The spoiler season for the Final Fantasy MTG set is finally coming to an end this week. On Friday, May 30th, all will be revealed at long last, but there’s still a lot to see until then. Curiously, it seems some MTG cards just can’t wait to be revealed, as a couple of cards were leaked over the weekend.
Like the vast majority of Final Fantasy spoilers, these new leaked cards are seriously exciting, as they depict iconic characters and moments. This is especially true for Golbez, Crystal Collector, who looks pretty powerful, not to mention iconic. While Golbez hasn’t even been officially revealed yet, this card is already causing an immense amount of movement on the MTG markets.
Golbez, Crystal Collector
In MTG, crystals have a long history of being artifacts. With this in mind, it makes sense that Golbez cares about collecting, playing, and amassing all kinds of artifacts. At first glance, while there is a lot of value on offer, Golbez’s abilities may seem rather slow. Once you realize his ability doesn’t discriminate against tokens, however, he turns into a real monster.
Costing just two mana, Golbez, Crystal Collector can come down early and almost immediately get to work. Provided you have a way to generate artifact tokens like Clues, Food, or Treasures, you should have no shortage of Surveil triggers. This allows you to easily fill your graveyard with massive threats for shenanigans later.
While Golbez, Crystal Collector can put in work alongside a couple of token generators, they’re exceptionally good alongside Academy Manufactor. With this artifact in play, you just need one token creation trigger to have four artifacts on the board. From here, you can easily start getting cards back in your hand from the graveyard.
With Manufactor in play, reaching the eight artifact threshold should be a piece of cake. Even without this handy Assembly-Worker, there’s no shortage of artifacts in Commander, especially artifact tokens. This means it should be fairly easy to get Golbez going, early on, too, considering their low mana cost.
Once fully online, Golbez, Crystal Collector can really start putting in work. If you get Affinity threats like Thought Monitor and threats like Metalwork Colossus in the bin, Golbez can dish out serious damage. Since this damage affects each opponent, Golbez could feasibly end games in a couple of turns if left unchecked.
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist
While Golbez, Crystal Collector might not beat out Urza, Chief Artificer as the go-to artifact-themed Commander, they’re nonetheless strong. On top of this strength, Golbez is obviously a Final Fantasy card, which further adds to his popularity. Much like Vivi Ornitier, it seems like Golbez will be one of this set’s most popular new Commander options.
Realizing this potential, MTG players were quick to jump on any potential synergies. On the r/mtgfinance subreddit, Mirko Obsessive Theorist was quickly identified as a compelling potential spec. Looking at the card, it’s clear to see why these two work well together, as there’s an obvious Surveil synergy.
Very simply, the more you Surveil, the bigger Mirko gets, and the larger creatures Mirko can reanimate. Considering a Golbez deck will be aiming to put massive threats into the graveyard, Mirko should have no end of potential fuel. While this is already strong, Golbez sweetens the deal even further, as he can bring back Mirko if they ever get removed.
The Spec
As mentioned, those on the r/mtgfinance subreddit see Mirko as a fantastic new spec and have been quick to take action. Since Golbez was leaked yesterday, there’s been an insane number of sales for Mirko, Obsessive Theorist. On TCGplayer, over 1,500 copies have been sold in the past couple of days.
Despite this immense surge in sales, the price of Mirko hasn’t spiked that hard just yet. At the moment, there are still over 300 near-mint copies available for purchase across both variants. Listings for these copies are still mercifully cheap, with normal foil copies selling for $0.12, while non-foil extended art copies go for $0.38.
While Mirko hasn’t spiked thanks to Golbez just yet, it seems that that writing could be on the wall. Given the sheer volume of sales, it’s not unrealistic to think that the rest of the supply could be snapped up shortly. If, or rather when, this happens, we may see Mirko massively jump up in price.
Should this happen, Mirko, Obsessive Theorist is going to seem like a real financial slam dunk. Thanks to the low starting price, even a spike up to a few dollars is going to look insanely good. For now, it’s unclear if this is going to happen or how expensive Mirko might end up being in the long run. All we know for now is that this Murders at Karlov Manor Commander card is getting a new lease of life soon.
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