Yesterday, in what was a remarkably busy day for MTG, Wizards delivered the latest banned and restricted update announcement. Given that most players, including ourselves, expected nothing from this announcement, Wizards definitely took us by surprise. Announcing five bans and three unbans across five formats, Wizards really didn’t hold back.
Out of all the changes that happened yesterday, the bans and unbans for Modern were definitely the least expected. Considering this format had seemingly just had its metagame evolve naturally, forced changes didn’t seem at all necessary. Despite this, Wizards clipped the wings of Boros Energy and Amulet Titan while freeing Violent Outburst from its brief stint in jail.
As usual, after being unbanned, it hasn’t taken long for the newly playable cards to spike in price. In fact, in less than 24 hours, Violent Outburst has already spiked by over 2200%.
MTG Violent Outburst
Considering Violent Outburst was banned back in March of 2024, its return to Modern after a touch over two years is wild. While Modern Horizons 3 has been released since then, mixing up the once-established metagame, this card was banned for a reason. In case you’re unfamiliar, this reason was Suspend spells, like Living End and Crashing Footfalls, which don’t have a mana value.
While Violent Outburst is tied for being the cheapest Cascade spell with three other cards, it’s notably better than the alternatives. This is thanks to it being an instant, which allows you to pop off on your opponent’s end step. Since the rhinos from Crashing Footfalls don’t enter with Haste, this is a godsend that made Cascade decks actually competitive.
Technically, even without Violent Outburst, Cascade decks never went away in Modern, but they were severely handicapped. Now that the gloves are off, however, decks built around this card are already topping tournaments. While this is pretty worrying, considering Violent Outburst was banned for a reason, admittedly, it’s still early days.
As the fun, freshly freed deck on the block, many MTG players are understandably eager to play with Violent Outburst. This, in turn, may overly warp the metagame, making the deck seem better than it is. Realistically, we’ll have to wait a few days, if not weeks, to see how things settle down.
That being said, Violent Outburst is undeniably off to a very strong start, and it could easily prove problematic again. Hopefully, for fans of the archetype, at least, this won’t be the case, but that remains to be seen. For now, Violent Outburst is unsurprisingly in incredibly high demand, which has caused its price to skyrocket.
The Spike
Since the ban was announced yesterday, over 830 copies of the card have been sold between its two variants. This is pretty much all of the near-mint supply that was available on TCGplayer, as there are just 20 listings left. Unsurprisingly, this insane demand and now-lacking supply have caused the price of Violent Outburst to surge dramatically.
Just two days ago, copies of Violent Outburst were selling for just $0.36 for the Foundations Jumpstart variant. Notably, no one was picking up copies for this discount price, as no one expected it to be unbanned. Now that it has been, however, copies have surged dramatically, with Jumpstart sales hitting $8.50.
Currently, the original Alara Reborn variant is even more expensive, largely thanks to its age-boosting scarcity. Originally priced at $0.53, near-mint copies of this printing are now going for $8.75. Unfortunately, worse condition copies aren’t much cheaper, either, with moderately played examples starting at $8.48.
The Future
Looking ahead, Violent Outburst is a bit of a weird one. Naturally, this card’s price will be tied to its success in Modern, but success doesn’t necessarily mean big money. If this card and Cascade decks are too powerful, there’s a non-zero chance that Violent Outburst could end up banned again.
If this does happen, Wizards could take action as soon as June 30th. Realistically, though, it’s unlikely Violent Outburst will disappear that soon, so it should have some short-term potential at least. Even then, however, looking back at the card’s price history, it might not get that much more expensive.
Even at its old peak, sales for Violent Outburst topped out at around $8.50, and that was before this card got reprinted. While the unprecedented current demand has made the spike sharper in the short term, it could easily fall back down. Notably, this might take weeks, if not months, but it definitely seems like Violent Outburst is slightly overpriced right now.
Ultimately, while we can look at trends and past prices, nothing can properly predict the future of MTG. As such, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, Violent Outburst won’t end up dominating Modern again in that time, but that remains to be seen.
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