While the spoiler season for Magic’s Spider Man set finished last week, the MTG markets aren’t moving like mad. Without precons this set lacks easy products to upgrade, and the new legends aren’t that exciting either. Sure, Green Goblin is powerful, and Cosmic Spider-Man lets you play everything, but demand is seemingly lacking.
Without a paper printing of Fleem, Golben’s Creation, players aren’t gravitating around a single Spider Man card. Thanks to this, we’re seeing more life being breathed into old trends, rather than new cards dominating the market. Recently, Landfall cards have been on the up and up, and it seems one curious Sonic the Hedgehog spec has been quietly moving mountains.
Winged Hive Tyrant
For five mana, Winged Hive Tyrant is pretty tame for a modern MTG card. Considering this card can only be played in eternal formats, too, Wizards definitely could have pushed it more. While you do get a decent body and buff for five mana, you have to put in a good bit of work to make this card worthwhile.
Thankfully, distributing counters to everything you control is hardly an impossible feat in modern MTG. In these colors, however, it’s a lot more difficult than you might think. Thanks to Winged Hive Tyrant’s Izzet colors, you can’t play it with Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian or even Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice.
While its colors do impact Winged Hive Tyrant’s playability, there are some suitable counter-focused Commanders. Several of these have been printed recently, in fact, such as Kilo, Apogee Mind from Edge of Eternities. Admittedly, while there is some Proliferate-based synergy, the Counter Intelligence precon isn’t all about swinging in with big counter-fuelled threats.
Luckily for fans of Winged Hive Tyrant, swinging in with counter-fuelled threats is exactly what Sonic the Hedgehog wants to do. These cards have some fantastic synergy together; in fact, as Sonic buffs your Haste-y creatures with +1/+1 counters when attacking. So long as your creatures already have counters on them, Tyrant will ensure they have Haste, allowing Sonic to dish out additional buffs.
While this is some very compelling synergy, especially since Sonic can generate Treasures too, you do need to get the ball rolling. This may be a hurdle to overcome, but MTG players are definitely happy to do so. According to EDHREC, over 1600 Sonic decks are using Winged Hive Tyrant right now. This might not seem like much, but Sonic was only sold via Secret Lair, so he’s not the most prolific legend.
The Spike
Between Sonic and the slight bump in demand from Kilo, copies of Winged Hive Tyrant have been selling rather well recently. Unsurprisingly, this surge in demand started in early July, just as the Counter Intelligence precon was revealed. Technically, the Sonic Secret Lair cards were revealed shortly before this, but their distribution method did make specs somewhat risky.
Since Sonic’s release into the wild, demand for Winged Hive Tyrant has been fairly consistent, as you can see above. Following the initial spike in interest on June 10th, over 700 copies of Tyrant have been sold. Unsurprisingly, this has put a pretty major dent in the available supply on TCGplayer. As usual, this has pushed the card’s price up considerably.
Prior to the initial interest surge, copies of Winged Hive Tyrant were selling for around $0.40 on TCGplayer. As supply drained, this price crept up, and it hasn’t exactly stopped. Currently, this card’s market price sits at $4.68, while new listings begin at around $4.58. Now that only 38 listings remain on TCGplayer, prices do increase rather quickly from here.
Unsurprisingly, the Surge Foil variant of Winged Hive Tyrant has also spiked in price quite dramatically. While the percentage increase isn’t as high, at only 968%, copies are selling for around $20 at the moment. It should come as little surprise that this higher price tag is due to the chase rarity of the Warhammer 40K Surge Foils.
The Future
Looking ahead, Winged Hive Tyrant is in a bit of an unusual spot. In theory, this card has a lot going for it, but it’s still not a guaranteed success. On the one hand, MTG players don’t really have to worry about it being reprinted since it’s a Universes Beyond card. On the other hand, however, this card is hardly a Commander powerhouse, since it always requires additional support to succeed.
While current Commanders do offer some compelling support, Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t the most viable option. As much as there is synergy there, the Secret Lair distribution of this card means there’s not much to go around. For better or worse, this is definitely going to temper the future demand and investment potential.
Despite these potential problems, there’s a decent chance that the price of Winged Hive Tyrant doesn’t completely crash. Should this demand be player-driven, which it does appear to be, a lot of purchased copies won’t return to the market. This, in turn, will keep the supply fairly low, likely matching the expected demand.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if prices dip slightly in the short term. Already, sales for this card are slowing, but I’d expect it to be worth a couple of dollars at least. Whether or not this prediction is accurate, however, remains to be seen. As usual, only time will tell the full story.
Stick with us at mtgrocks.com: the best place for Magic: The Gathering coverage!