As The Brothers’ War becomes absorbed by the MTG market, some winners are starting to emerge. Meld cards are seeing gigantic spikes in price, but the reasoning isn’t super clear. That said, a lack of supply and Commander demand seem to be the two most evident reasons. That couldn’t be more opposite for today’s card. Brotherhood’s End is seeing play in everything from Standard to Vintage, and people are starting to take notice.
Brotherhood’s End
As mentioned earlier, Brotherhood’s End is currently seeing Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander play. It’s rare for a card to see play in this many formats, and when it does, it usually skyrockets in price like Ledger Shredder from Streets of New Capenna did. The card is starting to see a massive boost in price, but it’s nothing compared to the aforementioned card.
Over the course of about two weeks, Brotherhood’s End jumped from $1 to $5. While this price spike is incredibly noteworthy, it may actually underplay how impressive it is for a card to see play in almost every MTG format it’s legal in. Notably, some outlier sales today feature this card selling for as much as $12! This indicates the card could spike much further. Therefore, if you’re interested in having a playset for yourself, I would consider buying them ASAP (that said, I don’t think a playset of this card will be run in any formats at this point).
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An Incredibly Versatile Board Wipe
The biggest reason for Brotherhood’s End’s success is the card’s incredible versatility. Artifacts aren’t currently the biggest deal in Standard or Pioneer, but they’re all over the place in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. The ability to wipe out artifacts with Mana Value three or less has the potential of wiping entire boards with which decks normally struggle to interact. Modern Affinity, Hammer Time, and Urza’s Saga-focused decks all get sent back to the stone age with Brotherhood’s End. Prison Tron is even more hilarious since this card deals with Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void, and more.
The ability to wipe out artifacts in Legacy is also incredibly valuable, with decks like Eight-Cast and Red Painter floating around. Still, it now is a good time to remember that Brotherhood’s End is also capable at wiping creatures out. This, therefore, ends up being a fantastic option to wipe both artifact-heavy decks while also slowing down creature-based decks like the recent Initiative Stompy decks that hugely impact the secondary market.
The only decks in Vintage that are interested in Brotherhood’s End are control decks, but artifacts also have a significant impact in this format. The Power Nine is primarily artifacts, after all, but sometimes it can be difficult for Brotherhood’s End to make a meaningful impact in such a fast format.
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Brotherhood’s End is beginning to see play over Anger of the Gods in Pioneer. The card is slowly becoming stock in Izzet Phoenix lists because Brotherhood’s End can also hit Planeswalkers. Planeswalkers don’t have a huge impact in Pioneer outside of Mono Green Devotion. Still, Narset, Parter of Veils, is also a sideboard card that is capable of slowing Phoenix’s progression to a snail’s pace. Brotherhood’s End is a great tool to deal with a deck that’s trying to attack Phoenix from multiple angles. The card also deals with boards from Mono White and Rakdos Midrange very well since most of their cards are under three toughness. That said, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a problem for the Phoenix deck, and Adeline can run away with a game on its own.
Either way, I consistently saw this in 75’s across the Canadian Regional Championships while I was there. On that note, I finished just outside of the top 32 during my run, which I am neither excited nor upset about.
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Other Notable Brothers’ War Cards?
Alongside Brotherhood’s End, Cityscape Leveler also sees an increase in price. This card is now seeing play over Meteor Golem in Karn sideboard in Pioneer’s Mono Green Devotion, but the card is also seeing some early Standard experimentation. Modern is also trying this card in some Tron builds, but the card is seeing the most consistent play in Pioneer. While Standard finds its place, this card is showing up in many experimental new builds.
As is the case with most MTG cards, Cityscape Leveler is seeing the most demand from the Commander community. Overall, the card hasn’t spiked too much, but its recent increase to $5 has garnered enough attention to see coverage from the finance side of MTG.
The Meld cards are definitely the overall winners from The Brother’s War, but it’s hard to say whether other relevant cards will pop up in this set in the near future. Notably, if you were in the market for Mishra’s Baubles, they are now starting to stabilize. As a result, anyone who was considering getting the heavily reduced artifact reprints may want to do that before they start recovering.
