Fanatic of Xenagos is a very strong creature card from Magic the Gathering's Born of the Gods set. With the Fanatic, you either get a 3/3 Trampler that gains haste and +1/+1 until the end of turn that he’s summoned, or a 4/4 Trampler if an opponent pays his Tribute cost of a +1/+1 counter. This is pretty sweet. Not only was he a fantastic card in Limited, but he could slot right into an aggro deck in Standard.

The Fanatic continued a trend of aggressive strong creatures being introduced into Magic. When he was first spoiled, I was very much on the Xenagos bandwagon! In the same set was the very popular God, Xenagos, God of Revels, who has since become a mainstay in Commander and has appeared in other formats, too. But while “Xenagod” had staying power, Fanatic of Xenagos really only became a Standard role player.

While Fanatic of Xenagos was a good creature in Standard, he didn't dominate the format in the way that many players first expected. He primarily saw play in one deck, Gruul Monsters, which was a very good deck. But he was more of a role player alongside Standard mainstays such as Boon Satyr, Goblin Rabblemaster, Heir of the Wilds, Polukranos, World Eater, and Stormbreath Dragon. He'd surface in the occasion Naya or Jund Aggro deck, too.

Gruul Monsters (Standard)

Lands
6 Forest
3 Mana Confluence
7 Mountain
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills

Creatures
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Boon Satyr
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Fanatic of Xenagos
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Heir of the Wilds
2 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells
3 Crater's Claws
3 Lightning Strike
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
    
SIDEBOARD
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
3 Barrage of Boulders
4 Destructive Revelry
4 Hunt the Hunter
2 Magma Spray

The good news for Fanatic of Xenagos was that he saw play for pretty much his entire life in Standard. He was still being played as late as April 2015 in Gruul Dragons, which is basically Gruul Monsters, but with Rattleclaw Mystic and Thunderbreak Regent. But since, he's faded a bit into competitive obscurity.

Gruul Dragons (Standard)

Lands
7 Forest
2 Mana Confluence
6 Mountain
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills

Creatures
3 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Boon Satyr
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Fanatic of Xenagos
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Heir of the Wilds
3 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Thunderbreak Regent

Spells
3 Crater's Claws
2 Roast
    
SIDEBOARD
1 Barrage of Boulders
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Destructive Revelry
2 Roast
3 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
4 Wild Slash
2 Xenagos, the Reveler

Still, though, Fanatic of Xenagos does still see some play today at the kitchen table. He's never been that valuable card, though. Fanatic of Xenagos' price peaked at $1 at release, and even the Friday Night Magic promo version never broke $2. Being an uncommon and not a rare certainly hurt his price ceiling, though.

If you're looking to build a casual Red/Green Aggro deck to play with your friends, Fanatic of Xenagos is a nice card to consider. He may not be the best three-drop that you'll find, but with such a low price tag, he's a fun card to play with.

Dragon's Maze was not a particularly valuable set when it was first released. But, over time, many Dragon's Maze cards have risen in value due to playability in Modern and Commander. One card that is still fairly valuable from the set is the planeswalker Ral Zarek. The four-mana red and blue planeswalker saw a good amount of Standard play at one time. Today, he sees a strong amount of play in EDH / Commander and fringe play in Modern. So, what is a copy of Ral Zarek worth? Here's a quick price guide for this powerful planeswalker Magic card.

Ral Zarek is a solid planeswalker with three abilities. His first ability adds one loyalty counter to Ral and both taps a permanent and untaps another permanent. The second ability costs 2 loyalty counters and deals 3 damage to a target creature or player. These are both solid abilities. The last ability costs 7 loyalty counters and allows you to flip 5 coins. For each of those 5 coins that lands on heads, you take an extra turn. It's a very powerful ability that can win you the game in the right deck.

Because of his powerful ultimate ability, Ral Zarek sees some Modern play in rogue Doubling Planeswalker decks, due to his strong interaction with the enchantment Doubling Season. That Enchantment allows Ral Zarek to come into play with eight loyalty counters, meaning that he can use his ultimate ability to take extra turns right away. In Commander, however, the deck he sees the most play in is the massively popular Narset, Enlightened Master.

