With just a few cards left to be revealed, we almost have the entire MTG Star Trek set in our hands now. You’d think we’d see some Star Trek-inspired secondary market spikes by now, but instead, past sets are still in the driver’s seat.
Nethergoyf, for example, is getting expensive as its popularity rises. This card has always been a spicy mythic, and now, thanks to new multi-format strategies, its price tag is starting to match.
Nethergoyf MTG
Ever since it was first revealed, it was clear that Nethergoyf was something a bit special.
Tarmogoyf
Tarmogoyf
Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1.
dominated the Modern format for years, after all, so a one-mana version seemed absolutely ridiculous.
When Nethergoyf actually released, however, its impact was much smaller than most players expected. It did see some scattered play in Modern Jund Saga and Legacy Dimir Tempo, but it didn’t exactly take eternal Magic by storm as many had predicted during previews.
This milquetoast performance extended into Commander, too, where Nethergoyf’s great stats for the cost are far less impressive than they are in 1v1 Magic. While the card has found some homes, mainly Lhurgoyf Typal
Disa the Restless
Disa the Restless
Whenever a Lhurgoyf permanent card is put into your graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield, put it onto the battlefield.
Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, create a Tarmogoyf token.
decks, its overall play rate of 13,300 decks is rather unimpressive.
Nethergoyf’s fortunes have changed a lot over the last few weeks, however, following the release of Reality Fracture’s
Dark Matter Manipulator
Dark Matter Manipulator
When this creature enters, mill three cards.
This creature gets +2/+0 for every seven cards in your graveyard.
. Combining the graveyard stuffing of
Stitcher’s Supplier
Stitcher’s Supplier
When this creature enters or dies, mill three cards. (Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.)
with some solid aggressive stats, this card has seriously boosted multiple decks, and Nethergoyf shines in all of them.
Whether it’s Rakdos Moonshadow in Modern, or Dimir Moonshadow in Legacy, Nethergoyf is showing up as a full playset in plenty of competitive lists. As you’d expect, this has led to a big surge in demand for the card, which has sent its price on a steady upward trajectory.
The Spike
Before this month, you could snag copies of Nethergoyf fairly easily for around $3-5, with the price stabilizing around $4.60 in early October. While not exactly bulk pricing, this was fairly low for a single-printing mythic, even from a set as widely opened as Modern Horizons 3.
Around October 5th, however, we began to see a surge in interest for Nethergoyf, with 14 copies selling in a single day. This came just a few days after the full release of Reality Fracture, when players started to catch on to how good the card was in Rakdos Moonshadow. The deck was dominating Challenges already by now, and it only got better over the next few weeks.
Now, if you want to pick up even a regular near-mint copy of Nethergoyf, you’re looking at paying $9.50 on the low end. The bulk of TCGplayer’s remaining 80 listings are higher than this, too, with many copies up in the $10-12 range. By these numbers, the card has more than doubled in price over the last month, and it shows no sign of slowing down.
If you’re hoping to snag a discount by picking up a different printing of Nethergoyf, you’re sadly out of luck there, too. The Extended Art version is also going for $9.50 on the low end, and the Prerelease Promo foil is even higher at around $11. Even opening things up to worse-condition copies will only get you a little money off, with lightly-played base copies going for around $9.
The Future
With Moonshadow decks continuing to put on a great show in both Modern and Legacy, Nethergoyf feels like it’s in a great financial position right now. The card is one of the best possible one-drops for aggressive graveyard decks like this, with no real peers outside of those already being run in each list.
We’re also unlikely to get another creature at this level soon, since Nethergoyf hails from the notoriously busted Modern Horizons 3. With supplemental sets now off the table for the foreseeable, a one-drop that could rival it feels like a distant prospect, since Wizards would need to put it through Standard first.
As a result, as long as Moonshadow decks keep performing and running playsets of Nethergoyf, the card’s price will only increase. The current supply is actually fairly reasonable, too, so we could see much bigger gains down the line when players inevitably whittle that away.
On the other hand, given the card wasn’t exactly in high demand pre-Reality Fracture, if Moonshadow decks get pushed out of the metagame then stock in Nethergoyf could fall hard. I’d expect price memory from its recent performance, and its mythic rarity, to retain some of the spike, but the card could still easily see a crash like that.
Overall, as always in the world of MTG finance, the best thing to do is keep a close eye on Nethergoyf and see where it ends up. With how well Moonshadow decks have been doing lately, however, this feels like one that’ll stick around, at least for a while.
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