The long-awaited Commander Bracket System update hits the internet tomorrow. Thanks to a previous statement from MTG designer, Gavin Verhey, it is basically confirmed that some unbans will occur. Speculation has run so rampant that it is even affecting the secondary market.
Multiple banned Commander cards have been increasing in price recently, but the collection of cards banned in the last announcement are spiking particularly hard over the past few months. Many anticipate that these cards could get unbanned tomorrow, and as a result, Jeweled Lotus just saw a steep price increase.
Jeweled Lotus
Jeweled Lotus lost all of its usage after getting banned in Commander. The card technically has a very niche Legacy role as a mana generator alongside Doubling Cube, but that has no presence in the current metagame.
Jeweled Lotus is an obvious callback to Black Lotus, the most iconic card in Magic: The Gathering. Even with the very severe restriction of only being able to use your Jeweled Lotus mana for Commanders, this card was deemed too powerful for the format and ultimately banned.
Frankly, Jeweled Lotus isn’t the type of MTG card that most Commander players will throw in their casual deck. Fast mana this powerful is typically reserved for bracket 4 and 5 Commander play. At those levels, Jeweled Lotus isn’t a power outlier. In fact, there’s actually an argument that it helps the format.
At the highest level of Commander, Jeweled Lotus supports some lower-tier Commanders. cEDH is largely dominated by Partner Commanders who span three to four colors. These decks cannot utilize Jeweled Lotus effectively because it can only generate one color of mana at a time.
Mono-colored Commanders get the biggest boost from Jeweled Lotus’s existence. Urza, Lord High Artificer, Slicer, High-Speed Antagonist and Godo, Bandit Warlord are all examples of some Commanders that have fallen out of favor at the highest level since Jeweled Lotus got banned.
Since Jeweled Lotus could theoretically help diversity at the highest level, this seems like a great card to unban as a Game Changer. Jeweled Lotus does damage at low-power tables, not high-power ones, and having the card recognized as a Game Changer could help keep it out of lower power level play.
The Spike
Jeweled Lotus had a massive spike back in February, and another spike occurred over the last week. The February spike is shared across all cards banned in the last Commander announcement. What we’re concerned about is the recent spike.
Jeweled Lotus has spiked from $46 to $80 over the past week. This is likely directly related to buyers speculating that the card will be unbanned tomorrow. If It does get unbanned, Jeweled Lotus’s secondary market value could skyrocket overnight.
The above graph is for the Commander Legends variant of Jeweled Lotus, but the Commander Masters variant mirrors it. That traditional card spiked from $45 to $80 around the same time frame. Taking a look at premium variants of Jeweled Lotus, the borderless variant from Commander Masters has seen a smaller spike from $80 to $100. The extended art variant from Commander Legends is selling for between $80 and $90 at the time of writing. These are all for nonfoil variants of the card.
Finally, the Textured foil variant of Jeweled Lotus has been seeing a gradual spike since February. The card is currently worth about $430 – about a $60 spike during the same period as the other Jeweled Lotus spikes.
This Might Not Go as Expected
While speculative buyers may expect to make a fortune off of Jeweled Lotus if the card is unbanned, the price increase may only be temporary. Interestingly, this recent spike puts the cheapest variants of Jeweled Lotus to a comparable price point for the card before it got banned in Commander. There’s less than a $10 difference.
If Jeweled Lotus does end up getting unbanned, the price of the card may not change much. There’s likely to be a massive surge of demand initially, but once things cool down, Jeweled Lotus’s cheapest variants could still be worth about $80. This also somewhat depends on if other fast mana pieces get unbanned. The less fast mana options in Commander, the more valuable Jeweled Lotus becomes.
Regardless, the real value in the Jeweled Lotus unban speculation might be in the premium variants. While the cheapest Jeweled Lotus have almost recovered their market value, there’s still quite a big discrepancy for the more expensive variants. Extended art Jeweled Lotus are still $35 cheaper at the time of writing from their pre-ban prices. A similar price gap is seen for the non-foil extended variant. On the other hand, the textured foil has a difference of about $100.
For any of this to matter, Jeweled Lotus first needs to be unbanned, and because of the sensitive nature regarding these bans, they will need to be handled carefully. If all of this lines up, however, Jeweled Lotus’s return to the Commander format may be surprisingly welcome.