In 2018, you can find copies of Ral Zarek listed around $7 to $8 USD. Various Magic card vendors will buy copies of Ral Zarek for as much as $4 in cash on their buylists, which is a fair price for a mythic rare card that only sees play in Commander. The true market price of Ral Zarek is closer to $6.75, according to TCGPlayer.

Ral Zarek is a solid planeswalker who is a solid addition to any Magic the Gathering card collection. He is a card with solid value and a price that has been relatively steady. Barring a reprint, Ral Zarek should be a solid investment for your deck building toolbox or trade binder.

Buy Ral Zarek on Amazon | Buy Ral Zarek on TCGPlayer

On February 12th, 2018, Wizards of the Coast announced that the cards Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf are no longed banned from Modern decks in Magic the Gathering. The infamous Jace planeswalker has neer before been legal in the Modern format. However, Bloodbraid Elf was part of some powerful and dominant Jund decks in the Modern format's early days.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that most Magic players are happy about these unbannings. They are powerful cards, and some players have waited for years to play with them again. The sentiment among those that aren't as excited is that it was unnecessary to unban them. I disagree. Modern needed fresh blood. The format is OK, yes, but with Modern back on the Pro Tour and a huge Modern Masters set on the way, why not shake things up now?

After all, it has long been my opinion that neither of these cards should ever have been banned in the format. Keep in mind that Modern has become a format in which four-drops must do something awesome to see play. This point will be revisited several times later. Both of these cards are exceptionally powerful, in very different ways. I'm happy to see them enter play to add some new diversity to the format.

Why Unban Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf?

Here's Wizards' official statement about the unbannings:

"Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf are each individually powerful cards that were originally banned because they were simply too good.

As the rest of the format has caught up in power level, these two cards have been on R&D's short list of cards to reexamine for unbanning. We've been closely monitoring the evolution of the format over the last several years and chosen this as the best time to make a change."

Note that bit about power level. Modern has grown a lot since 2013, when Bloodbraid Elf was banned. Magic is a game whose power creep has been undeniable. Cards that were once "too good" simply are now just "very good."

The article also mentioned that Jace's presence in Masters 25 will make new copies of the powerful planeswalker more readily available. This is definitely true. Bloodbraid Elf is already plentiful, being an uncommon reprinted numerous times. So, it seems that Masters 25 was a major reason for these unbannings.


Is Jace, the Mind Sculptor As Powerful As He Once Was?

The official take:

"The most iconic and powerful planeswalker card of all time, Jace, the Mind Sculptor has been on the Modern banned list since the format's inception. At the time, Jace was not far removed from being banned in Standard. Jace was also strong enough that it was being played in the incredibly powerful Legacy format.
Over time, competitive Modern has evolved to be a format of fast, proactive threats. The bar for tapping four lands during one's main phase to cast a single spell is quite high, often restricted to cards that threaten to win the game immediately. For example, if you look at the Top 8 from Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, cards that cost four mana that aren't instants are far and few between. In watching the format evolve, we've observed that decks seeking to control the game have struggled against the speed and variety of threats present in the format. Often these decks have been forced to adopt an explosive win condition of their own. Our hope is that Jace, the Mind Sculptor will provide yet another option in an already diverse format, giving controlling decks an alternative way to close out prolonged games."

I get why some people are annoyed about the return of Jace the Mind Sculptor. I particularly like Matt Sperling of Channel Fireball's commentary on the matter. The guy dominated Standard and Legacy for a long time. And yeah, the timing seems too convenient, TMS should help sell the set. But the official reasoning is sound.

As I already said, four-drops are sort of the top of the mana curve when it comes to Modern. Jace gives you a lot of options for four mana. The Brainstorming for 0 loyalty is obviously good and in a format where Opt and Serum Visions are usually your best cantrips, it's more than welcome. But you know what, Jace can also bounce creatures – a mode used quite liberally by Standard players. Suddenly that big looming threat doesn't look so bad.

