Nadu, Winged Wisdom is seriously turning a lot of heads. The new Modern Horizons 3 legendary creature has caused all kinds of financial spikes this week. Shuko has been spiking for quite a few days now, and appears to be approaching $20 USD.
Why is Nadu turning heads? This demonstration of a turn three combo should explain quite well. Not only does Nadu’s ability act as a deterrence to opposing removal, but it can be used as a death combo when built around.
Interestingly, Nadu is making an obscure card from Legends, released in June 1994, see a big price increase. This is likely due to Commander, as the card cannot be played in Modern, and is likely too slow for Legacy.
Sea Kings’ Blessing
Sea Kings’ Blessing is starting to spike aggressively, and players are blaming the hype around Nadu, Winged Wisdom for it. For one mana, Sea Kings’ Blessing can target as many creatures as you like and turn them blue.
The text of this card is not too interesting. What players are instead interested in is the ability for this card to target as many creatures as you want. This means that you can get as many Coiling Oracle-style triggers from Nadu as there are creatures on your board, and just for one mana!
Of course, zero mana equip cost artifacts like Shuko and Lightning Greaves do this better, but due to the singleton nature of Commander, any strong inclusion like this is going to get some attention.
Thanks to some increased interest, Sea Kings’ Blessing is getting a major price boost. Worth about $3.25 just ten days ago, Sea Kings’ Blessing is now selling for $20-25!
Notably, Sea Kings’ Blessing only has one printing from Legends, a set released 30 years ago. This means that even a marginal increase in interest is going to cause this card to explode in value. That’s because there is a strictly limited amount of supply for it. This applies even more than typical one-print cards.
In our opinion, unless you really want to play this card in Commander, we would advise waiting for the hype to die down if you’re interested in this card. Constructed players should probably avoid this completely, as there are much better options to abuse Nadu when you can run multiples of cards in your library.
Borne Upon a Wind
Borne Upon a Wind has been seeing some increased attention for a little while now. It turns out this card can be extraordinarily powerful in cEDH games. It’s not difficult for decks in that format to win off a card that makes your entire deck play at instant speed, even temporarily. While this has brought extra attention to what was previously draft chaff, that is unlikely to be the sole reason why Borne Upon a Wind is seeing a spike.
Borne Upon a Wind synergizes quite strongly with a Modern Horizons 3 Mythic. One of the overarching themes of Modern Horizons 3 is to use nostalgia as a muse. This created a ton of new, tuned-down cards from Magic’s history. Necrodominance is one of these cards.
For three mana, Necrodominance is an obviously ‘fixed’ version of Necropotence. In function, these two cards are almost the same, essentially accomplishing the same thing. There are three key differences between Necropotence and Necrodominance that ‘fixes’ the new card:
- Necrodominance draws cards, while Necropotence puts them in your hand.
- Cards discard when Necropotence is in play temporarily hit the grave, while Necrodominance sends them straight to exile.
- You have a hand limit of five with Necrodominance. This does not apply for Necropotence.
This makes Necrodominance a lot harder to abuse in the same way you could Necropotence, and allows for common counterplay tactics, like Orcish Bowmasters, to have a stronger game against Necrodominance.
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Necrodominance in Legacy
Necropotence is definitely too powerful of an option. The card is banned in Legacy, an incredibly powerful format. Legacy players are now interested in using Necrodominance in Necropotence’s place! Borne Upon a Wind is the key to abusing it.
With Borne Upon a Wind, Necrodominance wielders unlock a unique function that the card may not have been intended for. You can pay all but one of your life to draw as many cards as possible in the end step. With Borne Upon a Wind set up, you can cast all of your drawn cards before you discard them. In strategies like Legacy Storm, drawing 19 should be more than enough to win the game.
Thanks to this interaction, Borne Upon a Wind is starting to see a price increase. This is most obvious for the card’s showcase scroll variant, which has increased in price from about $3.50 to about $9-10 over the last couple of weeks. The highest sale for this card hits $15.
If you care less for the look and more for function, the original variant of Borne Upon a Wind has not spiked too much. Recent sales indicate that a spike may start for that card, but it’s only worth about $2 for now.
Zero to Hero
It’s really interesting when an old card that had absolutely no purpose turns into something that everyone wants. That’s part of what makes Magic such an interesting game, and Sea Kings’ Blessing is a great example of that. Thanks to Nadu, Winged Wisdom, this old card from a set released 30 years ago finally has a chance to shine.
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