Ever since the deck was revealed in earnest, it’s been clear that Silverquill Influence is a fan favorite precon. Offering a unique game plan built around enchanting your opponent’s creatures, this precon immediately proved popular. It didn’t take long at all, for instance, for synergistic support pieces to start spiking in price.
Technically, this is exactly what’s now happening to Umbra Mystic. While this card can be a compelling support piece for Aura-focused decks, it’s by no means perfect. In fact, it seems to have anti-synergy with the new Silverquill Influence precon. This, however, hasn’t stopped Umbra Mystic from spiking over 260% in the past month.
MTG Umbra Mystic
Released within 2010’s Rise of the Eldrazi Umbra Mystic is actually a pretty powerful MTG card in the right deck. By giving all of your Auras Totem Armour, you can easily trade Auras on creatures for protection. Naturally, this can be insanely powerful within Voltron decks, such as those helmed by Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice.
Beyond stacking a bunch of Auras on one creature, Umbra Mystic also sees play in Ellivere of the Wild Court decks. While there’s plenty of synergy here, since Ellivere goes wide with Auras, the play rate isn’t entirely organic. Since Umbra Mystic was reprinted in Virtue and Valor, there will be plenty of players who didn’t remove it from the precon.
Curiously, Umbra Mystic also sees a good deal of play alongside Eriette of the Charmed Apple, according to EDHREC. At first glance, this seems to be a bit of a mistake, since Umbra Mystic only cares about permanents you control with Auras on them. Technically, this does help it counter Eriette, but that’s not its only use case.
While targeting your opponent’s creatures is the preferred way to play Eriette, it’s not the only opinion. Since her Aura-based drain ability activates regardless of where your Auras are, you can easily enchant your own creatures. The same is true for Killian and the Silverquill Influence precon, which still lets you draw when attacking with your own enchanted creatures.
Thanks to this, Umbra Mystic isn’t actually that terrible alongside either one of these Commanders. Considering that this is very much an alternative way to play them, however, it’s unusual that demand has increased so much. Admittedly, 500 Killian decks using Umbra Mystic isn’t insane, but that’s still been enough to push prices up.
The Spike
While it might not be useful when you’re enchanting your opponent’s creatures, Umbra Mystic still sees strong play elsewhere. In total, this once-reprinted rare appears in around 36,000 Commander decks, so it’s never been a budget bomb. Back in late March, for instance, near-mint Wilds of Eldraine Commander copies used to be selling for $2.57.
Unfortunately for anyone looking to try out this somewhat unorthodox game plan with Killian, that past price is long gone. Now, if you want to pick up a near-mint copy of Umbra Mystic, it’ll cost you at least $7.22. Notably, that’s for the older Rise of the Eldrazi printing, as the Wilds of Eldraine reprint now starts at $9.39.
Currently, there are a couple of worse condition copies of Umbra Mystic available; however, they don’t offer any savings. Lightly played examples from Wilds of Eldraine are currently priced at $8.89, which hardly seems like the best deal. Given how quickly prices have been climbing, though, it might not be long before these are the cheapest option remaining.
The Future
Looking ahead, Umbra Mystic is in a bit of a weird position. While it’s by no means an auto-include for Killian decks, it’s very useful elsewhere. Realistically, the demand surge hasn’t been immense here, either, so if, or rather when, prices do drop, it shouldn’t be a catastrophic fallout.
If anything is notable about this current price spike, it’s how little it took to make it happen. With just 220 near-mint copies being sold in the past month for the Wilds of Eldraine reprint, supply is clearly an issue. The same is true for the Rise of the Eldrazi variant, which has only had 43 sales this month.
In theory, this low supply could easily mean that Umbra Mystic may spike again in the near future. So long as it doesn’t get reprinted, any new go-wide Aura-focused Commander could easily drive demand. Even if prices fall back to around the $2-$3 mark, they could bounce back to much higher than what we’re seeing now.
Ultimately, like all MTG cards and price spikes, Umbra Mystic could easily go either way in the long run. As such, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming months. So long as this card doesn’t get reprinted, however, it’ll definitely be one to watch.
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