, as we said, we're talking about cards that might be in budget decks now, that used to not be good enough for budget decks. But before we get into that, we got some sponsors today. Today's show is brought to you by Foil Armor. Do you have problems with your foils curling? Well, Foil Armor is the ultimate solution for flattening your foils. It's a two-way humidity pack that you simply put inside an airtight container with your cards, and Foil Armor will absorb and release moisture, making your cards completely flat. Put it back in your storage box to keep your cards flat forever, and you can head over to foilarmor.com and use the code MTGGoldfish to get 15% off. Our show is also brought to you by Card Conduit, the easiest way to sell your magic cards. If you ever get tired of the hassles of by-listing, you can skip them with Card Conduit. You can use their curated service where you send in as many cards as you want with a by-list value of a dollar or more and pay just a 5% service fee. And if you want to do a bit of work, you can use their sorted service where you list and sort your cards in advance and pay just a 2% fee. Either way, you're going to get a detailed report with the results in a fast payment when your order is processed. And you can even head over to cardconduit.com/mtggoldfish and get 10% off. So thank you to our sponsors for supporting this show. And now it's time for the comment of the week. So we recently talked about tech cards that you overlooked. And our top comment comes from Cotley Buns, who says, podcast idea, shark tank, but the community sends in their cards and their pitches. That actually sounds like it'd be fun.

Speaker 2:
[02:19] I'd be down to do a little shark tank there.

Speaker 1:
[02:22] That is the real shark tank.

Speaker 3:
[02:23] Or I'm going to be harsh.

Speaker 4:
[02:26] I love that idea. I love that idea.

Speaker 3:
[02:28] I gotta come with a good sign.

Speaker 1:
[02:30] Oh no, that's another show.

Speaker 4:
[02:33] That's American Idol.

Speaker 1:
[02:34] See, I don't know my reality.

Speaker 3:
[02:36] Gordon Ramsay?

Speaker 4:
[02:37] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[02:38] Yeah, Gordon, you'll be the Gordon Ramsay.

Speaker 3:
[02:39] The suggestion is wrong.

Speaker 1:
[02:41] All right, let's talk about cards that used to be expensive, but now are not expensive. And Tomer, since you're the budget commander, why don't we start with you? What's a card that's super cheap now that used to be kind of pricey?

Speaker 3:
[02:53] Okay, this is one that I thought was out of my budget range forever, and then it turns out it just like randomly showed up in a pre-con, and it's not very expensive anymore, and now I'm putting it in a lot of my green decks. It's Endurance. Endurance is a three-mana elemental incantation. It has flash reach. When it enters the battlefield, up to one target player puts all cards from their graveyard onto the bottom of their library in a random order, and you can cast it for zero mana by evoking it, exiling a green card from your hand, and then it enters and it immediately has to be sacrificed. I love this as graveyard hate because it's instant speed. Three mana is not that much to cast it even, and you could always, worst case scenario, evoke it out for zero mana. So if you're like green heavy, this card is amazing. I think it saw a lot of modern play. I think that's why it was $50 freaking dollars at its peak, which is insane. And then I saw it printed in the Elemental Precon in January or something a couple of months back. And I'm like, what? Wait a minute, how is this here? And it's like less than $4 now. 3.86. What happened?

Speaker 1:
[04:17] That's the power of showing up at a precon, I guess. That's just such a high supply reprinting that it does a ton of work to drop the price. I'm curious though, what decks do you play this in? It's really good in Elemental. I actually know the limit was in Elemental, so it seems really good. But what other homes would you put this in?

Speaker 2:
[04:34] My last order was actually exactly this, because I recently saw exactly as Tome, saw Enduro Skin reprinted. I did get the full art version, but it is kind of the perfect. I still paid like, okay, 13 bucks. But it's way cheaper than back of the day. And I do play it in Lornes, actually to just not mill out. Oh, I have graveyard hate, but let's be real here. It's going to come real handy if I'm tapped out and overshoot my shots, because I don't play Thazas Oracle, but the lab man. So if somebody wants to stop me, I better have free interaction that keeps me from dying. So I recently got this, because I noticed that it was sheep. But that's a pretty nice case for it.

Speaker 4:
[05:24] That's actually a good point.

Speaker 1:
[05:26] What do you play, Grim?

Speaker 4:
[05:28] I play to my Venom deck and whatnot, because it's just something that once it enters, it hates out the graveyard, right? And then I could just sack it, get rid of it. I like the card a lot. And I'm also heavily incentivized to play it, because I bought a Final Fantasy Collector Booster, and I opened the Megasisters. And I'm like, I know people are like, well, you play with them. Like, yeah, well, you know, I like the card. It's cool. I don't really care what it's worth.

Speaker 1:
[05:51] I just want to play with it.

Speaker 2:
[05:53] Let me check this version. I think this one isn't cheap.

Speaker 4:
[05:55] That one is the- I know we're talking about these are all cheap cards now, and I love that we're just like, oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[06:00] I know we talk about the fancy version. The fancy version. The $500 version is worth the money.

Speaker 4:
[06:07] I opened the-

Speaker 1:
[06:08] it's 500 bucks. But like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:11] The English version is crazy.

Speaker 3:
[06:13] It's so sick.

Speaker 4:
[06:15] Why wouldn't I?

Speaker 3:
[06:18] I don't know, the fact that it's a creature is just like, if you're a creature synergy deck, I feel like this is one of the best graveyard hates. The fact that you can do it for zero mana, free interaction.

Speaker 4:
[06:27] Yeah, at flash speed is everything. And again, it is nice to save your own graveyard, like from a Jukabog or something like that. It's just nice. I really like the card itself.

Speaker 1:
[06:38] Yeah, being able to put an important combo piece that ends up in the graveyard back in your deck has value because you can tutor up from there or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[06:45] There's no players like Krim.

Speaker 1:
[06:46] Yeah, I know. Seriously.

Speaker 2:
[06:48] It's so good against Mill, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[06:50] We gotta have some tech against the Krabs, you know?

Speaker 1:
[06:54] The things we have to do because we're in a playgroup with Krim, always got to be prepared for Mill.

Speaker 4:
[06:59] Wait, hold on.

Speaker 1:
[07:01] Speaking of Krim, Krim, why don't you give us a card that's gotten a bit cheaper?

Speaker 4:
[07:05] All right. So a card I really liked playing back when it came out, it was like, I think like 14, 15 bucks. It's not like super duper pricey compared to some of the cards I'll bring up, but like it was still like 14 bucks. And Sower of Discord, it's now like, I think I've seen it drop as low as like two bucks. And then now it sits somewhere around four dollars. Sower of Discord, for those that don't know, this card is a fun demon. And if you know me, you know I love my demons. I have my Grixis Demon deck. It's six mana, six six, flying. When it enters the battlefield, choose two players. Whenever damage is dealt to one of the chosen players, the other player also loses that much life. This is like Peak Commander, like designed for me. This is like the silly fun stuff that I like going on. And it dropped down to like what? It's like maybe four dollars now. It's what I'm seeing. Yeah, four dollars. Four dollars for this demon. And this demon is a blast. This used to be pricier. I know it's not like a crazy dropping price, but it's still cheaper and it's fun to play with. And I think more people should play with this card because it's so much chaos. And believe it or not, sometimes the power move is if you just make yourself one of the linked people.

Speaker 3:
[08:23] That's funny. But then your mutual, the other unlinked opponents are going to be like, oh, meets back on the main place.

Speaker 4:
[08:33] You want to hit me a lot? Dude, I'll show you. I'm going to make us the link here. This card is a lot of fun to play with.

Speaker 3:
[08:40] Diabolical.

Speaker 4:
[08:41] And I'm just happy that it's under five bucks.

Speaker 1:
[08:43] Yeah. It seems great in Demon Dex in specific. That seems like the most common home for it. So yeah, nice to call you.

Speaker 4:
[08:53] If you're often the arch enemy or always killed first.

Speaker 1:
[08:57] Just Crim Dex, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[08:58] Just Crim Problems, you know? I'm obviously always removed first, so...

