Saffron’s Card of the Day (12/18): Goblin Rabblemaster

Set: Magic 2015

Release Date: June, 2014

Set Info: Big, Summer, Core set

Where it Sees Play: Everywhere in Standard, in a few places in Modern and Legacy (more on this in a minute).

Price: $13.50. Up from $1 post M15 release. Down from $19.80 October 8.

Spread: 43 percent.

 

By now, we all know that Rabblemaster is good in standard, and it currently has a price tag that back this up. Thing is, we are getting closing in on the time of year when Standard cards peak and start their decline to rotation (and Rabblemaster may have peaked already). Mutavault, the most expensive rare in Magic 2014, peaked on January 21 last year at $36.50, hung around $35 for about a month, before starting to decline by the end of February. Today, Mutavault is $13.

Now, of course, Mutavault to Rabblemaster is not a perfect comparison. While Rabblemaster has proved to be perhaps equally powerful, Mutavault, being both a land and colorless, fits in so many decks, it’s not fair to simply say “because X happened to Mutavault, X will happen to Rabblemaster.”

At the same time, people are testing out Rabblemaster in both Modern and Legacy, which is a good thing for the goblins price post-rotation. In Modern, it took down a MTGO daily as a 3-of out of the board in Burn while in Legacy it has been a one of in various red stompy deck along with some random build of Sneak and Show and Jund.

Admittedly, this if fringe play. By the numbers, Rabblemaster sees about one-tenth of Mutavault’s play in Legacy and one-twentieth in Modern. This doesn’t mean that these numbers won’t go up in the future – not every cards can be a Deathrite Shaman that immediately breaks eternal formats. Some cards take the Stongeforge Mystic path, being obviously powerful, but missing something (for Stoneforge, Batterskull).

Given that the power is there (evidence by the fact that people are playing it), the question is, what could make Rabblemaster into a Stoneforge? The first thing that came to my mind is the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf in Modern. Cascading into Rabblemaster seems almost as good as cascading into Liliana, and maybe even better in an aggressive build.

It’s also possible that a resurgence in Legacy Goblin could help Rabblemaster, but I’m not really sure the deck wants it (although it hard to tell at this point because no one is playing Goblin’s at the moment – you know when Cedric puts down the deck that it’s really in a bad place.)

For now, I’m treating Rabblemaster as a Standard staple with a bit of post-rotaiton potential, but it’s not a card that I feel comfortable holding through rotation, it just doesn’t see enough play, plus it’s a rare. I will, however, be keeping and eye on eternal deck lists, because the potential is there for Rabblemaster. Maybe not as a format staple, but as a player.

Finally, it’s worth noting that foil Rabblemasters are pretty inexpensive at the moment, having a foil multiplier of somewhere about 1.25. While this is likely a result of the Buy-A-Box promo, it’s still a bit strange, because normal foils version of other playable BOB promos including Surgical Extraction, Restoration Angel, Supreme Verdict, and Eidolon of Blossems all have a low-but-typical multiplier between 1.8 and 3. While $20 is still a lot to pay for a card that should be reaching it peak in a month or so (if it has not peaked already), it’s something else to keep an eye on, because eternal players love their foils.

Anyway, what’s your opinion of Rabblemasters post-rotation prospects? What else could happen to increase its level of play in Modern and Legacy? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

 

 

 

Top 10 Moments of the American Treasure Gregory Hatch

Too lazy to watch all 16 minutes of of semi-understandable ramblings about Artificer’s Intuition and Salvage Titan ? Now you don’t have to, instead you can  now see all the genius of the American treasure that is Gregory Hatch in ten clips and two minutes.

10. Searching for Coggy Fissures

9. It’s like a Survival…that’s bad

8. It’s like Elves…

7. Craw Wurm

6. Scrappy

5. It’s not Serum’s fault…

4. Getting a ‘lil freeky

3. It’s PG

2. Thopter and Gamble

1. Sunk Cost Fallacy

Artificer’s Intuition Deck Tech W/ Gregory Hatch from SCG Invitational

Back in my article about potential sleepers in KTK here’s what I said about Altar of the Brood:

It took a while, Amulet of Vigor ended up finding a deck and become the broken combo piece it always had potential to be and even though the deck is fringe and not very good, simply finding this tier 3 home pushed foil copies of Amulet of Vigor to over $10, where they still sit today.