Jace's other abilities: the +1 "fateseal" ability and ultimate ability are probably not going to come into play much in Modern except in stalled boardstates. That's a real thing that's already been mentioned, and the data supports that this is a good role for Jace to fill. And yes, that ultimate wins games, and entire tournaments. That's really why people hate Jace. He can take over a game. And in Modern, that can be OK if it's the only way for some decks to compete, like control.

I'd argue that Magic's power level has risen to the point that Jace is still very powerful, but he's more of a role player now who can still turn the tide in your favor if given the chance.



Bloodbraid Elf is Awesome!

The official explanation of why Bloodbraid Elf was unbanned in Modern covers a lot of the points I was already going to cover, so here it is:


"Bloodbraid Elf was banned in January 2013 at a time when Jund was the best midrange deck and perhaps the best overall deck in the format. In addition to weakening Jund's overall win rate, a large part of the goal in banning Bloodbraid Elf was to create more diversity among midrange decks.

Since that era, Modern has seen black-green-based midrange decks evolve to use a variety of other colors and threat packages. There is now a healthy choice between, for example, adding red for Lightning Bolt and Ancient Grudge versus adding white for Lingering Souls and Stony Silence. With the unbanning of Jace, we may even see some of these decks shifting toward blue. On top of that, other midrange decks like Mardu Pyromancer have emerged. There are now sufficient options available to have confidence that Bloodbraid Elf will no longer be as detrimental to deck diversity as it once was.

As a four-mana card that doesn't necessarily win the game on the spot, Bloodbraid Elf is at its best when games are longer and resources are being exchanged. Although an aggressive card on its face, Bloodbraid Elf should provide further incentive for deck builders to move up the mana curve and play interactive games."

This is a great thing for Modern: INTERACTION! I love aggressive mid-range decks. My own early decks were built around Shards of Alara and they often played Bloodbraid Elf. Yes, the Elf being back means Jund players get their free Liliana of the Veils and Tarmogoyfs. But while Cascade is a dirty good mechanic, there are a lot of other things you can do with this four drop.

The thing that immediately comes to mind is all of the three drops that are on the fringes of Modern that Bloodbraid Elf suddenly makes viable. These include planeswalkers such as Domri Rade and creatures like Loxodon Smiter – cards that are technically playable in Modern but far more playable when you can occassionally cast them for free. Also, when you play with Cascade, you have to really think about your deck construction.

Bloodbraid Elf welcomes you to play games of attrition in which every move you made must be calculated. Yes, getting free planeswalkers and Goyfs is great, but you won't always hit those things - you'll hit a lot of Lightning Bolts, too. Cascade is inherently random and fun. Fun is good.


Are Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor Meant to Balance the Modern Metagame?


Ironically, Bloodbraid Elf is a natural enemy of control and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. After all, the Elf is a 3/2 creature with haste herself so she can throw some punches as well as some extra spells at you. But no, they came into Modern together because they are good four-drops and Modern needs more of those. Eldrazi and Tron are the only other decks who consistently cast four-drops, after all.

Yes, these are powerful cards, and Jace sells sets. But the data that Wizards is looking at told them that they were able to be used in the format again, and I believe they were completely correct. I'm more excited about Bloodbraid Elf and the havoc she'll wreak with the new toys Jund has picked up over the past few years. But Jace will be a solid addition to some fringe control strategies and give already decent Bant, Jeskai, and Sultai Midrange decks a powerful new ally.

How do you feel about Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor being legal in the Modern format?

Solemn Judgment and Monster Reborn were staples in almost every Yu-Gi-Oh for many years. But there came a time when Konami decided that these cards were too powerful and too much of an auto-include to remain legal in tournament play. For years, these two cards weren't allowed in tournament play.

But in Feburary 2018, Solemn Judgment and Monster Reborn were removed from the Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden List and moved to the Limited list. This means that you may now play one copy of each of these cards in any deck in tournament play – effective February 5th, 2018.