Speaker 3:
[09:04] Really like, you cheat it out, it comes in attacking, you take out two people in the same swing. It's very funny.

Speaker 2:
[09:10] It was like an old staple, right? Because I feel like the first time I saw this was in the very beginning when I joined Clash. And it's kind of like one of those cards that is just Commander. Obviously, the effect wouldn't make any sense otherwise. So, this feels like a classic Commander design. And it's not really like there was a WePrint in, what is this set? Commander Masters or something?

Speaker 1:
[09:35] I think that's the one that dropped the price a bit.

Speaker 2:
[09:37] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[09:38] Right. Because originally it only came to the Commander deck.

Speaker 2:
[09:40] There's two printings. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[09:42] So, yeah, now that it's under five bucks, I think you should just run wild with this. Link up and just get some of it.

Speaker 1:
[09:51] Link up. Well, let's link up with Phil to give us a card that's cheap now. What do you got for us, Phil?

Speaker 2:
[09:58] Okay. So I'm going to start with, I think this one is obligatory because this is the craziest thing I saw when it comes to price drops. And it is just such a powerful card that is one of those Commander haymakers. It is Avenger of Zandica, which was back in its heyday, was at 15 bucks, which isn't the world. It is more than I would like to pay for a card. But now it's at 80 cents. And probably if you click it, let's see if I can. You can probably find it way cheaper. It's in so many pre-cons. It does, I don't know if I even need to read it. Seven mana, five five. When it enters for every land, you create a plan and then landfall, without counters on every plant. It wins the game if they don't kill you afterwards. Just such a classic group bond. It is so crazy. It's so crazy. It's like Kratos, that people say, you just played Avenger of Zandica. But it's a classic. I still have to cast it.

Speaker 1:
[11:01] You gotta wait. You gotta copy it.

Speaker 3:
[11:03] I'm gonna give it haste.

Speaker 4:
[11:04] You have exactly a turn, or else you die.

Speaker 2:
[11:07] It's so much value for seven mana. Easy to get to seven. And it's just at 50 bucks. I always assumed it was expensive. Like, I got it. I got a pre-con, and back then, I didn't know that it was in every pre-con. I thought, they just give me an Avenger of Zandica. And then I checked, and it's like, yeah, okay, 50 cents.

Speaker 1:
[11:26] It's one of those cards that Wizards has done a good job of just reprinting every single year again and again and again. And that's how you keep cards cheap, right? Like, Sol Ring would be hundreds of dollars, but Wizards puts it in literally every single pre-con, and it keeps it a couple dollars. So yeah, they've kind of nailed it with this one, which is good because this is a card you can play in almost any green deck, really. Like, it's at its best in a landfall deck. But if you just want some big beef at the top end of your curve, like, your green, you're going to have all these land ram spells. It's pretty easy to grow the plan, so you can just play it kind of anywhere if you want to. Well, let's keep moving on. I got one that I think... I'm not sure if people are going to consider this a recent price drop or not, but I want to shout it out because these ones I think are actually pretty relevant. And these are the Buddy Lands. So this is the land cycle with like Glacial Chasm and Sulphur Falls. And they're lands that come in to play untapped if you control one of two land types. So like, um, Sulphur Falls comes in plan tapped if you have an island or a mountain. And there's one of these for each colors. And these are lands that have just steadily gotten cheaper over the years. When they first came out in like the mid 2010s, they're like $10, $15. And then they dropped down as they got reprinted a couple of times to like $5 or $6, which $5 or $6 isn't bad, but that's still a lot, especially if you're needing a whole bunch of these. But now these lands, Wizards has just pulled out all the stops. They reprint them constantly in Commander pre-cons. And they're essentially free now. They're like 50 cents, 40 cents, 60 cents. Like, they're literally as cheap as you can get your lands. And these lands are still really good. Like, yes, they're not the hot new thing, like the Surveillance or whatever. But if you're just playing a functional mana base, these lands are not embarrassing at all. I think for the price, these are some of the best budget lands I think that you can play. But I'm curious what you think, Tomer. Like, how do you rank these as far as budget lands? They got to be some of the better ones now if they're like 50 cents, right?

Speaker 3:
[13:16] Yeah, for sure. I think if you're like a two, three color deck, these are really easy to include. I also really like the Painlands. And I also remember the Painlands, they were like a couple of dollars back when they were like in standard and stuff. And now, Wizard of the Coast basically has a policy now where if they make a pre-con, the first lanes they go for that are good are like the Buddy lanes, the Painlands also are like less than a dollar. And just on that note, by the way, special shout out to Fabled Passage, which also was like a $10 card when it saw standard play. And very recently, I'm talking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is a previous set, they put it in the pre-con there, and then they reprinted in every single, all five of the Strixhaven pre-cons. So I think this is the next one that is going to become a less than a dollar card. I feel like they've decided the Buddy Lands, the Painlands, Fabled Passage, these are all now just going to be like less than a dollar cards that we're going to see all the time in pre-cons, I'm hoping. But also, you call them Buddy Lands, I've heard them the Check Lands. What do people call them?

Speaker 2:
[14:23] Check Lands, I know, and Slow Lands as well, like the ones where you need two or more lands are getting increasingly cheaper. And with Hinterland Harbor and some of the Check Lands, there are very affordable Old Border Foils of this in the Luminari remasters. I wonder if the Fabled Passage Old Border Foil also gets a little cheaper. But this is like the problem I want to say though with Check Lands, they get better if your mana base gets better because they work very good with Check Lands, Surveillance, anything with land types. On that note, also, let's hope... Oh, Basics, come on now. Also, let's hope Wizards continues this trend with the new, I don't know even how we call this, if an opponent has eight or more lands or all opponents together have eight or more lands. Yeah, if they have land types, and they work very well with the checked lands, please reprint them so I can get them in their most expensive version.

Speaker 3:
[15:24] I call them the Pastry Lands because they look delicious. They do look like them.

Speaker 1:
[15:28] I want to eat some more.

Speaker 4:
[15:31] I like that name. I like Pastry Lands.

Speaker 3:
[15:34] They look so tasty.

Speaker 4:
[15:35] I like that.

Speaker 3:
[15:36] The forbidden meal. The forbidden snack.

Speaker 4:
[15:41] Yeah, that's perfect, dude. And then if you play Black and White, the Silver Quill one, you can play Sky Clave Appetizer. Throw that in there. It's food without actually food.

Speaker 1:
[15:54] If you want to build a cheap manna base, those are some good lands to keep in mind. Fable Passage is a good call too, especially for landfall. I feel like that land is kind of mid in general, but if you really need the landfall trigger, then I think it's one of the best budget lands.

Speaker 3:
[16:08] I'm still riding high on the one time I had the... One time, I had the big 2000 IQ play, where I was running the thing that makes all the lands in your deck count as basics, and I fetched this one out, and it tapped itself on... I fetched out, I gilded this commons with it, because I needed to bounce a land to my hand, and it entered it untapped.

Speaker 4:
[16:34] It was the five color when we made a non-legendary a legendary, right?

Speaker 3:
[16:39] Yeah, it was like Root Path Purifier, and I fabled passage for a gilded commons, and the gilded commons entered it untapped, but then fabled passage untapped it, and that gave me exact to use mana to do things. I didn't win, but I had fun.

Speaker 2:
[16:52] This patch should have been a legend. Sweet.

Speaker 3:
[16:55] That was good.

Speaker 1:
[16:56] Will Tomer, what's another card that's gotten cheaper?