I believe that eventually, this is what will happen with Altar of the Brood. Someone will figure out some janky combo, take a modern or legacy event by storm, and the price of Altar of the Brood will spike. Will this happen by the release of FRF? I have no idea, but I would be surprised if it did not happen eventually – and even if it never does, mill is another thing that makes casuals “sploosh,” so in the long run Altar of the Brood is likely a winner either way.

Thanks to Gregory Hatch designing a deck which he compares to “spending two months in his basement writing a novel” it looks like I might not only be right, but that the arrival of Altar of the Brood as a broken eternal combo piece did indeed come before the release of Fate Reforged.

Apparently Powercreep Isn’t a Part of Everything…

During my last cube draft I found myself thinking about fow absurd is it that a 10/10 protection from everything is pretty close to unplayable (and unplayed) in every format. Not that long ago,Progenitus was likely the best creature to Show and Tell into play on T2, or Natural Order off of some elf mana on T3. But no longer.

Since people are still sneaking and showing and natural ordering (like at an organic deli, *rim shot*), this means that, since Progenitus was printed 5 years ago, it has simply been outclassed by new cards. And this is true, WOTC has printed not one, but two creatures which are apparently (judging by level-of-play) better than a two-turn clock that is nigh unkillable. To be fair, the five-color mana cost is part of the issue, but only a very small part. It’s not like Sneak and Show or Elves were casting Progenitus anyway.

The first of these Progenitus replacements is obvious:

I’m not sure Emrakul should have been printed, but it’s pretty easy to see why its better than Progenitus. The flying spaghetti monster gives up a bit of Progenitus’s protections (things like Jace and Oblivion Ring are considered to be part of everything, but are not colored spells), but gains the ability to annihilate an opponents entire board. While it is theoretically possible (although difficult) to race a Progenitus with something like a Umezawa’s Jitte and a couple Tarmogoyfs, Emrakul is pretty much impossible to beat attack step v. attack step.

The second replacement for Progenitus is not as obvious, but is no less a part of the Hydra Avatar’s demise in competitive magic. In a deck like Legacy Elves, Hoof has two big advantages. First, instead of taking two (or even three) turns to kill an opponent, the Behemoth most often accomplishes this in zero. Second, Elves can actually cast Craterhoof from its hand, with some combination of Llanowar Elves and Gaea’s Cradle. In the old days, there was no worse feeling as an elves player than naturally drawing your one-of Progenitus. It was literally the same as skipping your draw step, and maybe even worse due to the psychological deflation that comes along with it.

The final nail in Progenitus’s price coffin was being printed in Modern Masters – with no competitive play to help its price recover, even being printed as a mythic in a limited release was enough to drop Progenitus from $17.5 to $11 – and prices are still on the decline.

The point is…:

We are living in a time of magic’s history where power creep on creatures is a very real thing (spells, on the other hand, are pretty safe at this point, so don’t be expecting a two-mana Show and Tell anytime soon). Just because Hoof and Emrakul are the best things to cheat into play right now, does not mean that they will be after FRF releases in a couple months, or when M16 releases next summer.

I was just looking over a list http://www.metamox.com/format-analytics.php?format=legacy of the most played cards in legacy. I found myself thinking, “they can’t print something better than Bob, or Goyf, or Thalia, or Snapcaster…they are already as efficient as possible.”

And this may be true, but I bet, if I was looking over this list a few years ago, I would have though, “Progenitus? That is going to be the best Show and Tell target like, forever….” (notice the “like,” apparently a few years ago I talked like a teen girl from The Hills).

Expensive creatures that are cheated into play seem to be most at risk of being outclassed, simply because with these creatures, mana cost really doesn’t matter. Emrakul could have 100 written (or 1,000,000) in the upper right corner, and it would still see the same amount of play (well, almost, 12-Post would be pissed).

The other wild card in the situation is a potential MM2 this summer. While competitive mythics from Modern Masters rebounded quickly, there is no guarantee that MM2 will be as limited a printing (actually, it’s almost guaranteed not to be as limited). This means more copies of Emrakul (assuming he makes the cut) in the market, a sharper decline in princes, and longer recovery period – if prices recover at all.

In short: nothing is safe anymore. Long-term investments in MTG are becoming increasingly risky.

Legacy may or may not being dying.

Wurmcoil is in COM14.

Modern staples are being reprinted willy-nilly.

Fetches in KTK.

MM2 on the horizon.

And apparently powercreep isn’t a part of everything.