As has been proven time and time again, some of MTG’s most powerful designs need specific places to shine. Modern is the best example of this, building entire decks around individual cards that break the game when supported. When those decks become successful, as players rush to grab the decklists, it’s inevitable for those powerful designs, like Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler, to get expensive.
MTG Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler
Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler‘s three abilities, when working together, absolutely break creatures with activated abilities. Whether you decide to tap your mana dorks like Birds of Paradise right when they enter play, or untap something like Prime Speaker Vannifar to continue a combo chain, Tyvar can do it all. Even if your opponent manages to kill your small combo creatures, Tyvar’s -2 can bring it right back.
Thanks to this extreme synergy, Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler is breaking out in various creature-based fast mana shells. Modern Devoted Druid combo is the biggest cause of this, thanks to Tyvar enabling all of your mana dorks to tap as soon as they enter play. With Leyline of Abundance powering them up, and Tyvar reanimating both Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies for infinite mana, setting up a turn two kill with this Planeswalker is trivial.
While Tyvar does see a little play in similar Pioneer decks, the card is, unsurprisingly, extremely popular in Commander. After all, any Commander that is consistently using tap abilities, like Lathril, Blade of Elves, gets their entire gameplan sped up by Tyvar. The card even has tons of infinite combos in Commander, like making infinite squirrels with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Cryptolith Rite.
The Spike
As Devoted Druid combo started to appear in mid-July, Tyvar saw a huge demand spike, with 77 near mint copies selling over one weekend. The deck’s continued success led to about 600 copies of Tyvar selling between its near-mint and lightly played variants throughout August.
Thanks to this surge of interest, the $1.36 price of Tyvar’s base Phyrexia: All Will be One variant from the beginning of July is long gone. Now, you’ll need to pay $5 after shipping to get this card at the absolute cheapest, representing a 267% price spike.
Fortunately, if you’re looking for a deal, a cheaper copy of this card is available. So long as you don’t mind the artwork, borderless Tyvars are available for about $4 after shipping, offering some slight savings. That said, this variant of Tyvar is also experiencing increased demand, so this cheaper price point may not last long.
How Will it Perform?
Despite seeing play in over 69,000 Commander decks according to EDHREC, Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler’s price spike is undeniably related to its recent Modern success. Devoted Druid combo basically came out of nowhere and is now considered one of the best decks in the format. Thanks to this, Tyvar’s financial future is almost entirely dependent on how Devoted Druid combo performs in the coming months.
So far, Devoted Druid Combo does appear like it will take Modern by storm, but it’s impossible to truly tell the future, especially with a format as volatile as this one. With this in mind, we’ll just have to wait and see if Tyvar becomes a bigger part of the Modern metagame or falls behind the times. Fortunately, with the Regional Championship season right around the corner for Modern, we won’t have to wait long for the answer.
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