Speaker 3:
[16:59] Oh, hello. Okay, this one is a card, I feel like more people should be playing, so I don't know if it's like, oh, here's a staple, but like, I feel like as the years go by, this card keeps getting better and better, and that card is Loyal Retainers. Loyal Retainers is a three-man white creature, human advisor, so one-one, and you can sacrifice this creature, return target legendary creature from your graveyard to the battlefield, activate only during your turn before attackers are declared. So this is a three-drop that basically reanimates any legendary creature in your graveyard directly on to the battlefield. And because it's a three-drop, you can get this one get back with like Sun Titan and stuff. And I feel like legendary creature was kind of restrictive when it was printed way back in portals. But now, I don't know where every single other creature is legendary. I feel like this restriction becomes less and less of an issue. It's currently $2, $2.15. And when it was originally printed, it was in portals, portals three kingdoms. And it was like, I don't know, like a $200 card or something like that. And then a while back, like a couple of years ago, it dropped down to a more modest, like $60. It got like one reprint and like amonkets and stuff. Got to like $60, but now it's, that's $2. And I feel, I feel like this is a very good card to pick up. And also for Phil, it had that F&M, the Magic 30 old border foil looks gorgeous.

Speaker 4:
[18:37] It sounds like it's curling already.

Speaker 3:
[18:40] No, come on, they look so good though.

Speaker 2:
[18:43] Just use foil armor.

Speaker 1:
[18:44] Those, those portal cards are ridiculous. We've seen this time and time again, where cards that were only printed in Portals 3 Kingdoms are like hundreds and hundreds of dollars, because they just really release hardly any of it back when they originally printed this at. But then when they reprint it, the price drops a lot. Another one, I think, was like Imperial Seals, kind of like that, where the portal version is like a thousand dollars. And the reprint is still like 150 bucks or something, but it's still like a huge decline or capture.

Speaker 3:
[19:14] Three visits was like $400.

Speaker 1:
[19:15] Three visits went from $410 or something. So yeah, whenever you see one of those, those portal cards get reprinted, that's your time to definitely pick them up. I don't know about this card, though. Like, I mean, it's fine, but it's like, I don't know, where would I play it, Tomer? Like, some sort of white reanimator deck? It seems like it's in like Cisse or any sort of like legendary theme deck. It seems very good there. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:
[19:36] Choda.

Speaker 3:
[19:38] Choda.

Speaker 1:
[19:39] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[19:39] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[19:40] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[19:41] All right.

Speaker 2:
[19:41] Need help?

Speaker 3:
[19:42] You have legendary creatures in your deck and then...

Speaker 1:
[19:46] You get them back.

Speaker 3:
[19:47] Yeah. Yeah. This is every single card now. So, I don't know. But just, Ardbarts. I love Ardbarts and Loader Tennis is great there. So, it's from Final Fantasy.

Speaker 1:
[19:57] Well, Krem, what's another one that's a little cheaper now?

Speaker 4:
[20:01] I know this is going to sound wild. This card isn't crazy and designed by any way, but it's damnation. This card is a $20 card now. But believe it or not, that is much cheaper than where this card was. This card used to sit around like $72, $80. I swear, I feel like it was anywhere between $70 to $75 or something like that. I remember when I needed to buy this for Modern, and I'd play it out on my sideboard, and this card is just like, it is a wrath of God that I need in Grixis. And I just cannot believe I am paying this much for a wrath of God. And it's been reprinted now tons and tons of times. It's still $20, which is high. But the one thing that is nice is that it is much cheaper than where it was, and there's a cool Venom variant, so I get to play with that one. And yeah, like Mark Bagley art on it. And so, I don't know, it's just, it feels good to see that this card is not some like Christmas land number for what is essentially a wrath of God.

Speaker 1:
[21:08] This was one of the most requested reprints for like several years before they find, because this was like a card they print in Planar Chaos, and then they just would not reprint. This was during the master set era, where they were doing master sets all the time, and they just would not include damnation for like several master sets in a row. But then they finally did, and it's crazy that even with all these reprints, it's still $20. And I think part of it's that black just wasn't very good at rafting. I almost wondered, do you think this card is worth buying? My catch with buying this card, even at 20 bucks, which is a huge decline. I feel like Wizards has started printing more and more good black wraths. So I feel like the need for damnation, I still play it and I still think it's good. But I think like three or four years from now, they might just print so many other black wraths that I'm like, oh, I don't even really need damnation anymore. There's just so many new wraths that they've printed since then. So what do you think about the long term for this card? Do you think it's worth snagging for 20 bucks? Or do you think it's going to diminish in its playability as they print more wraths?

Speaker 2:
[22:04] Honestly, it feels a little like price memory on this, because people just know it's like, oh wait, isn't this like 80 bucks? And then it's like, no, it's 20.

Speaker 1:
[22:12] It's only 20, buy it.

Speaker 2:
[22:13] And then it's like, I'm not going to sell it for 10. So probably people just don't want to sell it, because they know that it was this expensive back in the day. Iconic. It feels super badass. Like if you have the Planar Chaos version, man, this is so nostalgic to see. Such a banger artwork. Oh, it's so good. That said, like Toxic Deluge is better, which is not far away, maybe even cheaper. If they reprint it again, it's probably cheaper.

Speaker 4:
[22:43] It's still pretty pricey, Toxic Deluge as well, but better.

Speaker 2:
[22:46] If you gain life, you can destroy everything for three mana, then oh my, you get the Meeklet Massacre and Decree of Pain. Still a banger. Super cheap.

Speaker 4:
[22:59] But playability-wise, as much as I love Decree of Pain, I do want a not eight-mana Swifter.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] You need a chief. You need a chief.

Speaker 2:
[23:08] Just get some ramp going.

Speaker 4:
[23:09] Okay, well, we all don't have the Phil start of 1500 ramp spells into a late-game spell. I still like Damnation. I think it's still like Wrath of God effects are fine. Obviously, as the years progress, I kind of agree with Seth. We're gonna just see better versions of this. Like just recently, we had Game Over in the Turtles deck, where if anybody has half their life, this is now from a 5-mana to a 3-mana sweeper. So we're already kind of seeing this get power crept out as is, but it is cool to just have this little piece of history. It's only like 20 bucks now for the Planar Chaos version, maybe somewhere around there.

Speaker 2:
[23:48] So I... It's the coolest version.

Speaker 4:
[23:50] It's the cool version. I mean, it's not the coolest anymore, but it is cool to have this piece of history to me.

Speaker 3:
[23:57] I feel like this card is... I slept on this card a little bit. I don't remember the last time I ever put Damnation in any of my decks, but what I'm thinking about a little bit more, it's a four mana unconditional wipe, and yes, Toxic Deluge is better for the most part, unless you're very low on life, but that's still fine. You need a second wipe usually, and if you're not in multiple colors, you might not have better options. If you're not in white, for example, you don't have better options. So I feel like I should probably just run this a little bit more. My favorite board wipes are kind of like the three, four mana, maybe five mana range at the most. I like this more than game over, because if I'm not committing to the board, and I have an opening hand with a turn four board wipe or something like that, I'm so happy. I'm so happy because on the rest of the table, it's like, I'm going to drop all my engines, I'm going to deploy, deploy, deploy, and then if you give me a couple turns with my game pieces, my creatures, oh boy, I'm going to get so much value. The best thing in the world, the best moment I have in Commander is when everybody puts their silly little car draw engines and stuff on turn three or something, and I'm like, turn four, they're all dead. They're all dead. They all go back to the stone age. And we've seen so many Commander Clash's game, basically one off that. I remember Seth was playing, we were playing our own Pet Dex and stuff, and Seth was playing the Token Dex to out Token Phil. Oh, right. I think he won the game.

Speaker 1:
[25:20] The early wrap.

Speaker 3:
[25:22] Everybody was playing their value pieces, and then he just rats, and that's it. And damnation, four mana, that's totally fine, I think. It's still good.

Speaker 1:
[25:31] It's still one of the cheapest of the Black Rats, for sure.

Speaker 4:
[25:34] It's still cheap, but I think, this is like sweeper number three for me now, and every year it does kind of go down a little, but it is still nice to have three sweepers. If you're a responsible gamer, you have room for five. I do not think that this is out of the top five yet. I do think, though, cards like Villainous Wrath are actually creeping up in fun for me. I know it's one more mana than damnation, but being able to make someone lose life equal to the number of creatures they control is just too juicy.

