Blade of the Bloodchief
31, Oct, 24

MTG Foundations Spoiler Causes Typal Equipment to Spike

To say that MTG Foundations is an incredibly exciting set would be putting it very lightly. Not only is it legal for five years and heralds a new dawn for Standard play, but it’s loaded with absolutely fantastic cards. Between the main set, the Starter Collection, and Foundations Jumpstart, there’s an awful lot to get excited about.

Foundations Jumpstart, in particular, has plenty of cards that will be particularly exciting for Commander players. After all, there is a range of new legendaries that support both beloved and niche typal archetypes. Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder falls into the former category since Vampires are a classic Commander deck.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, since Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder seems rather good, she’s caused some early price spikes already.

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder
  • Mana Value: 2B
  • Rarity: Rare
  • Card Type: Legendary Creature — Vampire Soldier
  • Stats: 2/2
  • Card Text: Flying
    Sacrifice another creature or artifact: Put a +1/+1 counter on Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder. If the sacrificed permanent was a Treasure, Evereth gains lifelink until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery.
    When Evereth dies, you may pay {1}{B/R}. When you do, Evereth deals damage equal to its power to each opponent.

To spend a moment talking about Evereth herself, she’s a fairly interesting sacrifice engine who can do real work. Unsurprisingly, their main strength comes from their sacrifice ability, which can be activated endlessly, for free, albeit at sorcery speed. Whenever Evereth is used to sacrifice something, she’ll also get that little bit bigger, for added value.

Admittedly, in Commander, there is no shortage of potent sacrifice engines to fuel this long-standing archetype. Viscera Seer is cheap and effective, while Ashnod’s Altar provides serious value for greater investment. As powerful as these cards are, however, you can’t jam them into the Command zone to guarantee they’re available.

This gives Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder a lot of potential appeal in Commander. Sure, they might not provide card draw like the fan-favorite Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, but they’re nonetheless useful. At worst, Evereth is bound to appear within the 99 of already established Sacrifice Typal decks going forward.

Blade of the Bloodchief

Blade of the Bloodchief
  • Mana Value: 1
  • Rarity: Rare
  • Card Type: Artifact — Equipment
  • Card Text: Whenever a creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature. If equipped creature is a Vampire, put two +1/+1 counters on it instead.
    Equip 1

If you’re looking to build Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder as a new Commander deck, Blade of the Bloodchief is practically an auto-include. Slap this bad boy on Evereth, and now every sacrifice nets you three +1/+1 counters. Obviously, in a deck that’s all about consistently and repeatedly sacrificing creatures, this is a pretty good value proposition.

Even with just a few triggers, Blade of the Bloodchief will turn Evereth into a serious Flying threat. Since she can be your Commander, this could mean your opponents are staring down a worrying amount of Commander damage. As if that wasn’t worrying enough, killing doesn’t even solve the problem immediately.

Thanks to their final ability, Evereth can hurt everyone at your table for the low low cost of just two mana. This optional extra damage provides an added incentive to keep piling counters onto Evereth as much as possible. Sure, they’ll quickly become a must-kill threat, but that could do more harm to your opponents than good.

The Spike

Considering this potential, Blade of the Bloodchief practically goes hand in hand with Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder. Unsurprisingly, this has caused a lot of interest in this fairly unpopular equipment, which has resulted in a moderate price spike. That said, this price spike hasn’t equally affected every variant of Blade of the Bloodchief.

Currently, the biggest spike to Blade of the Bloodchief can be found in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander printing. Hailing from the Blood Rites deck, this reprint has provided a lot of near-mint supply, which is understandably sought after. Since the start of October, the price of this card has over doubled, rising from $2.34 up to $6.

Curiously, the price of Blade of the Bloodchief has been climbing steadily throughout the entire month. Interest in the card unsurprisingly peaked, however, following the reveal of Evereth. This has caused the latest surge in sales which has drained supply and subsequently pushed prices up.

Technically, this price spike and surge in demand has also been seen in the card’s other printings. In the case of the Commander 2017 copy, however, its price has technically declined over the month. At the beginning of October, this printing was selling for $7.42, but after a lot of fluctuation, it dropped to $4.50. Now, prices have shot right back up again, although only to around $6.

Last but not least, the original printing of Blade of the Bloodchief from Zendikar has also been climbing this month. Starting out at around $4, the market price has now risen to $5.75. Notably, however, there aren’t many sales around this price, outside of a few $14 outlier sales which seem dubious at best.

The Fall?

There’s no denying that Blade of the Bloodchief works incredibly well with Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder. Any Commander player looking to build Evereth as a new deck will surely want this card. Outside of that, however, Blade of the Bloodchief is hardly the most popular or powerful Commander card.

With this in mind, it seems fairly likely that this current spike is only going to be a flash in the pan. Once players get their fill, or prices soar too high, many would-be players are likely going to lose interest. Unless a card is a much-needed competitive staple, it can be difficult to justify playing so much over the usual asking price.

That doesn’t mean that this is the end for Blade of the Bloodchiefand Evereth, however. Once Foundations Jumpstart is actually released, there’s bound to be a second swell in demand. Judging by past precedent, however, this is likely to be nowhere near as volatile as what we’re seeing now. 

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