So should everyone go out and grab some copies of Solemn Judgment and Monster Reborn to slot into their decks?

Absolutely!

Solemn Judgment is an awesome counter trap card originally printed in Metal Raiders, but has been reprinted many times over the years. It allows you stop a summon or the activation a spell or trap card. The cost is half of your Life Points. While this seems like a hefty cost, later in the game when your life points are already low, this isn't a huge cost.

It's amazing that you could once play three copies of this card. One copy is perfectly fine to have as a catch-all counter. It's a great card for just about any Yu-Gi-Oh deck and a classic Yu-Gi-Oh card.

While Solemn Judgment was always a good card in competitive play, Monster Reborn is easily the more iconic Yu-Gi-Oh card of the two. Monster Reborn saw tons of play in the anime and what it does is extremely straightforward: special summon a monster from either player's graveyard. Yes, that's extremely powerful. But Konami decided that it was time to bring back this classic card to competitive play to see how it fares.

Both of these cards will be showing up all over the places. It will be interesting to see how these two cards fit into today's top Yu-Gi-Oh decks.

Best known for being a major part of the Modern Krark-Clan Combo deck (also known as "eggs"), Open the Vaults does see a fair amount of Commander (EDH) play, as well. Because of how well Open the Vaults can bring back so many things at once, it has been reprinted in the Call the Spirits deck for Commander 2015 and later in Commander 2016. Not only does it return all Enchantments to the battlefield under their original owners' control, but it also returns all artifacts. Notice that this effect affects all players, so timing this card correctly is critical.


Typically in Commander, Open the Vaults has been used to bring back artifacts more than Enchantments. Sydri, Galvanic Genius and Sharuum the Hegemon have made a place for Open the Vaults for quite some time. Hanna, Ship's Navigator has made the best use of Open the Vaults in the format, as she can bring back either an artifact or enchantment to your hand. Additionally, Kemba, Kha Regent likes the artifact reanimation, too, since Kemba revolves around Equipment, which happen to be artifacts. This puts them all into play, which for only 6 mana can be a devastating late-game play. .


To a lesser extent, Open the Vaults has seen play in some Aura-based decks for Commanders that need a way to get back their Enchantments quickly. Replenish from Urza's Destiny actually does that particular job better. Replenish only brings back Enchantment cards from your graveyard. But despite costing only 3W, it is a fairly rare card to get at this point and holds a high price tag.


Open the Vaults brings back more cards (albeit your opponents' as well) for 4WW, but it costs a fraction of the price. Commanders that don't mind having both this and Replenish in their decks include Uril the Miststalker, Bruna Light of Alabaster, and Zur the Enchanter. Other popular Commanders that use Open the Vaults include Breya, Etherium Shaper and Daxos the Returned.


While the Commander deck reprint depressed the price of the original Magic 2010 printing, the reprint did get copies of this very useful card into more hands. Also, Magic 2010 foils were unaffected by this printing. Interest in this card also increased, as is the case with many cards that are reprinted in a pre-constructed Commander deck. This is a great reprint and fits quite well into the deck which contains it.

Praetor’s Grasp is one of a few niche rares from the powerful New Phyrexia set that have found some permanent homes in Commander decks. During its Standard days, the Grasp was pretty much a sideboard card in mono-Black decks. For 3 mana (1BB), it allows you to steal one of your opponent’s cards right out of their deck. Not only do you exile it and keep them from playing it, but if you have the right mana, you can even play it yourself. Also, no one but you can even look at it or even know what that card is until it’s played.

With this sorcery, you also get a ton of information about that player’s deck, too. With that level of sneakiness available, Praetor’s Grasp even for a time was tried out by Legacy and Vintage players. It never stuck around in those formats, though. After it rotated from Standard, Commander players became the card’s only audience.

Praetor’s Grasp offers a great deal of utility in Commander, especially in stealing someone’s key combo card from their deck. The best part about this effect is that it can be any card: artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, sorcery, or even land. If played correctly, this effect can both hurt your opponent and help you simultaneously.