Speaker 3:
[26:06] Oh, it's only five, right? Yeah, I like this one a lot.

Speaker 1:
[26:11] I would also just throw out Toxic Deluge itself, if we're talking about cards that got cheaper, because I'm just looking at its price chart, and in 2020, it was like 40 bucks. And then even in 2023, it was still like 27 bucks. So it's only the last few years they started reprinting it, and they just put it in a Secret District Saving Commander. That version is $7 right now and probably still dropping. So it might be five or four by the time we get done. So yeah. So Toxic Deluge is super cheap. No, they haven't even come out yet. So that price probably still goes down more from when we're recording this, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[26:48] Something that is wild to me is that, yeah, I think Toxic Deluge is actually cheaper than Damnation, right?

Speaker 1:
[26:53] That is actually hilarious.

Speaker 2:
[26:54] Toxic Deluge is half the price. Oh my gosh. You can get a foil for the same price.

Speaker 4:
[27:01] Dude, that's awesome. That means you have the whole sweeper sweep of Damnation in black. I set aside just the five sweepers in black and that's my go-to. I know I always pull those out.

Speaker 3:
[27:15] I can't run that new art though, even if it's the cheapest version. What, Toxic Deluge? I feel so bad for pests because the whole point of pests is you sacrifice them for value, and they look like these adorable, cute little guys, those squishy marshmallows, and they're always happy. And then you see the artwork, they're like, there's one, there's like a troll, there's a green troll in the pre-con.

Speaker 4:
[27:37] It's clawing its way out.

Speaker 3:
[27:39] No, they're all tied up, you know the thing, the wooden stick, and they're tied on rope and stuff, it's going to barbecue them and stuff, and they all look happy and they're smiling about it. I'm like, this is scarier than any Eldrazi or any art they've done before. These are like smiley little squish sacrifice things, and like, no, I feel so bad for them. I just want a little pushy of them.

Speaker 4:
[28:00] That's because their biggest mistake this set is that they made the pests super cute. They're so cute and they're so happy to die.

Speaker 1:
[28:07] Although, you don't have to sack the new ones though. They solved it for you, Tomer. Now, they mean life when they attack. Oh, the Commander one still do.

Speaker 3:
[28:14] The Commander one still do.

Speaker 1:
[28:16] So weird.

Speaker 3:
[28:16] I don't want to.

Speaker 2:
[28:18] There's an old boarder full of toxic deluge, by the way. Still cheaper than damnation. Damnation.

Speaker 1:
[28:24] Good to know.

Speaker 3:
[28:25] It's rough.

Speaker 1:
[28:26] Well, speaking of cheap things, Phil, what's another cheap card?

Speaker 2:
[28:30] Okay. So here's another card that I never got because of its price, and that I forgot about it for a long time, and I think a lot of people did as well. And now it's kind of cheap at like 340, all the way down from what was the high here, 27. And that is Bramble Sovereign. It's a 4-mana 4-4 that whenever another non-token creature enters the battlefield anywhere, so even for the opponents, whenever a creature enters, you can pay a 1 and a green. And if you do, that creature's controller creates a token copy, showing that it kind of creates copies for the opponent a little bit, but whatever. You can create for every creature, you can create a copy for 2 mana. And it is so fun. I don't know if it's still good. There's a reason why it was crazy good in the day when Commander was a little dirtier. You can play your Avenger of Asandica, pay 2 mana, get 2 of them. But my god, does it go off. And there's a cooler version that is also pretty cheap though, because I think that's a Commander Masters reprint, right? Wasn't it? No, it is a battle of... That's the one from Commander Legends.

Speaker 1:
[29:40] Oh, Commander Legends.

Speaker 2:
[29:42] Yeah, that wasn't a Legend set, but this one had Bramble Sovereign, and now it's 5 bucks, 3.40 even.

Speaker 1:
[29:49] The original was Battlebond or something, one of those weird supplemental sets, so it got super expensive for a while. I still like this card in Panamonicon style decks. I think it is true that it's probably not quite as good as it used to be when Commander was a little slower, but it's still just a super cool value card with a really unique ability that can turn anything into a token and you can even do the politics with it. So it's just a really fun card to play with. It's one of those cards when someone plays it, I'm usually kind of smiling like, okay, this is going to be cool even if it's not me that's playing the Bramble Sovereign. It's just a fun card to show up at a table.

Speaker 3:
[30:22] It's so cool if you populate as well. If you're a populate deck or a tokens deck and you turn your other non-token creatures into token versions of them so you can do shenanigans, it's very fun. It's a really cool card.

Speaker 4:
[30:35] I played this in that one episode when I had Naya Gured or whatever, and then I played a bunch of Demanding Dragons.

Speaker 3:
[30:44] I've never been so terrified of Demanding. I don't think I've seen Demanding Dragon ever played before in my life, and now I have respect. It's so sweet.

Speaker 4:
[30:52] The Bramble Sovereign though, it just leads to so many fun, silly play patterns.

Speaker 2:
[30:58] This one's another one of those. Back in the day, it was a staple and everybody thought, well, this is just crazy. And then we got a reprint, everybody forgot about it, and now it's kind of cheap. And it's still so much fun.

Speaker 3:
[31:10] As the game keeps speeding up, you have less turns to be like, oh, I have to spend two mana. Where's my immediate value?

Speaker 1:
[31:16] Less mana to leave up.

Speaker 3:
[31:18] Game's ending on turn eight. I don't have time for these setup cards to take too long. That's weird.

Speaker 2:
[31:24] It sounds like you and Richard here for a second.

Speaker 4:
[31:26] Your games are ending super fast for y'all. You should probably adopt a five board wipe, five spot wipe package.

Speaker 3:
[31:33] Board is only $20.

Speaker 2:
[31:35] Let's just say if Richard was here, he would probably say, no, if you play this, you get killed because then in the next turn gets super scary. It's also true.

Speaker 3:
[31:44] Yeah, that is true. I've lost many games for BrambleSauver.

Speaker 2:
[31:47] Probably if I play this on Clash, everybody says, we got to get rid of this BrambleSauver. He's got a hundred percent.

Speaker 3:
[31:53] Which is true.

Speaker 1:
[31:54] Yeah, you got to kill it. You got to kill it. All right. So next up for me, one of the things we learned recently, thanks to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is if you print cards with horrible art that no one likes, they get really cheap. It turns out that the bonus sheet for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles led to some ridiculously big price drop. So I think the biggest might be Ashcote the Shadow Swarm, which was $60 before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles released. It is now $7. Plague of Vermin was $60. $60! It is now $2 if you get the bonus sheet version. And this kind of tracks across other cards. Arcbound Ravager, $5. The other version was like $25. Waves of Aggression is way cheaper. Teleportation Circles way cheaper. Silver-Cled Ferocidons went from like $15 to $2. So really just anything on that bonus sheet, as long as you do not mind playing with the art that's on it, if you like the art, you can pick them up at a massive, massive discount. So what do we take away from this? What do we learn from the TMNT bonus sheet? Do we want more cards with art people don't like to make them cheaper? Is that actually a strategy we should embrace?

Speaker 3:
[33:08] You know what's funny? My hot take would be like, I would just buy if Wizards of the Coast sold every single card for a dollar, but it would have like no art. And it would look like those like crappy, like places like steaming turds sitting in the art. Yeah, I would buy those, but I will also buy them over the TMNT versions. I can draw my own funny art on it. There's a spike.

Speaker 2:
[33:33] Like Ash Code spiked with a Lohven Eclipse, like from Avatar to Lohven Eclipse. And then it dropped a little, but not below Lohven Eclipse price. So nobody wants their red deck. They care about the one with Splinter or whatever on it. I mean, they do look.

Speaker 1:
[33:53] It's a life act to get your cards on the cheap, though. Like it is a huge discount pretty much across the board.

Speaker 2:
[34:00] At this point, you can just pox it out.

Speaker 3:
[34:01] I'd rather Sharpie a swamp.

Speaker 2:
[34:03] Just take out the Sharpie.

