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As a brief note about singles: as we sell out of singles as a preorder, we raise the price on that card and add more cards to the system. If there's a particular card you're looking to order, try to order it sooner than later - if other people are buying out that card (and the singles from this set are selling extraordinarily well), the price will only go up over time.
Ben's Corner will be a premium article next week. I'll be writing my "Ravnica Cards to Trade for at the Prerelease" article for the premium side of the site. I've had a really good accuracy rate in the past (80-90% right) and have never held back any information - I've always laid it all on the table. This time around, the list will be based half on actual preorder sales (which is hard, solid data) and half on speculation on cards that people are overlooking right now.
Card of the week: Hypnotic Specter
Hypnotic Specter has doubled in value over the past two months, and looks to be a staple of Standard and Extended for the next few years. Thanks to the bevy of mana accelerators and dual lands in both 9th Edition and Ravnica, Black/Green decks can reasonably expect to get a second turn Hypnotic Specter out when one is drawn in the opening hand. Remember, Green has three one-drop mana accelerators post-Ravnica: Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, and Elves of Deep Shadow. Two of these produce Black Mana, and combined with Llanowar Wastes and Overgrown Tomb. Hypnotic Specter will potentially (and I'd go so far as saying that this is likely) become the marquee creature of Standard over the next year, much in the way that Kokusho/Arcbound Ravager/Exalted Angel were the marquee creatures in Standard in seasons past.
9th Edition Sales Report!
9th Edition singles have been out for a couple of months now, and here for the first time is our list of complied best sellers! These are the cards which we've done the highest volume on total among 9th Edition cards, and they are broken down by commonality.
Commons:
1) Llanowar Elves
2) Naturalize
3) Seething Song
4) Sleight of Hand
5) Mana Leak
No suprises here. Llanowar Elves are the most popular rotated-in card among the 9th Edition Commons, and so have sold the most. Seething Song sold a bit more strongly than anticipated. Naturalize and Mana Leak are staples of the base set at this point.
Uncommons:
1) Cruel Edict
2) Gift of Estates
3) Quicksand
4) Boiling Seas
5) Blackmail
All five of these cards are new to the base set for the first time. Gift of Estates sales will probably surpass Cruel Edict sales over the coming months thanks to the Plains-based Dual Lands throughout Ravnica block. Many people ordered Boiling Seas to replace Boil as the Blue hoser of choice for Standard, and it will continue to do well as States approaches. Blackmail is very popular with casual players, though I would expect it to reasonably be exclipsed by a more tournament playable card such as Kird Ape once the R/G guild is released later in Ravnica block.
Rares
1) Mindslicer
2) Hell's Caretaker
3) Brushland
4) Karplusan Forest
5) Jester's Cap
6) Underground River
7) Will-o'-the-Wisp
8) Utopia Tree
9) Clone
10) Hypnotic Specter
Hypnotic Specter would hands down be our best seller if we could keep them in stock. All ten cards in this list are very close (within 10 cards sold) to each other in terms of sales. I can say that of all the 9th Edition cards, we have sold the most non-9th Edition versions of Hypnotic Specters. Utopia Tree will probably fall off this list in favor of Ravnica Birds in the coming months. I have no explanation for the sales of Clone, given that Onslaught Clone sales have been pretty slow. I expect Battlefield Forge sales to pick up briskly once Ravnica is released, as the R/W guild has a lot of playable cards and will make the color combination viable.
Until next week,
Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com
Ben@StarCityGames.com
