#CMWhatTheTrend - The Spice of New Standard

First Standard Results

M20 has come out and during the past weekend we had a first impression of the new Standard. A MOCS playoff took place and the results were very surprising to me: instead of Esper Hero continuously dominating Standard, there were three new archetypes in the top 8, which you can check out on Cardmarket Decks:

Simic Flash, Jund Dinosaurs and Orzhov Vampires

I'm not sure who would've predicted these archetypes but I had none of them on my radar. Vampires might be the "obvious" one with them being a theme in M20 but still…

Financial Impact

Simic Flash

One of the questions that need an answer every time a new format comes around is "which cards will gain enough demand to increase their price significantly?". With Simic Flash, that question is easy to answer: the only rares in the main deck are the 12 Simic duals in Standard and 4 . The latter has already seen a significant increase in price, jumping from around 50 cents to 4€ in about a week (the Flash deck has been known about for a bit before the weekend). What remains to be seen is whether this deck can hold its ground in the coming weeks, which could lead to the wolf getting even more expensive (keep in mind that M20 as a Core Set might not get opened too much). I am no master at predicting a Standard metagame, I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

, , and have not yet seen a similar price spike, which has a lot to do with them already having a certain demand and them being reprinted (sometimes even multiple times). A larger supply obviously makes it so the increase in demand needs to be much bigger for them to become more expensive.

Jund Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs had it coming. After Ixalan's powerlevel was relatively low, the set failed to make the huge hitters into a tier 1 deck, but with an incredibly strong new two-drop in it became very playable. Just think about how strong of an effect Marauding Raptor is - a mana dork with a solid body that can attack while producing mana and even gets pumped from other dinosaurs. The card reminds me a bit of on a body. Add this with a 7/6 for three mana in and the [Teferi, Time Reveler]-killing and you have a hard hitting aggro deck.

As for the €€€, I don't expect huge changes in old Dinosaur cards. Ixalan is rotating out with the next set and everyone and their grandparents have copies of lying around. Even the new cards will have a tough time rising in value because the deck will be eliminated from Standard once rotation comes, but at least these are of a power level that might see play in Standard at a later time again.

Orzhov Vampires

Very similarly to Dinosaurs, Vampires didn't see any play before M20 – the traditional mono white was simply a better aggro deck. But now that is a one-sided on a Planeswalker stick that puts five drops into play on turn three, the deck has gained new power. and are both powerful when cheated out and the remaining deck reminds of the already mentioned mono white beatdown.

Also, similarly to Dinosaurs, this deck doesn't enable huge monetary gains. Cards will rotate out soon and even though Vona is a Mythic, being a one or two-off will not alter her price in a major way. The only card that might still rise are but only until rotation hits and only if vampires become a powerhouse in Standard.

Wrapping Up

In closing we can say that both Dinosaur and Vampire-cards are hindered by rotating out soon and the decks not single handedly dominating the format. The whole situation reminds me of the Zombie deck of Amonkhet + Shadows over Innistrad, only that Zombies were an incredible force in Standard (which remains to be seen for our stompy and bloodthirsting friends as well as the Green-Blue Flash deck).