Speaker 4:
[34:07] I think that's wild. I think some of this art is kind of sick.

Speaker 3:
[34:10] I mean, it appeals to some people, obviously. I mean, it's comic book art.

Speaker 4:
[34:15] I think there's some comic book arts on here.

Speaker 1:
[34:18] Dude, I can't.

Speaker 4:
[34:20] I will gladly pick up the Splinter if it means that I get it for $2.

Speaker 2:
[34:24] I also got to say, it is the frame with the text isn't in a box, but every letter has its own outline. I don't know, as somebody who studied layout and stuff, this is just straight up a crime. I don't know how this happened.

Speaker 1:
[34:43] Straight up a crime. It does look pretty bad.

Speaker 2:
[34:46] Just use comic signs at this point. Which they already did.

Speaker 1:
[34:50] We need some wing games.

Speaker 3:
[34:51] Trouble with hair and all that damnation in that one.

Speaker 4:
[34:56] Maybe Splinter and Plague of Vermin. The one that's Ash Coat and Plague of Vermin, those are like meh. But I like some of the art on here, man.

Speaker 1:
[35:07] Some of them don't look bad. But then it is funny that the ones that drop the most are the ones that even Crim doesn't really like the art on, like Plague of Vermin. Those are the ones. So it seems like everyone must not like those, because those ones got the biggest price drop.

Speaker 3:
[35:18] I mean, some people are going to like that too.

Speaker 1:
[35:20] Didn't drop as much. Yeah, I mean, art is very subjective. Everyone's got their own taste. But just be aware, when we get these bonus sheets, if you like the art and everyone else doesn't, you're probably in for some really good deals, because you can snag those cards on the cheap.

Speaker 4:
[35:35] Also, there is humor in somebody not liking the art, so then it makes me like it more. And then I want to use it, right? Like, I despise the piss borderlands.

Speaker 1:
[35:44] The troll value.

Speaker 4:
[35:45] I get that troll value.

Speaker 2:
[35:47] I tried them, but it's too much.

Speaker 4:
[35:49] It's kind of like the circle where it's kind of funny now if you have the piss land.

Speaker 3:
[35:53] Oh yeah, no, I run a piss land in one of my decks.

Speaker 4:
[35:56] Yeah, right?

Speaker 3:
[35:57] The shop value.

Speaker 2:
[35:58] I tried.

Speaker 3:
[35:58] It's a funny story, you know, when it comes out.

Speaker 2:
[36:01] I can't.

Speaker 3:
[36:02] They're so ugly, but... It is heinous.

Speaker 4:
[36:04] It is absolutely like hideous to look at.

Speaker 1:
[36:08] And they're still very expensive, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 2:
[36:10] Yeah, it's actually picked up in price. These are a bit over just like 30 bucks now. Yuck.

Speaker 1:
[36:16] Well, Tomer, why don't you give us a card that's not 30 bucks?

Speaker 3:
[36:20] Okay, here's one of my favorite green cards of all time. That for most of the time that I've been playing Commander, I just could never put it ever in a budget deck. And I still love it to this day. I still highly recommend it. Oracle of Moldaia, 4 mana green, El Shaman, 2-2. You may play an additional land on each of your turns. Play with the top card of your library revealed. You may play lands from top of your library. So extra land drops, very good in basically any deck. And if you get to play lands on top of your library, that's like card advantage as well. And you can do fun things like if there's no land on top of your library, then maybe like crack a fetch land or something and see if you can find another one. You have like more chances and stuff. Awesome, awesome card, particularly great in landfall. But like I always remember this card being at least $20, and I'm looking at the price range of it. It was like peaking at $40 for this card. And then it started seeing some reprints, and it went down to like $20, and I was like, okay, fine, whatever. Then it went to like $10 in the last year, and I'm like, okay, fine, whatever. Then Edge of Eternities came and reprinted in one of the precons, and now it's under $4, and I'm like, oh, this cart is... Do you guys still like this cart? I know it's very old, but I'm enamored by it. I still think it's super fun.

Speaker 1:
[37:42] It's still very good. It looks a little quaint compared to Ice-Till Explorer and just how absurd Ice-Till is, but as a secondary Ice-Till Explorer, I think Oracle is still maybe the second best option if you want to do that type of thing. It's still very good. The extra land drops are good. It's only a 2-2, so its body is not going to do much on the battlefield. But still, it is a very solid RAM card. This is one that I didn't realize was so cheap. This is a card that I figured was still like $20 or something, so I just didn't think about it much. But now I know it's $5, I'm going to probably jam this in more decks.

Speaker 3:
[38:11] How big is Ice-Till? Oh my God, it's a 2-4. Even the toughness is higher. They had to do everything better.

Speaker 1:
[38:19] Everything. But Oracle is still very good. It might not be quite Ice-Till, but it's still a very playable card.

Speaker 3:
[38:27] Would you run 6-4 and then the Muldiah at least? Would you run Bow?

Speaker 2:
[38:33] Traveling Chou Chou Bow is kind of Muldiah. They get double land for, the double ETB is kind of like playing two lands, and then it's three mana. I don't know what difference you're on.

Speaker 1:
[38:43] That's kind of expensive though, right? It's like 20 bucks.

Speaker 3:
[38:45] Probably.

Speaker 2:
[38:46] I still got expensive as well. Final Fantasy, not even once. I'm playing a bunch of Landfall decks, and I'm sure when I build these decks, and I either noticed that it was already expensive, or back in the day, it was just super expensive, so I just didn't have it on my radar. Now I wouldn't know what to cut for it because the ford-off slot in Landfall decks is already where stuff happens. So I don't know. It's like, I could play an Ice Dead Explore. But yeah, this one's great. I always think about this as like, yeah, that's a Landfall staple, probably like 20 bucks. And it is so cheap.

Speaker 3:
[39:24] It used to be very recently.

Speaker 2:
[39:25] What are the versions on it? Wait, it was in the-

Speaker 3:
[39:28] You run it in Landfall?

Speaker 4:
[39:32] I think you still need this. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know this card dropped either. This was a card I used to cut out of my deck just because I'm like, okay, hold on, this is like 15 bucks, right? It's 20 bucks, it's kind of expensive. But now that I know that it's only like $4, like why not have a backup copy, right? I guess I do already play Chocobo in like my Black Panther deck, and I already play Ice-Till, and I'm not even going to bring in Ice-Till because it's unfair. But there's a lot of memories against Oracle of Maldaya remembering playing against it in standard because the Valakut decks would play it. And so, you know what? There's memory here for me. I'd play this. It's still fine. It's fine.

Speaker 1:
[40:15] Absolute worst case, isn't it the best budget replacement for something like Ice-Till? Like if you want that effect, but you don't want to spend Ice-Till money, like I feel like this is the best $5 version of it.

Speaker 4:
[40:26] I need to look up how much it is before I say it because it might not be cheap.

Speaker 2:
[40:31] Like $8 or $4.

Speaker 4:
[40:33] I also notice that I have one of them in my way.

Speaker 3:
[40:35] Oh, Ice-Till is cheapest as I think $22.

Speaker 2:
[40:39] Oh my god, I should have gotten more of them.

Speaker 4:
[40:41] No, it's only... Okay, I love this card still, and it's significantly cheaper now. It's only $2. Omenpath Journey. I still love Omenpath Journey. That card is so gas. See, the Prophet Bear's ramping has gotten so much better in my opinion. I do still have respect for Oracle just because, like, Oracle... Okay, hold on. Let me make sure. It just allows you to only play lands, right? Play with the top of your library reveal.

Speaker 1:
[41:12] You can play lands off the top and play an extra land.

Speaker 3:
[41:14] I always get that dopamine rush every time you get lands off the top. And then you crack a fetch, and then you're like, oh, I got a land. Oh, it feels so good. When you get two lands off the top on the same turn.

Speaker 4:
[41:25] But it just gets blown up with a board wipe usually.

Speaker 2:
[41:29] Omen fast journey as well. But I love if you go Lotus Cobra, and then next turn land drop, add a land from the Cobra, or a fetch land off the top.

