This past weekend was a fantastic one for cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Various new strategies caught fire across various events, getting a lot of eyes on cards that players did not seriously consider to be competitive. Alongside this, some other cards from Thunder Junction that had some competitive prowess are finally being recognized on the secondary market. Let’s take a look.
Hostile Investigator
Hostile Investigator has been seeing more and more play recently. Between Waste Not in Pioneer and Midrange strategies in Standard, the card is simply starting to rise in competitive popularity.
Considering this card from a card advantage perspective, it’s not difficult to see why. Hostile Investigator provides a body, makes an opponent discard a card, and draws you a card via Investigate. This is a +2, which is quite good for four mana.
We discussed this card extensively in another article. If you want to read more about Hostile Investigator, you’ll find everything you need to know there.
As far as financial increases go, Hostile Investigator has seen a big one. The card has spiked from about $1.60 to $15 in the last two weeks! This is for the base variant of the card available in Play Booster packs. Extended art variants have a wider range, but are generally selling for $20 and up. Showcase variants are selling for about the same amount, but are being listed for much higher prices.
Freestrider Lookout
Freestrider Lookout had a breakout performance competitively this weekend. Appearing in Modern as a part of Aspiringspike’s Scapeshift list, Freestrider Lookout is now a Modern card! Considering that we rated this card pretty highly out of the gate for Thunder Junction, this isn’t too surprising for us.
Freestrider Lookout ramps incredibly hard if you have ways to consistently commit Crimes on each turn. Apsiringspike’s list utilized Relic of Progenitus to repetitively commit Crimes on either player’s turn. If other tools, like Mishra’s Bauble, were available to commit Crimes as well, Freestrider Lookout was essentially capable of ramping two lands from the library each turn. This is an insane amount of power.
While the base version of this card hasn’t seen a huge price spike, the extended art variant is surprisingly sought-after. Increasing from 75 cents, nonfoil extended art Freestrider Lookout are going for about $3-4 according to recent TCGplayer sales. Extended art foil are going for even more, with the range being quite high.
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Magical Hack
I’ve never scratched my head so much looking at a price spike as I did Magical Hack. This seemingly useless one mana instant is seeing a massive price spike week over week. This effect is such a niche one that it’s difficult to imagine Magical Hack sees any sort of constructed play, and that is mostly correct.
While Magical Hack does nothing in most formats, it does do something in Forgetful Fish. By changing the text of Dandan, you can cause the card to self-destruct since Islands are the only basic land type included in the MTG sidegame. Dandan cards, in general, are going up en-masse right now.
Magical Hack has a ton of different printings, and many of these cards are seeing price spikes. Revised Magical Hacks had a price increase from about $1 to $4.50 since March, for example. While this card is undeniably seeing some explosive price spikes, there are so many different variants of the card that it becomes difficult to actually figure out what the card is worth overall. Either way, if you have some of these kicking around, you can probably sell them off for a few bucks.
Prosper, Tome-Bound
Prosper, Tome-Bound saw a significant spike a little while ago that many were not covering in great detail. This is almost certainly due to the card’s synergy with the Plot mechanic. Since those cards come out of your exile when cast, Prosper… well, prospers from it, creating Treasure tokens. This creates absolutely explosive turns for Prosper EDH decks. Even before Plot was introduced in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Prosper was considered a powerful Commander to reckon with.
Since the beginning of April, Prosper has increased in price from about $17 to selling for as much as $26.
Arclight Phoenix
Many players speculated that something out of Izzet Phoenix in Pioneer would get banned this week. Instead, we ended up with an absolutely massive ban that didn’t even touch the format.
Now that players know that the Phoenix archetype is safe, and will remain one of the best decks to play for the rest of the Pioneer RCQ season, it seems that the cheaper variants of this card are coming up in price. As a result, Ravnica Remastered variants of Arclight Phoenix are doubling in price. Worth $2 not too long ago, copies of these cards are starting to go for as much as $5, but this price spike is rather new and inconsistent, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a good deal. How long that will remain, however, is yet to be seen.
Crimes Do Pay!
Its great to see that, even after Outlaws of Thunder Junction has been out for quite some time, players are finding new ways to innovate with Magic’s newest offerings. No one evaluated Crime payoffs like Freestrider Lookout or Magda, Brazen Outlaw to be Modern playable, and yet it appears that they can keep up with some of the nastiest cards in MTG history.
Will players continue to find new ways to innovate with cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction? If they do, we could be in for quite a rocky financial season.
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