Recently, the Premodern format has been going from strength to strength. Not only is it now available on Magic Online, but in-person tournaments have only been growing more popular. Even the format’s fixed card pool hasn’t been slowing it down, as recent developments have massively shaken up the metagame.
A couple of weeks ago, Parallax Tide was banned in Premodern. As the dominant deck in the format, this banning left a power vacuum at the top and opened up tons of deck-building opportunities. This, in turn, has led to the rise of a new deck built, Panderburst, which has been putting up strong results. Thanks to this, the core cards in this unique deck have suddenly spiked in price, climbing 844% in just a few weeks.
MTG Pandemonium
First released 28 years ago in Exodus, Pandemonium is an absolutely devastating MTG card when built around. Offering an effect similar to Terror of the Peaks, you can easily blow up an opponent’s board or life total simply by playing creatures. As an enchantment, that’s one mana cheaper, too, Pandemonium is insanely powerful; however, there is a catch. Unlike Terror of the Peaks, Pandemonium is a symmetrical effect.
Thanks to this clause, Pandemonium is very rarely used in Commander. After all, if you can’t get tons of value out of it immediately, your opponents each get to use it against you. This will often lead to the card blowing up in your own face outside of a focused strategy. With this in mind, it’s little wonder the card only appears in 8,500 lists, according to EDHREC.
While there is an inherent risk to playing Pandemonium, it’s definitely possible to exploit this effect. In Premodern, for instance, Saproling Burst is capable of delivering a devastating OTK alongside this card. All you have to do is crack all of this Enchantment’s Fading Counters for a total of 21 damage.
Since you can play Pandemonium on turn four with minimal risk, you can reliably hit this combo on turn five. While this is already a powerful play, some Panderburst decks also use Phyrexian Dreadnought, which deals 12 damage for one mana. Add in some fast mana and Academy Rector as a tutor, and it’s no wonder this deck is doing well.
Thanks to this strength, the titular cards in the Panderburst deck have been spiking in price significantly. Saproling Burst hit high highs of $40, and now Pandemonium is quickly following suit with its own impressive price spike.
The Spike
Due to the inherent risk associated with playing it in Commander, Pandemonium has never been a particularly popular card. Unsurprisingly, the card has never been particularly expensive because of this, often selling for around $1.80 on average. Sales at this price point were incredibly infrequent, too, although notably, there’s never been a lot of near-mint supply.
As a 28-year-old MTG card, good condition copies of Pandemonium are fairly scarce, so it doesn’t take much to move the market. In fact, following the Parallax Tide ban, only 30 near-mint copies of this card have been sold. Despite this, prices have absolutely skyrocketed up to $17.00.
On top of the original Exodus reprint spiking in price, the Timeshifted reprint from 2006 has also jumped significantly. Previously, this variant could be picked up for around $1.60, but now copies are selling for $10, with near-mint listings starting at $25! Curiously, while these printings of Pandemonium have spiked hard, technically, the card is still very affordable.
Alongside its major printings, Pandemonium has also popped up twice on The List. Miraculously, these copies, styled after the Exodus and Tempest Remastered versions, are significantly cheaper currently. Both these variants can be picked up for under $1, with Tempest Remastered-styled copies available for just $0.31.
With tons of supply still available on the market for these variants, they’re obviously the budget-conscious choice. These options are totally fine to play with, too, since reprints are absolutely allowed in Premodern. That said, judging by what’s spiked, there’s clearly a preference to play with older printings.
The Future
While we can’t predict the future with any degree of certainty, the Pandemonium price spike does feel a bit overzealous. While it’s not uncommon for older and rarer printings to have premium price points, the current difference is wild. Over time, these different prices should equalize somewhat, even if they never completely converge.
Realistically, it feels more likely that the older printings of Pandemonium will come down in price, but that’s hardly guaranteed. At the same time, the more recent printings could easily jump up by a dollar or two, but I wouldn’t expect a huge increase.
With this in mind, it’ll be worth watching the Premodern metagame and performance of Panderburst decks closely. Should they continue to perform and routinely top tournaments, then demand for this card and deck may increase. If the metagame ends up adapting to this new threat, however, then it could end up falling out of favor.
Ultimately, as usual, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks and months. If nothing else, it’ll certainly be an interesting time for Premodern players.
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