Speaker 4:
[41:40] That's an old standard play pattern you just take in there, Bill.

Speaker 2:
[41:43] Get that value. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:45] It's such a cool play pattern. That's the Bellicud deck. Just way more consistent.

Speaker 3:
[41:51] Cheaper.

Speaker 1:
[41:53] Oh, Krim, what else you got for us?

Speaker 4:
[41:56] Okay. This is a card I've loved since five ever, because it's an onslaught card originally. It's Cover of Darkness. This card was very expensive. I mean, I don't know how accurate some of the numbers I can safely say are, but I remember this card being like 30 bucks, right? Like non-foil 30 bucks or something like that. But yeah, this was a $30 card, and now it's like, what? Okay, maybe the original printing is still 15. But everybody forgets about the Assassin's Creed set. And thank you. I forgot Assassin's Creed as a set existed, but thank you to Assassin's Creed for having a budget version of this. I am so here for that. It's only like $8. Yeah, $8. And for those that love the kindred and, you know, kind of like creature type style decks, this card enters the battlefield, chooses a creature type. Creatures of the chosen type have fear. Now, just remember, the one thing people always forget is that this counts for all creatures of that type, including your opponents. They also have fear. But this two-mana enchantment gives all your armies evasion. I think this is still good. I still play this in my human's deck. This is still just a very relevant card if you're a Combat Matters kind of deck. So, to see that it's only eight bucks is kind of wild to me because I'm like, wow, I feel like this used to be absurdly pricey.

Speaker 1:
[43:30] Yeah, and all this card was, I mean, this card in Tale of Assassin's Creed had never been reprinted from onslaught, so it just spent like 20 years slowly climbing until it got to 50 bucks or whatever it was. But yeah, this card, I think it's at its best probably in, like you said, Combat Matters decks, I think of like Ninjas being a really good home for it, or like the Assassin deck is probably why it was in Assassin's Creed, because you're trying to get in for free running, so you can like attack with your commander. But you do need to be all the same creature type, right? So you do kind of need to be a tribal deck for me to really want it. But in that deck, I think it's very good if you like meet both of those criteria, like all the same creature type and about attacking, why not? Cover of Darkness.

Speaker 3:
[44:10] I used to have it in my changeling deck because then they can name like Trilobite or something funny. Guaranteed nobody else is running like Trilobite, so they can't use this against me.

Speaker 4:
[44:21] I can't even name a Trilobite.

Speaker 3:
[44:24] I think this is one.

Speaker 2:
[44:26] That's so good.

Speaker 3:
[44:27] Also, Crim, you're still collecting onslaught foils, right? Did you grab a copy of this yet?

Speaker 4:
[44:34] I still have the one I've had since Middle School.

Speaker 2:
[44:38] Man, the old part of fun of this got a little soul sick. The original artwork is kind of worth the extra price.

Speaker 4:
[44:45] For how long I've had it, and it's only slightly curled, barely. It's a little smoky on the front because I played with it a lot.

Speaker 3:
[44:53] I feel like you need a foil armor to screen that right out.

Speaker 4:
[44:56] Yeah, giz character. With a little foil armor, that'll just be flattened, right? I legit still love this card. I still have this, and I'm so happy I do, because it's so expensive.

Speaker 1:
[45:10] Phil, why don't we move over to you? What's another cheap card?

Speaker 2:
[45:14] All right. Let me check my list here. What's the next? Oh yeah. This one I didn't get when I built my Jardar Deck. Because back then, it was like 30 bucks. And now it's at, the cheapest one is 530. Although if I look at this list, I can probably find it cheaper on TCGVid. It is Imps Mischief. It's a two-mana instant in black. So one and a black. Change the target of target spell with a single target. You lose life equal to that spell's mana value, just to make this clear color pie break a little less color pie. But it feels like one of the few black counters. There's this other one that counters a creature. This one's like a black redirect.

Speaker 3:
[45:55] It's a bolt bend.

Speaker 2:
[45:56] And it is super unique. And it is another case of the cards that got cheaper when they got represented in a special cheat, extra sheet thing. And it also got a Commander Masters reprint here. It is picking up again because everything gets more expensive every day. I don't know. Cards get...

Speaker 4:
[46:18] But it turns out more people playing.

Speaker 2:
[46:19] With more when everything got expensive again. Yeah, probably because of...

Speaker 3:
[46:22] You gotta have reprints and it's been a while.

Speaker 2:
[46:25] If we did this podcast a while ago, it was at two bucks. Should have probably gotten it there. It is still just such a blowout card. You never see it coming. And I love to... Now I kind of want to get it again, but now it's up to five bucks again. Maybe I wait for the next reprint. And then I get the etched five for 30 bucks. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] I was going to ask you guys this. So how do you personally handle cards like this? So we're talking about cards that used to be expensive and got cheap. Does this make you want to run out and buy them? Because you're like, I need to get these. Why they're cheap, they're probably going to get more expensive. Or do you say what Phil was just saying, which, oh, maybe I wait for the next reprint and they'll be even cheaper. Like how do you balance that? Because when I see him Smith's chip at five bucks, it looks like a good deal, but then it's been increasing in price and who knows when they'll reprint it next. So maybe, maybe it doesn't make sense. I don't know. What do you guys, what do you guys think about that? Like should people be snagging these cards now in case they get more expensive in the future?

Speaker 2:
[47:23] This one's tricky.

Speaker 4:
[47:25] It's one of those cards that are like kind of wild in design for the color that it's in. And as long as it has that niche under its belt, I think it's worth picking up.

Speaker 1:
[47:37] At some point, you'll want it. Yeah, you'll find it useful.

Speaker 2:
[47:41] It's just super fun.

Speaker 3:
[47:42] I just, yeah, I wouldn't go, like if there's a bunch of cards and they happen to be cheap, I'm not going to, I don't know, $5 maybe and I'm like at the store, I'll buy it. You know, like if I'm browsing and stuff, but like would I like order from the store online or something? Probably not, unless I want it for a deck or something. But like, you know, if I find out, oh, this card is really good for my deck and it's kind of cheap for sure. Or I'm at the game store and I'm just like browsing. I love spontaneous game store browsing. I love going to like my local game store and just like checking what they have in their binders and stuff. It's fun.

Speaker 1:
[48:18] Well, let's keep moving on. Oh, next, I got to shout out this card because I didn't realize this card had gone so cheap either. Urro Titan of Nature's Wrath. Urro was $60. This was a few years ago when it was one of the best cards in Standard, got banned in Standard, that was one of the best cards in Modern. But even as recently as like a year and a half ago, it was still like 10, 12 bucks, somewhere like that. Now, the cheapest printing of Urro, $2.60. They put it in Modern Horizon 3 Commander. So yeah, Urro is like a budget card now. And Urro, if you don't know what Urro does, it is an insane ramp spell. It's a 3-mana, 6-6 elder giant. When it enters, you gotta sack it unless you escaped it. But when it enters or attacks, you gain 3 life, you draw a card, and you can put a land from your hand onto the battlefield untapped even. And then you can escape it for the graveyard for 4 mana and exiling 5 other cards from your graveyard. So you can cast it from there as well. So this is a card that you can play in basically any Simic deck. And it was a card I would play in a ton of Simic decks, except I thought it was like 20 bucks or 30 bucks. And I was like, I'm not going to spend 30 bucks on a ramp spell. But now that I know Uro is $2.50, I think I would play it in basically any Simic deck. Like, is there a reason not to jam this in a Simic deck? It's kind of like Oko, right? Phil, it's another card that's kind of in the similar vein.

Speaker 2:
[49:36] I was going to mention Oko is another one. Oko and Uro are in two of my decks now. And I remember paying a lot for one of the Oko's. The other one was just like, man, I can just play Oko. When Spelunking got released, I was like, I can just get this for my maids from one of the decks. Still, I don't know, $3.80, that's kind of crazy. Now it's really cheap.

