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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!


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High Market
- From the Vault: Realms

Reviewed August 28, 2012

Constructed: 2.90
Casual: 3.10
Limited: 2.33
Multiplayer: 2.63

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

High Market

Activated abilities on lands are nice, since they don't take up a spell slot and can thus give you more on-the-board options without having to cast more spells. On the other hand, they only work if you can leave that land untapped, which means if you're still in the process of curving out, you can't really use the ability. That hurts a bit if the nature of the ability is more reactive, like High Market's. If your opponent has a kill spell, or just forces you to chump block something, you can sack the doomed creature for an extra life point. Morbid triggers or graveyard recursion would help it, but even then unless you're using this as the sack outlet for another combo, all you're getting is a more complicated Fountain of Youth, and that doesn't win games. If my strategy revolved around my creatures going to the graveyard I'd gladly run one or two of these, but one life point is almost never worth sacrificing a creature unless you're desperate to keep it out from under a Volition Reins or something.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 2
Limited- 2
Multiplayer- 2

David Fanany

Player since 1995

High Market
 
On the surface, this may not look like much of a comparison to something like Miren, the Moaning Well from Saviors of Kamigawa. The point of High Market, though, has never been to gain life: it's to have a way to repeatedly sacrifice creatures that want to die that is itself very hard to destroy or counter, and it does that rather well. Back in the day of Mercadian Masques, it provided an additional interaction for cards like Nether Spirit and Grave Pact, and even now it's arguably one of the best combinations with the Kamigawa dragons as it doesn't require any mana payment on top of their high costs. Try it with Act of Treason.
 
Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is High Market which is a land that taps for one or taps to sacrifice a creature to gain one life. Under the current rulings this is only an okay source for a sacrifice in response to removal or in the place of other sacrifice options that can be countered, cost mana, or can be more readily removed. The small gain of life and difficulty in repeatedly using this compared to other options keeps it from being a standout choice. Overall even with the benefits of it being a land the loss of a colored mana drop or lack of mana from it when using the effect combined with minimal flexibility put this fairly low on the list of cards to consider in a sacrifice deck or as sidedeck material.

In a Limited format with this it isn't a bad response to removal, but is not worth a first or even early pick in Booster as it does little to promote an improvement in your battlefield presence. Even in Sealed this is kind of mediocre as it doesn't help a multicolor build much and reasons to sacrifice your own creature shouldn't manifest often.

Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 2.0
Multiplayer: 2.5

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

Welcome to the Pojo.com card of the day section. This time we are looking at High Market from the soon to be released From the Vault Realms. High Market is a land that taps for a generic mana. It also has the ability tap, sacrifice a creature: gain 1 life.

I started playing shortly after the Mercadian Masques set where High Market was first printed, and I wish I had a chance to get an original all those years ago. It would have been simply amazing. While not the most overpowered card ever, it was easily a favorite among many players in that it could be used in token decks, as well as several other deck types, to sacrifice things and get life. These days, Undying and Morbid decks built under Legacy rules simply salivate at the fact that a High Market is now easily accessible. Sacrifice something to gain life, gain a bigger creature, possibly dodge some removal with the Undying, trigger some Morbid, all these things are made easily possible.

Glad to see the High Market printed in this set, it will be fun to see it circulate in some Legacy decks again. Be sure to pick your own up when the From the Vault releases this weekend!

Limited: n/a
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 5/5
Multiplayer: 3/5


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