This week, we have to say goodbye to the card which pretty much served as the ol’ faithful of these lists to date – but at least we get to welcome back a few familiar creatures to the fold.
While we’ve been away for a few weeks on account of the festive season, it’s quite clear that the Official Marketplace is as vibrant as ever, producing a brand new environment in the ever-shifting landscape we’ve seen so far, suggesting further developments down the line as we slowly edge towards the first expansion of Gods Unchained.
Featured writer and long-time TCG fan, Luci Kelemen takes us down the marketplace rabbit hole once again…
Here’s the headline this time around: only three cards remained on the list from Week 3, which was itself a massive move back towards the opening week from the widely changed Week 2 environment.
Interestingly, we’re once again seeing an influx of cards to the top twenty sellers, with fourteen of them being brand new on this list overall. This means we have to say goodbye to Nimble Pixie, the amazing Amazon card which was the only one to have a 100% attendance record so far. She’s missing the class this time around, going from second to fifteenth to sub-20.
On the bright side, we will now have an interesting comparison point between those who flickered in and out of this bracket, which should help prospective buyers in the future to establish which cards are doing better on the longevity side of things.
The #1 spot this time around goes to the aforementioned Trojan Golem, the only card to actually climb compared to the last report. Pyramid Warden and Demigorgon were the other two to keep up their presence, the former dropping from #7 to #8 while the latter went from #4 to #16 – a pretty significant downturn, especially with its opening week first spot in mind.
However, it’s entirely possible the latest balance update (which we’ll cover later in this article) has impacted the community’s interest in otherwise premium Deception cards, even with the class’ excellent performances in Mythic and the last Weekend Ranked Constructed event as well.
Agrodor Protector, Avatar of War and Ocular Fiend were the ones that made their triumphant return from the opening week, with the Amazon going from #10 to #3 at the fourth time of asking. The other two only managed to grab a spot in the lower parts of the list, coming in at #15 and #19 respectively instead of their original eighth and eleventh showings.
Out with the old, in with the new: Master of Indulgences came it at #2, which is very interesting considering it’s a Light card which was already a part of the Midrange Light deck popularized by Dookis at the end of last year, yet failed to show up on the rankings in our Week 3 writeup. So far, it seems like it takes a bit of time for market movements to track significant meta shifts – it will be interesting to see whether this process speeds up or slows down going forward.
The overall rarity levels of the top 20 cards continues to “drop”, with only two legendaries featured on this week’s list. Avatar of War is one of them, but the other is a much bigger surprise: it’s Dick Puddlecote, a neutral 3/3 from the Genesis set with a Roar that says “Obliterate your hand, for each obliterated card add a random rune to your hand”. Turns out, you want quite a lot of those for Avatar of Magic-based decks! Though this card’s popularity appears to have echoes of A Real Man, which was driven by mischievous community meddling.
Expect big swings the following week as well: with many players returning from the holiday period and the January 7th balance changes. It features a Memory Charm nerf and buffs to Nature’s Flourish spell and Enrage with a very clear intention to support decks built around it – and we will certainly be watching whether this will be reflected in the presence of War cards on next week’s charts.
Malfunctioning Servitor, Gentle Monk and Shadow Scryer take the next spots on the weekly top 20 cards list. Somewhat further down, Spiral Golem is also notable: though it only came in at #14 place on this particular list, it saw a massive rise in popularity in terms of performance if you look at the data collated by CardsUnchained, rising to 10th place in the trend charts at the time of writing.
Netherborne Binder comes in at #12, sandwiched between Pallbearer and Ashen Drake. It will be interesting to see whether it will continue this rise next week.
Trial Spirit, Athenian Archer and Master Tactician are intriguing contenders for similar spikes, though it has to be said that this data didn’t correlate with Marketplace performances the last time we highlighted them as part of the Midrange Light package. However, these cards are both higher on the list and are popularized right after a balance change, which makes them worth keeping an eye on moving forward.
That’s right, the Marketplace Analysis column is back in the swing of things, so expect another update next week! Until then, may your gods remain unchained, as a certain designer would say!
~ Luci Kelemen
See more:
- Update 0.20 & State of The Beta
- Official Marketplace: Top 20 Cards (Wk 3)
- The Man Who Sold A Mythic - Interview
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