It didn’t take long for Secrets of Strixhaven’s Commander Precons to take over the secondary market by storm. Whether players want to create infinite tokens in Prismari Artistry or maximize their X-spell payoffs in Quandrix Unlimited, Precon upgrades quickly started to spike in price.
If anything, these price spikes have made it clear that one deck is being favored over the others. Thanks to giving support for a neglected archetype, Silverquill Influence was certainly the fan favorite among Secrets of Strixhaven’s new Commander options. As players rush to upgrade the precon, or rebuild it with their own twist, all kinds of Orzhov Aura cards started spiking in price. Brilliant Wings, a Final Fantasy Scene Box card, is yet another one of these spikes.
MTG Brilliant Wings
Found in Final Fantasy’s The Siege of Alexandria Scene Bundle, Brilliant Wings offers instant-speed protection to any of your high-value creatures. This is already worth the two-mana investment, but Flying makes this enchantment even better.
Getting your enchanted creature off the ground may not seem like much, but some Commanders can massively take advantage of it. The extra keyword can clear the way for combat damage-focused Commanders like Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima and Squall, SeeD Mercenary, ensuring that you can get your payoffs over and over again. If that weren’t enough, because Brilliant Wings can move around, you can use the card to save a creature and move it onto your Commander later.
Thanks to being such a strong protective piece, Brilliant Wings feels like a natural addition to any Commander deck that can synergize with Auras somewhat. Because of this, Brilliant Wings has become a fairly common inclusion in Killian, Decisive Mentor decks, appearing in 815 different lists. Even though Brilliant Wings can only target your creatures, it will still trigger Killian’s entry ability. This allows Killian to both Goad a creature and gain Flying, drawing cards without risking itself against ground blockers.
While Killian, Decisive Mentor is the cause of Brilliant Wings’s spike, it’s also seeing lots of play in other Aura-matters Commanders. Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice, for example, can fetch other Auras off of casting Brilliant Wings, turning it into an even more major buff. Eriette, Charmed Apple, on the other hand, can protect itself with Brilliant Wings while draining the opponent.
The Spike
While it took a bit of time for players to pick up on Killian’s synergy with Brilliant Wings, the card eventually started spiking in price. Worth about $9.46 near the end of February, sales for the card started to pick up around March 9th. Since then, about 368 near-mint foil copies of the card have sold, causing Brilliant Wings to spike to $34 before shipping.
Notably, because Brilliant Wings is available in a Final Fantasy Scene Box, the foil variant of this card is the more common one. The nonfoil variant of Brilliant Wings does exist, but you can only find them in Chocobo Bundles, at a 1 in 24 chance, at that. Thanks to this, the nonfoil variant of Brilliant Wings is far more expensive, selling for $50 and up. Sadly, these are the only variants of Brilliant Wings currently available, meaning that there are no discounts to be had.
High Prices Ahead
While predicting the MTG secondary market is impossible, Brilliant Wings seems to have a bright future ahead. The card has a lot of play in any white Commander deck that wants to attack, giving a lot of potential homes for the Aura. Thanks to this, even when the demand caused by Killian dries up, Brilliant Wings should remain a desirable inclusion for a lot of Commander decks.
That said, despite being a Universes Beyond card, Brilliant Wings could be easier to reprint than expected. While the card does appear in Final Fantasy, the card name is rather generic. Thanks to this, reprinting an in-universe variant of this card should be a lot easier than normal.
Sadly, despite our musings, only time will tell whether Brilliant Wings retains its value. Regardless of whether this card gets cheaper in the future, it will likely remain expensive for quite some time.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!