Top Trades: August 4 - August 11

Smaug, Wicked Worm | Illustrated by Antonio José Manzanedo

Howdy, folks, and welcome to Top Trades, the weekly series where we take a look at the most popular picks here at Cardsphere. With The Hobbit set to formally release this week, all eyes are on just how big an impact our return to Middle-earth will be. So, what's been moving? Let's take a look!

Honorable Mention - Battle of Wits

Number of Trades: 8 --- Number of Cards Traded: 12

Kicking things off as our honorable mention of the week is Battle of Wits, an enchantment for that causes you to win the game at the beginning of your upkeep if your library has 200 or more cards on it.

So, why the action? As part of Mystery Booster Commander Edition, Wizards of the Coast has printed Whtz, the Bibliophile, a legendary creature that allows your Commander deck to have no maximum deck size. Finally, Commander now has a way to play Battle of Wits successfully, and traders have caught on.

#5 - The Master of Lake-town

Number of Trades: 5 --- Number of Cards Traded: 5

Moving on to our main list of contenders for the week, The Master of Lake-town is a legendary 3/2 Human Advisor creature for with deathtouch and two triggered abilities. First off, whenever a player loses life, that player mills that many cards. Secondly, when The Master of Lake-town dies, you draw a card for each graveyard with seven or more cards in it.

The Master of Lake-town is an all around solid Commander deck for plenty of strategies. Want to abuse the graveyard? Now all your shocks and fetches will provide even more resources. Planning to deck-out your opponents? The Master of Lake-town can help you there, too, backing up your Hedron Crabs and the like with a little extra aggro.

#4 - Kíli the Resourceful

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 9

Coming in at fourth place, we've got Kíli the Resourceful, a 1/2 legendary Dwarf Scout creature for with storied (If you have any combination of three total artifacts, legendary permanents, and/or Sagas while you control a permanent with storied, you get an enduring story for the rest of the game.) As long as you have an enduring story, you may pay rather than pay the equip cost of the first equip ability you activate each turn. Additionally, whenever another Dwarf or Equipment you control enters, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn.

Kíli does a whole lot for just a little bit of mana. It might not pack the same card draw value as Puresteel Paladin, but storied is basically an easier-to-trigger version of metalcraft, making these two cards decently comparable. All to say, an interesting pick up for plenty of Equipment strategies out there.

#3 - Smaug, Wicked Worm

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Moving from The Hobbit's heroes and on to its foes, let's take a look at Smaug, Wicked Worm.

For , Smaug is a legendary 5/5 Dragon creature with flying and two triggered abilities. First, when Smaug enters, you create X tapped Treasures, where X is the number of artifacts your opponents control. Second, whenever you cast a spell, you draw a card and lose one life if mana from a Treasure was spent to cast it.

Smaug is an absolute beast for Commander players. A mana engine and a card draw machine stapled to an evasive threat, all topped off with one of the format's most popular creature types, Smaug is the kind of card players are going to pick up for ages to come.

#2 - Tamiyo's Safekeeping

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 9

Away from Commander and off to Pauper, we come to our penultimate pick for the week: Tamiyo's Safekeeping.

For , Tamiyo's Safekeeping is an instant that grants target permanent you control hexproof and indestructible until end of turn while also gaining you two life along the way.

Simple, cheap, and oh, so effective, Tamiyo's Safekeeping is among the greatest pieces of defensive interaction green has in Pauper. Use it as a combat trick to push your creature through, or use it to simply negate any sort of incoming removal, Tamiyo's Safekeeping has been a mainstay of Top Trades since this series got started.

#1 - The Queen of Dale

Number of Trades: 8 --- Number of Cards Traded: 8

Last but not least, it's back to The Hobbit for a card that is making waves in Commander of all brackets as well as formats beyond: The Queen of Dale.

For , The Queen of Dale is a 2/1 legendary Human Noble creature with "Whenever an opponent casts their first noncreature spell each turn, you recruit."

While it might just pack one sentence in its textbox, sometimes one sentence is all you need. In Commander, an early copy of this card is an explosive start comparable to Esper Sentinel, easily recruiting three to four times in a turn cycle. While it might not be strict card advantage, that's an insane amount of card selection.

Wrap Up

Well, folks, that's a wrap on this week's Top Trades. Thanks for reading, and, as always, come back next week for another look at Cardsphere's most popular picks.