Thanks to Secrets of Strixahven, the Premodern format has seemingly fallen out of favor slightly. Previously, new Premodern spikes were popping up practically every day, thanks to a post-ban metagame shift. Now, however, the five new precons have been driving demand; however, that doesn’t mean Premodern has died out entirely.
Over the past few months, MTG players have still been adapting to the Premodern metagame being shaken up. Thanks to this, enchantment-focused decks are the real deal right now, with many demanding answers. This has made Cleansing Meditation a surprisingly popular card, but it’s not just good in this format.
MTG Cleansing Meditation
Considering how strong Enchantress decks are in Premodern right now, Cleansing Meditation seems like a slam dunk. Since enchantments are both the engine and win condition for this archetype, this card is effectively a one-sided board wipe. Unsurprisingly, this is hugely powerful and can completely shut down your opponent if they don’t have a Replenish.
Thanks to this, it’s no wonder that Cleansing Meditation has become a rising anti-meta tool in Premodern. Decks like Landstill, in particular, can use it especially effectively, thanks to its Threshold ability. So long as your graveyard is stocked, you can bring back both Seal of Cleansing and the titular Standstill.
With multiple control decks in Premodern running Cleansing Meditation, it’s no wonder demand and its price are up. That being said, this card is also very capable in Commander. Since it only hits enchantments, it has tons of potential both in and against the right deck.
Alongside Killian, Decisive Mentor from the Silverquill Influence precon, Cleansing Meditation can do insane work. With Threshold active, you can bring back all of your enchantments, which, at the very least, triggers Killian a ton. Since this lets you Goad a bunch of your opponent’s creatures, you basically guarantee a ton of card draw, too.
Beyond just working well with Killian, this card also works fantastically against him. Admittedly, it’s not the best-costed enchantment-focused board wipe, but it definitely still works. On top of this, since enchantments are a fairly popular type in Commander, the chances of it being a truly dead card are low.
The Spike
Curiously, despite this impressive potential in Commander, Cleansing Meditation sees very little play in the format. According to EDHREC, fewer than 6,000 decks run this card, and Killian barely seems interested in it. Despite this, the demand from Premodern has still been more than enough to push its price up.
Winding the clocks back a few months, Cleansing Meditation was selling for around $1.44 on TCGplayer. Somewhat surprisingly, while demand did pick up following Parallax Tide being banned, its price remained low until recently. It was only following a surge of sales in March that supply was finally drained enough, causing prices to spike dramatically.
Currently, a near-mint copy of Cleansing Meditation will set you back $7.65, including shipping. While this is already a 431% spike from past lows, sales have peaked at $15 recently. With only six listings left on TCGplayer, too, it might not be long before prices soar even further.
Sadly, if you like the sound of running Cleansing Meditation, prices are up across the board. Technically, worse condition copies are still cheaper, but it’s really not by much anymore. Damaged copies start at around $5.36, while lightly played ones are above $6 already. Considering damaged copies aren’t really viable for competitive play, those copies are hardly ideal.
The Future
Looking ahead, it does feel like Cleansing Meditation has a very strong future ahead of it. With Premodern demand and potential Commander appeal, this card could realistically become a lot more expensive. Even without a second surge, however, gradual competitive demand should continue to drain the already limited supply.
That being said, banking on a card’s competitive future is hardly a sure thing, even in Premodern. While this format might never get any new cards, bans can evidently still shake up the metagame. On top of this, while somewhat popular, Cleansing Meditation is by no means a format staple that every deck needs, so it could fall out of favor.
With this in mind, Cleansing Meditation could realistically end up going either way in the coming months. As always, since we can’t predict the future, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
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