The typical card you would target in Commander with Praetor's Grasp would be an artifact, since the vast majority of artifacts are colorless. You don’t even have to know what you’re looking for when you target an opponent; you just choose based on who you think the biggest threat at the table might be.

Commanders that have made a regular home for this spell include Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Mishra, Articifer Prodigy, Sen Triplets, and many others. You don’t even have to be a mono-Black deck to take full advantage of this card’s effect. Still, mono-Black tends to be happiest when it’s stealing key cards from opponents. Praetor’s Grasp was one of those rares you could find for $1 or less for a  long time, but more recently it's pushing $2. This is a great card to pick up  as it has no reprints and should be a valuable card long-term . It’s a great tool to have for any Commander player dabbling in Black Magic.

For the most part, Oath of the Gatewatch was a pretty good set for Commander players. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, General Tazri, and Mina and Denn, Wildborn are decent Commanders. Zendikar Resurgent has proven to be a pretty good Enchantment. But of all seven legendary creatures in the set, only one has found herself on the outside looking in. That’s Linvala, the Preserver, an Angel that simply will never live up to her first incredibly powerful incarnation, Linvala, Keeper of Silence.

Linvala 2.0 is far from being a bad creature, however. For 6 mana, a 5/5 flyer with two abilities is okay. She’s sort of Timely Reinforcements on a stick. When she enters the battlefield, if an opponent has more life than you, you gain 5 life. Also, if she enters and an opponent controls more creatures than you, put a 3/3 white Angel creature token with flying onto the battlefield. If both are true, you get both effects.

In a vacuum, Linvala, the Preserver offers good value. But is that worth a slot in a Commander deck, even at 6 mana? Life totals are twice that of regular Constructed and a single 3/3 Angel token doesn’t do all that much. Sure, you can abuse her abilities a bit with cards like Conjurer’s Closet, Deadeye Navigator, Eldrazi Displacer, and the like. She’s just a bit underwhelming.

You could try and run an Angel tribal deck with her at the head of it, but there are just so many better options. She’s definitely playable, but outside of those who just really want to play her, the second Linvala is having a hard time finding her way in Commander.

Synthetic Destiny is an Instant-speed version of a card released in the Magic 2011 Core Set called Mass Polymorph. Despite the crazy potential of a card that can dump a whole bunch of creatures on the board in a hurry, at Sorcery speed, it just never really caught on. So will being at Instant speed, make Synthetic Destiny a card to watch in Commander?

Mass Polymorph only ever saw much play in Jalira, Master Polymorphist decks. She's a fun Commander who can flip utility creatures into huge creatures with big effects for crazy big value. But unfortunately, her ability doesn't allow you to hit Legendary creatures and the critical mass of good targets for Jalira to hit hasn't happened yet.

The other deck that Mass Polymorph saw play in were some builds of Talrand, Sky Summoner. Talrand typically plays very few creatures in exchange for a bunch of cheap instant and sorcery spells in order to create a whole bunch of 2/2 flying Drake Tokens. If you were to have a Talrand build which actually ran a fair number of big bomb blue creatures, the payoff could be decent.

Does the Instant speed version of Mass Polymorph actually make that sort of Talrand build possible? Can a functionally better redundancy of the Mass Polymorph for the same 6 mana give Jalira some extra fuel to be a better Commander? The answer to both questions is yes.

Is Synthetic Destiny a relevant card in the Commander format? Beyond the right builds of Jalira or Talrand, not really. However, some builds of Ezuri, Claw of Progress have given this card a shot, and he is a highly popular Commander. This card is definitely a consideration for Commander decks that pump out a bunch of tokens and can provide some surprise value for a relatively modest investment of resources.

Hell’s Caretaker has been a pretty useful creature in Magic: the Gathering over the years. Way back during the Ice Age set, there was a useful combo with Ice Age’s Enduring Renewal and Antiquities Ornithopter. Enduring Renewal was an easy way to put creatures in the graveyard. Ornithopter is free to cast. So, with the Caretaker, you could easily sacrifice the Thopter and resurrect a pretty big creature from the graveyard. With Renewal, every time Ornithopter would die, it would return to your hand. Then, you could cast it again for free.

