Despite all the leaks, the Edge of Eternities debut yesterday still revealed tons of exciting new cards. New Commanders, constructed staples, and reprints have been revealed for us to gawp at. Admittedly, some of these cards aren’t too powerful, but there are a few that have captured players’ attention.
Unsurprisingly, Thrumming Hivepool stole the spotlight once it was officially revealed. Teased by Mark Rosewater last week, this is the much-anticipated new Sliver card in the set. Offering decent buffs, token generation, and all for potentially free, this card is a future Commander staple. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that other Sliver cards have started to quickly spike in price.
Sliver Gravemother
There’s no doubt that Slivers are one of the most popular and powerful typal archetypes in Commander. Offering incredible synergy thanks to most Slivers providing a board-wide buff, this deck can quickly get out of hand. The only downside of building a Sliver deck is that it can be somewhat boring, as there are so many ultra-powerful auto-includes.
For better or worse, there’s no reason not to play all the best Slivers in a deck. Unlike other typal archetypes that have to pick and choose between colors, Slivers are only ever five-color. To date, Wizards of the Coast has printed six legendary Slivers, each one of which is a five-color card.
Out of that bunch, Sliver Gravemother definitely isn’t the strongest. That honor, instead, goes to The First Sliver or perhaps even Sliver Overlord due to their scaling abilities. Saying that, Sliver Gravemother is by no means a bad card. At the very least, Gravemother gives each sliver Encore, allowing them to briefly come back from the graveyard.
On top of this Sliver Gravemother also lets you ignore the Legend Rule for Slivers, allowing for some neat copying shenanigans. Admittedly, while both of these abilities are incredibly useful, Gravemother is often better suited to being in the 99. While this might sound like a downgrade, there’s no reason not to play Gravemother, since you’ll always be playing five-color.
Notably, while Thrumming Hivepool is the latest hype-building Sliver card, it’s actually pretty weak alongside Gravemother. As much as you can get use out of Double Strike and Haste, Gravemother’s Encore ability is useless on tokens. Still, if you’re building a Sliver deck, you’ll want this card.
The Spike
So far, Sliver Gravemother hasn’t spiked an insane amount, percentage-wise, at least. Over the past month, the market price for Gravemother has only increased by 10%. At the start of the month, copies were selling for $12.15, and now the market price is a blistering $13.37. Notably, however, the market price history doesn’t tell the full story.
As you can see, yesterday there was an immense spike in sales for near-mint copies of Sliver Gravemother. This has almost completely drained the available supply from the market for this Extended Art variant. Currently, on TCGplayer, only four listings are offering a total of 18 copies. Prices for these copies now start at $34.60, not including shipping.
Notably, the normal foil-only printing of Sliver Gravemother has seen a similar sales spike. This has caused a comparable price increase, with near-mint copies jumping from $9 to $30. Unlike the Extended Art variant, copies have actually been selling at this price point. In theory, it may only be a matter of time before the non-foil Extended Art copies follow suit.
While this overnight spike might seem like a cash grab, Slivers do have a history of being expensive in MTG. Sliver Overlord, for instance, is worth around $53 on average at the moment. That said, this price may shift thanks to the upcoming reprint as a Special Guest in Edge of Eternities.
Due to this, there’s a non-zero chance that a lot of this current price spike might stick long term. While Sliver Gravemother was the face Commander for the Sliver Swarm deck, there clearly isn’t a lot of supply.
Spiking Slivers
Unsurprisingly, now that Slivers are back in vogue, Sliver Gravemother isn’t the only one on the up and up. Lazotep Sliver, also from Commander Masters, has recently been climbing in price. While this card hasn’t seen the same sales explosion as Gravemother, it seems players have been watching it.
Curiously, Lazotep Sliver jumped in price with a sales surge before Wizards properly teased the return of Slivers. This may have been caused by early speculation about Edge of Eternities, or it may have been a targeted buyout. Whatever the cause, Lazotep Sliver is now a rather scarce card, with few near-mint copies available.
This time last month, Lazotep Sliver was selling for around $1.91 on average. Now, however, listings start at $8 and quickly shoot up to $15 after that. Whether or not MTG players will actually be willing to pay that elevated price tag, however, remains to be seen.
While these two Slivers are the first to spike, it’s unlikely they’ll be the only ones. MTG has no shortage of powerful and surprisingly scarce Slivers, which may soon be in demand. Should the hype around Thrumming Hivepool continue, there will potentially be a lot of money to be made.
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