At long last, prereleases for the Final Fantasy MTG set are finally upon us. As of today, Final Fantasy cards are now legal in constructed formats on paper. This means players can officially crack open the set’s new precons and pit them against one another. Additionally, passing over this threshold means all manner of upgrades are now properly on the table.
While we’ve already seen plenty of price spikes throughout Final Fantasy’s spoiler season, it seems the market movement isn’t over. Recently, another compelling upgrade to one of the Final Fantasy precons has over doubled in price. Considering this card is one of the more interesting things you can do with the Counter Blitz deck, this spike is wholly unsurprising.
Sage of Hours
First released back in 2014’s Journey into Nyx, Sage of Hours looks fairly bad on the surface. On their own, this card requires an immense amount of investment, since it only has Heroic to generate +1/+1 counters. Thankfully, there are a fair few cards that can grant +1/+1 counters to other creatures, but Sage of Hours still isn’t amazing.
Outside of its “take an extra turn” ability, Sage of Hours is just a weak creature that isn’t worth playing over other Heroic threats. Thankfully, it is entirely possible to break this ability, creating massive value and potentially infinite combos. In Commander, the most iconic of these combos happens when combined with Ezuri, Claw of Progress.
So long as you have five experience counters on Ezuri with Sage of Hours in play, you get infinite turns. This combo essentially guarantees you the win, so it’s no wonder this is where Sage sees the most play. Sadly, the new synergy with Yuna, Grand Summoner isn’t quite this impressive, but it’s nonetheless driving demand.
When using Yuna as a mana dork, Sage of Hours enters with two +1/+1 counters. This is already a good start, but things get a lot better when you have a lot of counters floating around. The main upside of Yuna is that she lets you relocate a dying creature’s +1/+1 counters. If you’ve got counters going spare, Sage of Hours is the perfect place for them.
While this synergy is unlikely to get you back-to-back extra turns, it’s still not to be scoffed at. Taking an extra turn is a huge swing in Commander, and getting a few of them over a game is massively powerful. Since Counter Blitz has no trouble generating counters, this synergy definitely shouldn’t be dismissed.
The Spike
Unlike some of the other Final Fantasy-based price spikes we’ve seen recently, Sage of Hours’ has still gone up. Potentially, depending on how the demand for the Final Fantasy set progresses, this could just be the start. Even now, however, the price of Sage of Hours is fairly impressive, considering it’s hardly a staple.
Last month, in early May, copies of Sage of Hours were selling for around $3.55 on average. Notably, this price is for near-mint copies of the card, as worse-condition copies are slightly cheaper, as usual. Curiously, despite the Counter Blitz precon being revealed in its entirety on May 13th, it seemingly took a week for players to take notice.
As you can see above, on May 20th, there was a huge uptick in the sales of Sage of Hours. This surge was largely contained to near-mint and lightly played copies, which put a massive dent in the available supply. As usual, this quickly caused prices to start rising, and things have barely slowed down since then.
Currently, a near-mint copy of Sage of Hours will set you back $9.87, including shipping. This marks a 178% price spike over the past month or so. Notably, a few near-mint copies have sold for as much as $13.91, but these sales appear to be due to TCGplayer Direct.
While these high sales do appear to be outliers at the moment, there’s a real chance Sage of Hours hits this peak eventually. To date, the original Journey Into Nyx printing is the only available variant. Due to the age of this printing, copies in decent condition are fairly scarce, and foils are even rarer. Right now, a near-mint foil copy of Sage will set you back a little over $30.
The Future
Right now, it’s unclear which direction the price of Sage of Hours will go. As you can see above in MTGStock’s price history, Sage of Hours is already at its all-time peak. Potentially, this could continue to climb now that players can actually buy the Final Fantasy preconstructed decks.
As we’ve mentioned before, however, the Final Fantasy precons are a little too thematic for their own good. Thanks to having new art throughout, upgrading these precons will cause a bit of a flavor crash. While it’s unlikely that this will matter to every MTG player, it nevertheless may limit the appeal of this upgrade.
Looking further ahead, while Yuna is bound to have some long-term demand, Sage of Hours is hardly a sure thing. As mentioned, when not supported by synergy or combos, Sage takes a massive amount of resources. Due to this, they’re never really going to be a staple in Commander.
Theoretically, Wizards of the Coast could definitely print more +1/+1 counter moving and creating Commanders. By the time they do this, however, Sage of Hours may be reprinted, either in a precon or otherwise. If this happens, new near-mint supply would cause the price of Sage to quickly crash.
Ultimately, while we don’t exactly trust that Sage of Hours will keep spiking, we can’t predict the future. Subsequently, as usual, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks.
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