Pro Tour Aetherdrift turned out to be quite a surprising turn of events. Rather than Esper Pixie running rampant, Domain Overlords stole the show, winning the event in the hands of Matt Mass. While this was already quite a surprise the impact of new Aetherdrift cards was even more remarkable.
Within the winning list from Matt Nass, four copies of Ride’s End helped propel the deck to success. On top of this, a couple of copies of the new Wastewood Verge also snuck into the 75 alongside one final addition. Rounding out Nass’ carefully constructed list, a single copy of Stock Up made the cut.
Stock Up
Stock Up is a fairly simple, yet undoubtedly effective MTG card. For three mana, you get to look at five cards, keep two of them, and put the rest away. That’s not a bad deal at all when you consider that Quick Study is the same cost.
Unsurprisingly, the extra selection that Stock Up provides is exceptionally useful, no matter what type of deck you’re playing. Any deck that needs a card advantage spell will benefit from seeing and selecting cards rather than relying on random chance. With this in mind, it’s little wonder that Stock Up is already seeing quite a bit of play in Standard, and beyond.
For better or worse, Stock Up hasn’t been universally adopted by every blue-aligned Standard deck just yet. According to MTGDecks, the card’s Standard play numbers are actually fairly unassuming. While this card appears in Azorius Control, Domain Overlords, and Azorius Omniscience lists, it’s not a true staple yet.
Ironically, the formats that Stock Up is seeing the most experimentation in are Legacy and Vintage. This might seem surprising considering how slow three mana is in that format. This speed, however, is offset by the existence of Force of Will since Setting that counterspell up with Stock Up makes the card a lot scarier.
Despite not being universally adopted, Stock Up is putting up good results when it sees play. As a result, it may only be a matter of time before this card is even more popular. Right now, it seems that Stock Up is still searching for its perfect deck to call home. Following the recent Pro Tour win, that may be about to change, as players should be taking this card seriously.
The Spike
While Stock Up is hardly the most widely played uncommon in MTG, it clearly has potential. Thanks to this, it should be no surprise that this card has been in incredibly high demand since Aetherdrift was released. As the graph above shows, the daily sales volume for this card has peaked at 450 copies in one day, which is insane.
Due to this fervent demand, Stock Up is already a surprisingly expensive MTG card. Technically, it has only been available for 11 days, and in that time, its price has spiked hard. Since the official release date of Aetherdrift, the price has shot up by 1857%!
Mercifully, Stock Up is still technically a fairly cheap MTG card, all things considered. Starting from a price point of $0.19, the spike has only been to $3.72. Thankfully, there are still copies available for near this market price. However, listings do soon stray toward $4. Nevertheless, a playset of Stock Up shouldn’t exactly break the bank right now.
That being said, $3.60 is still rather expensive for an uncommon MTG card. Currently, this price tag makes Stock Up the 5th most expensive uncommon in Standard. Right now, only Patchwork Banner, Sheltered by Ghosts, Boros Charm, and Boltwave are more expensive. Curiously, Stock Up is currently slightly more expensive than This Town Ain’t Big Enough, which saw a huge price spike recently.
To justify this price tag, Stock Up is a lot rarer than its rarity might suggest. Since it’s just an uncommon card, this card has no fancy variants that would increase its supply via Collector Boosters. Instead, there are only the normal foil and non-foil variants, which makes this card rather rare.
The Future
As is common for the immense price spikes we see like this, Stock Up is, ironically, suffering from very short supply. On TCGplayer, there are only 30 near-mint copies left available for purchase, which is basically nothing. This has allowed sellers to capitalize on the market by increasing prices since players are clearly willing to pay.
Looking ahead, the real question is where the price of Stock Up will end up settling. Right now, there’s a good chance this card could either crash or become the most expensive common in Standard. This all depends on whether or not the card can find one, or multiple, homes in the coming weeks.
Should the testing in Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage succeed, then the demand for Stock Up may be utterly obscene. Should it fail to cut the competitive mustard, however, then demand will be non-existent outside of Commander. Right now, it’s clear that players and investors alike are expecting big things, but that’s yet to be completely proven.
Ultimately, as usual, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens, since the future is far from decided. While things are up in the air at the moment, Stock Up is definitely the card to watch right now.