Despite not having any Commander precons, The Hobbit has still had a deep impact on the secondary market. Ever since it was first teased, Dwarf support has been on the rise, and after spoiler season concluded, Treasures took over. Beyond just causing synergistic support pieces to spike, The Hobbit is also responsible for pushing Commanders up in price.
MTG Marneus Calgar
Released as part of the Forces of the Imperium Commander deck, Marneus Calgar almost instantly became a format staple. Thanks to its ability to draw off tokens entering, the value it can provide over a game is absolutely obscene. Even while it is limited by the “one or more” clause, having tokens enter is so trivial that Marneus Calgar can still run away with games.
As if this wasn’t enough, Marneus Calgar can even generate its own tokens for additional draw and board presence. With all of this in mind, it’s no wonder that Marneus Calgar is very nearly one of the top 100 Commanders on EDHREC.
Most recently, The Hobbit’s Gleaming Splendor and The Queen of Dale have made Marneus even more consistent on your opponent’s turns. Playing off card draw and casting spells, respectively, the chances of either of these cards triggering are exceptionally high. Realistically, most turns they’ll be triggering on multiple occasions, creating an obscene amount of card advantage.
As if that wasn’t enough, Bard, King of Dale doubles Marneus Calgar’s card draw, while doing the same for tokens. Speaking of which, the new Belladonna Took is also seeing play in Marneus decks, thanks to offering even more draw and board-wide buffs. With all of these cards together, Marneus Calgar’s already impressive strength has been supercharged thanks to The Hobbit.
A Serious Surge Spike
Thanks to all of this new support, it’s little wonder that demand for Marneus Calgar has increased. While it’s hard to put a number on just how many new decks have been created recently, the impact on the secondary market is clear. On its default frame variant, sales have been steady since The Hobbit’s release, but the price of surge foils has been going mad.
With surge foil Warhammer 40,000 cards exclusively being found in the Collector’s Edition decks, they’ve always been rather scarce. This, in turn, meant that surge foil copies of Marneus Calgar have been consistently expensive, selling for at least $48. Recently, however, after just 54 near-mint sales in the past month, prices have rocketed to $99.99 a pop.
As if this wasn’t expensive enough, not only do prices increase rapidly after this cheap copy, but sales have peaked at $152. With this in mind, the price spike that Marneus Calgar is seeing may be far from over. Sadly for surge foil fans, there aren’t any more budget-friendly, worse-condition copies, as $100 is the floor.
The good news, at least, is that despite steady sales, the regular foil version of Marneus Calgar hasn’t jumped in price. You can still pick up near-mint regular foil copies of this card for around $13, which isn’t terrible. Hell, considering the sheer power of this card at the moment, this almost feels like a steal.
Fickle Foils
Looking ahead, the financial future of Marneus Calgar is rather difficult to pin down, but there are plenty of positives. In isolation, this Commander is just getting better and better, as new token support keeps getting printed.
With this in mind, the strength of Marneus Calgar, and demand for it, could easily continue to increase over time. Should this happen, not only should demand for the regular foil variant increase, but surge foils could continue to climb. Even a reprint is unlikely to knock the price of these fancy foils, unless we miraculously get another chase variant.
Realistically, when it comes to the surge foil version of Marneus Calgar, scarcity is definitely the driving factor. While this may mean that its prices stay high long-term, it’s likely that sales will be slow and fickle. Since the cheaper normal foil version exists, buyers can simply look elsewhere to force prices down eventually.
As a result of this precarious balance, the future of surge foil copies of Marneus Calgar could really go either way. Given that predicting the future is more art than science, we can only really wait and see what happens.
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!