To say that Monday’s banned and restricted update ended up being unexpected would be an understatement. While we all knew it was coming, most players, including ourselves, expected next to nothing to happen. Due to formats being remarkably balanced for once, and the timing of tournament circuits, ‘no changes’ felt like the right call for once.
Despite this expectation, Wizards banned five cards and unbanned three the other day, with four cards being affected in Modern. Not only were these changes unexpected, but they’ve massively shaken up the metagame, with Boros decks and Amulet Titan being hit hard. As if that wasn’t enough, Violent Outburst’s unban has opened the floodgates for Cascade decks to return, and their key pieces spike in price.
MTG Crashing Footfalls
Released as part of the original Modern Horizons set, it didn’t take long for Crashing Footfalls to make an impact. On the surface, it might seem pretty rough given its Suspend cost, but Cascade gets around it. With careful deck construction, you can always hit these 0 mana value cards using something like Shardless Agent or Violent Outburst.
Essentially, this interaction turns Crashing Footfalls into a three-mana spell, with some extra value on top. Considering you can get at least 8 power on the board with this, the combo potential is obvious. Unsurprisingly, this led to the Crashing Footfalls archetype quickly emerging in Modern and being a core deck for years.
Back in 2024, however, Violent Outburst was banned, taking away the deck’s cheapest instant Cascade option. This caused the deck to fall back to the fringes of playability until the card was unbanned on Monday. Now, Crashing Footfalls is back in Modern with multiple Modern League wins under its belt.
While it’s still very early days, it seems that MTG players can’t get enough of this deck’s miraculous return. Unsurprisingly, this has caused a steep surge of interest in the deck, with tons of copies selling online. This, in turn, has caused one hell of a price spike; however, all this excitement could be somewhat premature.
A 900% Spike In Two Days
Since the latest banned and restricted update, over 450 copies of Crashing Footfalls have been sold across its three variants. As expected, the vast majority of these sales are for the default frame variant, which also used to be the cheapest. Routinely selling for just $0,42 a couple of days ago, there was barely any interest in Crashing Footfalls prior to Violent Outburst’s unbanning.
Accounting for over 350 of the total sales alone, demand for this variant has been through the roof, pushing prices up dramatically. Now, a near-mint non-foil example will set you back $4.29, which marks a 921% price spike. Technically, you could pick up a lighted played foil for $2.24 or a heavily played non-foil for $3.10; however, neither of these is ideal for competitive play.
If you are after a near-mint non-foil card, the Future Sight Frame variant from Mystery Booster 2 is your best option. With near-mint prices starting at $3.90, including shipping, this variant is technically cheaper, although admittedly not by much. Sadly, the chase Special Guests printing of Crashing Footfalls is the most dear right now, with near-mint copies starting at $14.95.
Overpowered or Overhyped?
With Violent Ourburst only being banned in 2024, it being unbanned so soon is definitely a bold move by Wizards. Thanks to this, it’s little surprise that players have been jumping on Crashing Footfalls and getting good results with it. That said, as impressive as a hot streak of 5-0 League finishes is, the deck hasn’t completely overtaken the metagame.
In the recent Modern Challenge, for instance, Crashing Footfalls only managed 13th and 25th as its best results. While the Modern metagame is still in flux after the major bans and unbans, these results are hardly metabreaking. Potentially, its fortune could improve over time as the meta settles; however, the disparity between League and Challenge results is definitely concerning.
Right now, since Crashing Footfalls is only seeing strong success in League events, its future looks dubious. If it does end up being a brief fad, then its price could easily crash when the deck doesn’t deliver. Since Crashing Footfalls barely sees any play outside of Modern, it could easily fall back to past lows.
Technically, it’s unclear which way Crashing Footfalls will go in Modern; however, we can’t say we’re optimistic about it. Realistically, though, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to the metagame in the coming weeks and months. For now, Crashing Footfalls is definitely an MTG card to watch, both from a financial and gameplay perspective.
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