Speaker 3:
[49:59] Okay, I need to pick up a copy of Uro.

Speaker 1:
[50:01] Yeah, it's super cheap.

Speaker 2:
[50:02] It's so fun, though. It's impressive in 1v1, but in Commander, it's like, yeah, you have a ramp spell with a late game payoff that feels great to play. It is just fun.

Speaker 4:
[50:14] I threw it in my book box because it got banned. Oh, my God, come on.

Speaker 2:
[50:18] It got banned. I was like, I will never play with this again.

Speaker 4:
[50:23] Like, there's something about it. It's just funny. I got to go dig that out.

Speaker 3:
[50:28] Well, they have a white border version.

Speaker 1:
[50:30] Oh, the mystery booster. White border.

Speaker 3:
[50:32] Stop it. That's a good stuff. That's a good stuff. I'm sad they never did white border foil.

Speaker 1:
[50:41] I know. They should. They should.

Speaker 3:
[50:43] No, please. No, we need it. The people need it.

Speaker 2:
[50:45] Don't ruin more cards.

Speaker 1:
[50:47] All right. Let's do one final round. Final round. So get your best picks and layer of cards. They used to be expensive and they're cheap now. Tomer, what is your last pick?

Speaker 3:
[50:59] Okay. Special shout out to Rekonos. I was just going to mention cover of darkness. It also got reprinted. In Assassin's Creed, it's only $5. But the one that I want to go out with is a card that I also always assumed. It's an old card. I always assumed that it was at a high price range for budget brews. But it's a fieldmancer. A fieldmancer, three mana black human shaman creature. It's a 2-2. And at the beginning of each upkeep, not just your own, but each upkeep, if you control no snakes, you put a 1-1 black snake creature token with death touch on to the battlefield. So if you're in an aristocrats deck and you're constantly sacked, you have a repeatable sack outlet on the battlefield, this can make a snake, snake fodder, like a sacrifice fodder for every single person's turn, not just your own. And they have death touch, so they're actually great blockers too. Nobody wants to swing in and trade with a snake because obviously you just replace yourself too. So this is a great sacrifice engine in the right deck. Phil was playing future episode or no, past episode, was playing Dina, and this is amazing, amazing with Dina if you have a sack outlet, that he can be doing stuff in your drawing cards as you're doing everything. And I remember this card was expensive. It was like $11 for a long time, and then it got reprinted a bunch of times. And it's like $2? Yeah, no, it's $1.25, $1.22, because it's got reprinted like five times in a row. But like, yeah, it all happened all at once. Like, yeah, it's a good card.

Speaker 1:
[52:39] No, and is that in your J'Aardek, Phil? It feels like a J'Aardar card to me. It's got to be, right?

Speaker 2:
[52:43] It's still crazy good. It's just because it's cheap. It's still just the same thing. Nobody attacks you. End of turn, sacrifice. Next turn, I get this, like a new snake. Still a great card. I did just check and I did get the foil, which means that I got it. Either I replace it. I remember paying too much in hindsight for it. And I think I upgraded to the foil once it got so cheap that I got the foil for some whatever. Man, I'm such a sucker. I pay way too much for these cards. But yeah, there's also a new green one coming up, so maybe this one will be expensive at the beginning as well. But then, reprint, reprint, and still get the expensive card because I'm sucker for foils.

Speaker 3:
[53:28] They're all border.

Speaker 1:
[53:29] Especially if they're all border. All right, Crim, what do you got for your final pick today?

Speaker 4:
[53:38] My final pick is going to sound not cheap, but I swear, hang it there.

Speaker 3:
[53:43] It's LA cheap.

Speaker 4:
[53:46] It's Mana Drain.

Speaker 3:
[53:48] That's two Starbucks in LA.

Speaker 4:
[53:50] Dude, legit though, Mana Drain is like 50 bucks, right? And it's cheaper if you get specifically the Commander Legends, whatever, a foil printing because the foiling was so bad. Like, oh my god, it's so bad. So you actually probably have to pay more for a non-foil, but even then, right, let's say you pay for the non-foil, you can get one for 54 bucks, 56 bucks, right, from the big score sheet. Yes, that's still $50, but that is better than $400. It used to be $400 for a Mana Drain. So I think this is still like, it's a blue farseek, okay? This is blue ramp, baby. It comes with a counter spell. This is still a staple. It gives you all that colorless mana. I mean, what do y'all think? Is this a price point you would pay for a Mana Drain?

Speaker 2:
[54:48] This one's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1:
[54:52] I don't think this card will ever get much cheaper. Let me say it that way. I don't think this card will ever get much cheaper. I don't think Wizards will ever reprint this in a pre-con or some way that's gonna crash. And Standard, it's always gonna be printed at Mythic and some small things, so they keep the price high. So if you want a Mana Drain, I think buying it for this price is fine, because I don't really think, maybe you can get a window where there's like, oh, they do a master set again, and it drops 20 bucks the month after release.

Speaker 3:
[55:19] I could have put it in Strix even, in the bonus sheet, but it didn't.

Speaker 1:
[55:23] But even that, I don't think those three prints are gonna do that much in a Mythic, so I don't know. So I think if you want a Mana Drain, this is a fine price point to buy it at, because I just don't think it's gonna ever get significantly cheaper.

Speaker 3:
[55:36] If you have a deck that... Well, either if you have LA money, then it's fine, or you just don't build as a billion decks like I do. Because when I see Mana Drain, I'm like, I can build 30 more budget brews like that, and I have too many budget decks. I have too many of them. But if you're a reasonable person, and you only have three decks, and you keep upgrading them, this is totally reasonable to pick up right now. It is one of the best counter spells, bar none, right?

Speaker 4:
[56:01] First off, it is more than just a counter spell. I think if you look at this and you're like, oh, it's a counter spell, we know that's disingenuous, but that is not true. It is so much more than that. Second off, LA money means that I'm more broke than you. I don't think you understand. This is not, when you say LA money, it's not what you think it is.

Speaker 2:
[56:23] It just means I have significantly less money than you, since I live in California. I think the problem with Manner Drain, and I have the same problem with Urza Saga, because if I get an Urza Saga, which is also super expensive and will ever always be expensive, it's like, I would put this in, first of all, every deck, but I have four decks that will actively synergize with it. Even Urza that builds around Counterstrike, so I should probably put it first there, but it would be better in lowness. I don't know, Mana Drain is even worse, because it's, oh, it just plays in every blue deck. I don't know, it plays the deck better.

Speaker 3:
[56:59] You don't need to build around it, you just jam it.

Speaker 2:
[57:00] Which deck? Yeah, you just play it. Yeah, but in which deck? I play so many blue decks. I don't know, they all are wonderful.

Speaker 1:
[57:06] Trade it in and out, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[57:08] Whatever you want it.

Speaker 2:
[57:09] Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not gonna, then it's kind of bothering me at this point.

Speaker 4:
[57:16] Like so, but all around, we just agree that this is probably the cheapest we can get.

Speaker 2:
[57:21] It is kind of as cheap as it gets, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[57:23] Where I remember like the, what is it, Double Masters? You can get that one for like maybe 35 bucks, 40 bucks.

Speaker 2:
[57:29] Oh, man, I should have had a guess on that.

Speaker 4:
[57:30] And then now that's like 60 bucks, right? So, the next reprint may push it down to about 30, like you had mentioned, but then it just always floats right back up.

Speaker 1:
[57:40] It's like Psychonic Rift. They refill Psychonic Rift and go down a few bucks, and then it goes right back up to 30 to 40 bucks or double. It's these ultra staples in Commander. So, it just depends on like, it's great card. You could play in literally every blue deck. Like, I play in every one of my Commander Clash decks. If I'm in blue, it's like the first counter spell I add. I got lucky to have a copy, so it makes it a little bit easy, because I don't want to buy it. Would I go out and buy one for 50 bucks for every blue deck I built? Not that would get very, very expensive after a while. So I don't think I would. It doesn't really depend on how much you want it, but I think this is a perfectly fair, like fine price if you want a mana drain. Like, don't expect to get cheaper soon. Phil, what about you? What do you got for your final pick?

