While it’s still very much finding its feet as an official format, Premodern is already having a significant impact on the MTG secondary market. Several classic cards have jumped in price due to the influx of fresh eyes on the format, often in spectacular fashion, given the limited supply.
These waves have been particularly pronounced since the official Premodern ban a couple of weeks back. Now, a number of cards that were just okay before are seizing the chance to shine in a new metagame. One such card is Decree of Silence, an MTG classic from 2003 with a truly obnoxious effect.
Decree Of Silence MTG
When it comes to unfun effects in MTG, Decree of Silence is up there with the worst of them. While it’s in play, it counters the next three spells your opponents cast, making it very difficult for them to progress their games. This is assuming you play fair with it, too. If you have cards that can get rid of its Depletion counters, like Hex Parasite or Solemnity, then it can become a total lock piece.
Fortunately, Decree of Silence has a major drawback in its hefty mana cost. Eight mana is a ton, even in Commander, meaning it’s tricky to get out in the first place. You do have the option of Cycling it as a regular counterspell, but at six mana that’s arguably an even worse rate. As a result, the card sees very little play in Commander, with barely 8,000 decks running it according to EDHREC.
This issue doesn’t apply in Premodern, mind you. Thanks to format staple Replenish, you can easily cheat Decree of Silence into play after discarding it with a Frantic Search or Attunement. It also becomes a terrifying 8/8 threat alongside Opalescenece, which is another key piece in the Replenish deck.
Replenish as an archetype hasn’t historically played Decree of Silence, usually preferring Parallax Tide as its chunky blue enchantment of choice. Since Tide caught the ban hammer, however, players have been experimenting with Decree as a replacement. As a result, the card is seeing some serious movement on the financial front.
The Spike
A crucial thing to bear in mind with Decree of Silence is that it has never seen a single reprint after its original Scourge printing in 2003. That’s over two decades with no new supply hitting the market. For that reason, even though the card essentially saw no real play until recently, it was sitting at a solid baseline value of $8.37 before this fresh spike began.
On January 19th, the day after the Premodern ban announcement dropped, we saw a sharp uptick in interest for Decree of Silence. A whopping 43 copies of the card were sold on TCGplayer that day, completely dwarfing the usual sales patterns. From here, the price started climbing sharply in turn, escalating to a market average of $21.88.
This is an impressive spike in itself, but recent sales data implies it’s not over yet. Over the last few days, copies of the card have continued to sell for far above that value, averaging around $35.77. There are copies going for much more than this, with the current high for a regular near mint copy sitting around $54.85, but for now $35.77 seems like the card’s stable position. From its $8.37 price tag at the start of the month, that represents a 327% increase.
Fortunately, if you are looking to pick up some Decree of Silence for cheap, you can get worse-conditioned copies for a bit less. So long as you don’t mind some damaged cardboard, you can pick this card up for as low as $15, though most of the cheaper copies hover around $30. These are all outliers at the time of writing, however, so these bargains may not stick around for long.
The Future
Ultimately, whether or not Decree of Silence manages to hold its eye-watering new price tag comes down to how well it does in Premodern. As cute as its Commander shenanigans are, they’ve been possible for years at this point, and have never stimulated price growth before.
So far, things are looking positive on this front. Over the last couple of weeks, Decree of Silence has put in a number of strong showings in Premodern events on MTGO, including seven League 5-0s, and a top 16 placing in a Challenge. It’s still very much in the testing phase, but it could be the new tech that Replenish needs now that Parallax Tide is gone.
That said, competitive success is a fickle thing in Magic. In the official announcement article for the Parallax Tide ban, Martin Berlin noted that Parallax Wave and Opalescence were other cards the format panel is keeping an eye on at present. If either of these catch bans later down the line, that could push Replenish out of contention and, in turn, leave Decree of Silence homeless.
There’s also the possibility that Decree of Silence simply doesn’t become a regular fixture in Replenish as it is now. Some Premodern afficionados, including MTG pro Andrea Mengucci, consider the card too clunky to earn a solid slot. As is always the case, only time will tell whether Decree of Silence will continue to rise or crash back down to earth.
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