Back in February, Wizards of the Coast announced the new Commander Bracket System, much to the delight of players. Within this system, the new Game Changers List was created to define some of the format’s most powerful cards. On top of helping to balance Commander games, the Game Changers List is also the official ban and unban watchlist.
Currently, the Game Changers List only contains 40 cards and each one is there for good reason. All of these cards have incredibly impactful effects that can completely warp a Commander game. It is no exaggeration to say that they can make the game revolve entirely around them until the cards get removed. Smothering Tithe is no exception.
As one of the most popular cards in Commander, it makes sense for Smothering Tithe to have a decent secondary market value. What you may not expect, however, is that the anime treatment for Smothering Tithe is worth more than twice its other variants after a recent price spike.
Smothering Tithe
While it’s not great in two-player formats, Smothering Tithe is an absolute monster in multiplayer. With four players around the board, the amount of value it can provide is truly obscene. Unless your opponents want to tax themselves during their turns, you’ll be making a Treasure Token each time they draw a card. This makes it incredibly easy to ramp ahead of your opponents and outpace them quickly.
Smothering Tithe is more than capable of taking over the game until it gets removed. If you take too long to remove it, the damage may have already been done. Even generating just ten mana with this card is enough to end games. As such, it’s no wonder why this card is on the Game Changers list.
Originally released as part of Ravnica Allegiance, Smothering Tithe has seen a fair few printings since 2019. Even though the card has appeared in four sets, all of its variants retain a price over $30. The Anime art Smothering Tithe from Wilds of Eldraine, however, is a bit of a different story.
The Price
Smothering Tithe’s price increase isn’t too impressive from a percentage standpoint, but monetarily it’s a big deal. The card has spiked from $88 to $109 in the last three months. This spike started from $71 in mid-November. While Smothering Tithe hasn’t spiked quickly, it has increased in price a fair bit over the past few months.
Notably, this price spike is only for the non-foil variant of the anime art Smothering Tithe. Because of various levels of availability for these chase cards in Wilds of Eldraine, each variant of Smothering Tithe has a wildly different price. Generally, non-foil Anime art copies of Smothering Tithe are selling for between $100 and $130 at the moment, suggesting potential for further spikes in the future.
While non-foil Anime Smothering Tithe can be found in Wilds of Eldraine Play Boosters, foils can only be found in Collector Booster packs. For that reason, foils are much more expensive. These generally sell for between $180 and $200.
Finally, Confetti Foils are the lottery ticket hit in Wilds of Eldraine Collector Booster packs. If you’re lucky enough to find one of these incredibly rare hits, you’ve earned yourself $450.
Fortunately, if you just want the cheapest copy of Smothering Tithe on the market, you can get away with paying a lot less. $30-$35 is hardly the cheapest card in MTG, but there’s a big difference between this and a $100 card.
Will The Spike Stay?
Because this spike for Smothering Tithe has happened over a longer period of time, it is a lot more stable than a majority of sudden spikes that get players’ attention. As long as Smothering Tithe is legal in the Commander format, there is going to be demand for it.
Ironically, there is a real chance that this card will get banned. We’re scheduled to get an update on the Commander Bracket System introduced by Gavin Verhey in April, and this update is confirmed to include Commander banlist changes. While the Game Changers list functions first and foremost as a semi-ban list to keep powerful cards out of weaker games, it is also a watchlist. Cards that could be banned or unbanned in Commander need to spend some time on the Game Changers list.
This means that there is a non-zero chance that Smothering Tithe could be banned in April, but the general consensus is that this won’t happen. If anything, many players are expecting this announcement to include a series of unbans instead.
This is likely the only way that Smothering Tithe’s price will drop, with the exception of another reprinting. Even then, because the Anime artwork for Smothering Tithe is so unique, it may remain unaffected. This particular treatment doesn’t appear to be getting any cheaper anytime soon.