Speaker 2:
[58:21] All right, one card that I just love to play, it always overperforms for me, because its downside is like whatever, the damage is done. It was, back in the day, 18 bucks, and now it's all the way down to 399, and it's two mana, and it's a 0-0. It is a phantasmal image. It's a two mana 0-0 illusion. You may have it enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, except it's an illusion in addition to its types. And then when this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, you sacrifice it, so you can't blink it to reset it. But you get a clone for two mana. At this point, there's some more. There's like the one with vanishing, but two mana clone for one and a colorless. Feels busted because then the opponent plays Avenger of Zandika and you say, thank you, I get one for two mana. And then they remove it by targeting it with Miss Bumbleflower or whatever. But you already have all the plants, and it's just two mana. And I just recently noticed that it got cheaper, and then I bought the Special Guest, because this one is so cheap now. And it's also kind of cheap for what you get. I think Phantasmal Image is just a very, very good card. They just, two mana clone anything. There's so many good effects.

Speaker 3:
[59:41] It's still CDH by now, like it's still CDH.

Speaker 2:
[59:44] Probably, right? You can just copy a cool commander. If you see somebody play like Plot Prosperity, you say, I don't know, it could get this. Also the fact that it sacrifices itself, it's super easy to reanimate because it has two mana and zero power, that means everything can reanimate it.

Speaker 4:
[60:00] Also, everything can kill it.

Speaker 2:
[60:03] Everything can kill it, whatever. You just copy something and get an ETB.

Speaker 1:
[60:07] That doesn't even matter.

Speaker 3:
[60:08] You should be getting ETBs and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[60:09] The illusion text doesn't really matter, right? Exactly for that reason, right? Because what you're usually copying is your Eternal Witness or a Dockside. I'm not a Dockside anymore, but like effects with strong ETBs and you're like, sure. I don't really care, right? Sure, it dies, but it already did its job. So I think the discount compared to other clones makes it one of the better clones, even with the illusion clause on there that makes it die more often. Because I think you're just like, I wouldn't really want to use it to copy Prosper probably, or like something I want to stick around for several turns. Like you can, but I think those are like the sketchier targets.

Speaker 2:
[60:39] But the cost, it's just too manna though. Like if you say, yeah, spend your removal on it. Most people don't have like a gut shot or something cheap to throw around. If they-

Speaker 1:
[60:48] It's probably going to be a real removal spell anyway.

Speaker 4:
[60:52] Like it's going to passage you, right?

Speaker 3:
[60:54] Like it goes away.

Speaker 2:
[60:54] Rogues Passage, too cheap. I don't know. That'd be funny.

Speaker 3:
[60:58] I just picked one up. It's the best card in my Princess Yue deck. It's got the foil. It just arrived in the mail today too. But I just picked it up and I was like, oh my God, it's actually like not that expensive anymore, which is great. And yeah, you just copy Princess Yue and then it becomes a moon of whatever thing on the battlefield. And that's even harder to target because it's not even a creature. It's a land. It's a moon. So it's funny.

Speaker 1:
[61:19] I think that's my favorite deck I've seen this year on Commander Clashtomer for this season. I think the UA deck, I really like that deck. I'm bringing it to Vegas. Well, speaking of Vegas, I should announce this here. We announced on the other podcast today. If you happen to be in Vegas, and it probably would have made more sense to do this earlier in the podcast when everyone's listening. But Friday at Magic on Vegas, 2 PM, we will be at the Heavy Play booth for a meet and greet. And then Sunday at 1030 AM, we will be at the Foil Arbor booth for a meet and greet. And then we will be hanging out in a jam of games in between. But those are the places that if you want to find us for sure, at Magic on Vegas, go to those places at those times. And you'll be able to find us and we'll sign stuff, take a picture, whatever you want to do.

Speaker 2:
[62:02] Play Commander.

Speaker 1:
[62:03] Play some Commander. Well, we probably won't play Commander at the meet and greet. But after the meet and greets, yes. All right. For my final pick to wrap things up today, this is actually tough. I got a few cards that dropped a lot in price, but they're a little bit narrow. But I guess, okay, for dinosaur lovers out there, I didn't know this card had gotten this cheap. Zekama Primal Clammy. I thought this card was super expensive because it was a $40 mythic and rivals of Ixalan. And then even after it showed up in Commander Masters, it was still like $20. But it turns out Wizards put it in a lost caverns of Ixalan Commander Precon a year and a half or two years ago. And now it is literally $1. It went from $40 to literally $1. So I know it's something that probably got to be a dinosaur deck to really want, or maybe some crazy ramp deck that can take advantage of the fact that it untaps all your lands when you cast the nine drop. So it doesn't go in most decks, but if you do want it, it is ridiculously cheap now.

Speaker 3:
[63:02] My brain, when I read Zekomba, I was thinking about the meme one, the meme flying one that's like Double Strike and Vigilance and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[63:10] Oh, not that one. This is the nine drop. Untap all your stuff.

Speaker 2:
[63:13] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:15] It's like, if it's worth $2, you have to pay me to put it in that one.

Speaker 4:
[63:18] Has that card ever been more than a dollar?

Speaker 3:
[63:20] I don't know. But Zekomba is legit. Zekomba is freaking scary.

Speaker 2:
[63:25] I'm one of the craziest commanders. Whenever I play against it, I feel like, yeah, what are we even doing here? Everything you do gets blown up by this. And even the borderless profile foil is like eight bucks. So if you want to play it as a fancy commander, I can't believe this is so cheap. Maybe it's because it's so unfun. Just play the one that slaps and puts dinosaurs on the battlefield.

Speaker 3:
[63:54] Wait, is Italy more appropriate? I don't understand.

Speaker 1:
[63:57] Oh, Italy.

Speaker 2:
[64:00] It's not even dinosaurs.

Speaker 1:
[64:01] I'd rather fight the Kama than Italy for sure.

Speaker 3:
[64:04] Italy is a dinosaur. I love this one. Yeah, I forgot about this card actually. I think it's still very good.

Speaker 1:
[64:11] Well, now you can put in some budget dex, Tomer, because it's only a dollar.

Speaker 2:
[64:14] It's true. Is it good in the 99?

Speaker 3:
[64:17] I think so.

Speaker 1:
[64:18] I think actually if you're ramping in Inaya, just like the ability to untap all of your lands and then use all of its abilities is actually very strong. I guess I didn't actually read the card. You don't know it's a 9 mana 9 9 vigilance reach trample legendary elder dinosaur. When it enters the battle field, if you cast it, you untap all of your lands. So we can actually generate mana if you can float a bunch of mana on top of your lands. And then you can pay 3 mana including red to deal 3 damage to a creature, 3 including a green to blow up an artifact or enchantment, 3 including a white to gain 3 life. So yeah, I think in the 99 in a deck that's in Nyan ramping a lot, it's actually insane because it turns into a weird ritual a lot of the times where you can just generate mana with it and then pop off. So I think it's worth it. You got to be a big mana deck with a lot of ramp, but in that kind of deck, I think it's good.

Speaker 3:
[65:04] I think it's sick.

Speaker 1:
[65:05] Anyway, anyway, everyone, those are cards that used to be expensive and now they're not as expensive. And you should think about putting them in your decks because who doesn't like cheap cardboard? And that's our podcast for today.

Speaker 4:
[65:15] Cheaper cardboard.

Speaker 1:
[65:16] Cheaper, cheaper, yeah, I guess. Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper cardboard.

Speaker 3:
[65:21] Manager, it's only like five Starbucks runs, it's fine.

Speaker 1:
[65:24] It's only like five Starbucks runs, easy.

Speaker 4:
[65:26] Like one LA coffee.

Speaker 1:
[65:30] I'm so glad I don't live in LA. Anyway, everyone, thank you. Thank you so much for watching. Hopefully, you enjoyed our podcast. And we'll be back next week to do it again. So until then, have an amazing week. And this is The Crew signing off.