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Post Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan

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Well that was an exciting Pro Tour wasn't it? We got to see a ton of decks in what appears to be a very diverse format, but we also got some reprint news. Most have had a card from the winning deck get banned, so people are also worried and speculating about the potential impact it may have. There was no other big premier events last weekend so this week is all modern and Commander talk!

Bedlam Reveler
The modern Pro Tour was won by Luis Salvatto playing Lantern Control. If you're unfamiliar with Lantern Control, it has a reputation for being a slow and cumbersome deck that can lead to play patterns that some consider toxic. History has shown that decks that win modern Pro Tours are more likely to cause a ban in the future than any other time. Looking at the history of the Pro Tour, the only winning deck before Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan without a banned card is Shaun McLaren's Jeskai control deck that won Pro Tour Born of the Gods. However, Aaron Forsythe's tweet seems to dispel any fears that a ban may be coming soon. The unattractiveness of game play and difficulty of mastering the Lantern Control deck seems to be one of the biggest factors keeping it in check and saving it from the ban list. That being said, if there was anything I would be worried about getting banned it would be something to slightly hamper the deck without killing it outright, like Ancient Stirrings or Mox Opal. Both cards haven't been reprinted in a while either, so if you have extra copies you aren't playing, I would recommend selling them to avoid any potential loses.

The biggest breakout deck from this Pro Tour was definitely the Mardu Pyromancer deck piloted by Gerry Thompson. While I had seen the decklist before the tournament, in some capacity, it was hard to know if any pros were actually going to play it and if it was going to do well. Here we saw some spikes on lesser played cards like Bedlam Reveler which are an easy dump if you have any copies left. The other biggest price winners this weekend were in the br Hollow One deck that featured Goblin Lore and Burning Inquiry as ways to draw and discard a ton of cards. The deck itself was quite cheap before the Pro Tour, but Goblin Lore and Burning Inquiry are tiny core set commons and uncommons that quickly got bought out over the weekend. If you want to play this deck, I would focus on the other cards and wait for shops to dig through their M10 and 10th Edition bulk to find more copies before buying those to finish it.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking
There was also an ad during the Pro Tour that revealed some information about the upcoming masters set, Masters 25. The packaging for the set was shown (which you can see here) and it includes the art for Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Judge promo art), and a third card that is likely an artifact creature, but with new art. This brief glimpse can help us to understand what kind of set they are trying to make with Masters 25. These two cards were both more than $40 before this reprint so it's clear they're aiming to take some high value cards and hit this set out of the park. If I had to guess, there was a lot more effort put into making this set a lot more appealing than Iconic Masters to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Magic. Official previews don't start for this set until February 26th, but I would keep my eyes peeled for any unofficial leaks that make it to the press early. They're going to try to make this set special, and starting with their most premier planeswalker lead me to believe they will deliver on that.

The last thing I want to touch on is Commander. There are a lot of staples of the format that have been prohibitively expensive for a while and I think there are definitely some cards that will be reprinted in Masters 25 for this player group. Personally, I'm hoping that the Azusa reprint will also be followed by an Oracle of Mul Daya reprint, as both land accelerant cards are quite expensive and popular in Commander. What I would also pay attention to is the much cheaper cards that go into the decks of the cards that get spoiled. Right now I'm looking at the top played cards on EDHRec.com and looking at the cheaper cards that are highly played and unlikely to get reprinted. Courser of Kruphix and Horn of Greed are the biggest standouts to me because Horn of Greed got reprinted so recently and enchantment creatures are unlikely to exist in a set that doesn't care about enchantments. If we see an Eidolon of Blossoms spoiler for Masters 25 I may be a little more wary about Courser of Kruphix, but until then I am interested in making sure I own my copies. I wrote about it last week, but I'm still beating the Tireless Tracker drum because that guy is way too good in way too many formats to stay this cheap for long. I don't think enough people have played with it to truly appreciate how it can take over a game so quickly, as card drawing in Green is so limited.

That's all I have for this week. Hopefully I covered everything that caught your attention but if you have any questions feel free to ask them below or send me a message on twitter!


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