While none of the creatures were given haste by this method, it was an easy way to put a huge creature into play that couldn’t be easily answered. The Caretaker could also always just sacrifice itself to get back something, too. There was another combo with Enduring Renewal and Ornithopter with Fallen Angel to make her infinitely big. The combo deck was fun and playable.

Later, Hell’s Caretaker was reintroduced in 9th Edition. This made it legal in the Extended format at the time and in Modern. There was a potential combo playable for a time in Extended (and technically be played in Modern, too) using Intruder Alarm and Highway Robber, plus one other creature. Every time you sacrificed a creature to use Hell’s Caretaker’s ability, and a new creature enters the battlefield, all creatures untap. You would alternate between sacrificing and reviving the Robber and another creature to drain your opponent for 2 life each time. Unfortunately, the combo wasn’t consistent enough to see regular success.

In Commander, Hell’s Caretaker has been used in a number of combinations. One includes equipping it with Thornbite Staff in a Zombie-centric deck. Every time a Zombie dies, you’ll be able to untap the Caretaker. With a creature like Vengeful Dead, which deals 1 point of damage to each opponent every time a Zombie is put in a graveyard, you have a potential infinite combo serving as a win condition. While this all has to happen during your upkeep, there’s no limit to the number of times Caretaker’s ability can be activated in the upkeep. Also with the Staff, in a Reanimator deck, you can consistently sacrifice lesser creatures to bring back bigger ones as many times as you wish.


Hell's Caretaker's Sudden 2016 Price Spike


In late January 2016, there was a sudden run on Hell’s Caretakers from 9th edition. Its market price went from $4 to $6 on average over a couple of days. While that's not the biggest price spike in the world, it was somewhat unusual. There were a few more Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder decks being built in EDH due to the Legendary Creature’s reprinting in Commander 2015. Hell’s Caretaker is known as a key contributor to that Commander deck. But otherwise, there wasn’t really any obvious reason that Hell’s Caretaker would suddenly become popular.

So was the popularly surging “Old School Magic” format that uses cards only from 1993 and 1994 sets to blame? Not likely. The original Legends printing barely budged from its $10 price tag. The Chronicles version also barely moved. Additionally, it’s unlikely that Old School Magic had anything to do with it. Deck construction rules specifically state that cards used in Old School (93/94) Magic decks have to share the original card frame and artwork. The 9th edition version wouldn’t even be legal (in most cases).

Another possibility is that another Old School format that includes sets from 1995 (and Ice Age) may be responsible for the renewed interest in Hell’s Caretaker. The aforementioned combo with Enduring Renewal is definitely a possibility. But Enduring Renewal didn't budge, either.

The most likely possibility is that there was an Enduring Renewal & Hell’s Caretaker deck being brewed in Modern. Enduring Renewal was introduced into Modern as a Timeshifted card in Time Spiral - despite not having the Modern card border, a quirk of Modern. Ornithopter is also very much legal in Modern - printed several times after Mirrodin. While there has never been any real talk about such a deck being built, the pieces do exist.

Nowadays, you could bring back Griselbrand, for example, with this combo. Angel of Despair from Guildpact could be used to machine gun away all of your opponent’s permanents. How good that would prove to be in any sort of competitive environment, though, is beyond me.

It’s also very possible that the sudden 50 percent jump in price was nothing more than a few dealers and speculators stocking up on Modern-legal cards that could be good. But it’s interesting to note that the old school combo does exist. If you want to be funny, Fallen Angel is legal in Modern, too, being printed in 8th edition. It probably wouldn't be a deck that would win too much, as it could prove to be a bit too slow.

It’s always fun to speculate why certain cards are run on at certain points in time. In this case, it reminds us of a combo that may still work today – albeit one that's probably too slow to be garnering any top finishes at any tournaments any time soon.