Standard may have just been shaken up, but Final Fantasy still rules the world of MTG finance. This set has been out for a couple of weeks now, yet we’re still seeing steady price spikes and new developments. Considering Final Fantasy is the best-selling MTG set of all time, this shouldn’t really be a surprise.
While the main set has plenty of fantastic Commanders, as usual, the set’s precons are causing the most movement. Recently, we’ve seen a lot of action around Counter Blitz; however, that’s not the only popular deck. The Limit Break precon, for instance, is now causing a few of its own impressive price spikes.
Codsworth, Handy Helper
If you’re building an equipment-focused Commander deck, you’d be remiss not to include Codsworth, Handy Helper. He might not be the best choice as a Commander; however, Codsworth can provide a ton of value in the 99. Offering protection, ramp, and a way to avoid equip costs, Codsworth does it all.
While you do have to tap Codsworth to get two of these effects, getting this much utility for three mana is insane. It’s no wonder that Codsworth, Handy Helper is already seeing play in over 52,000 Commander decks. While they’ve not been around for long, two different versions of Cloud are adding almost 4,000 to this total.
Currently, the most popular Cloud Commander is, unsurprisingly, Cloud, Ex-Soldier. As the face Commander of the Limit Break precon, Cloud is the perfect home for upgrades like Codsworth. Since you’ll be attaching equipment to Cloud directly, Codsworth’s protection ability is especially valuable here, which is always nice.
Cloud, Midgar Mercenary also benefits from the same synergy since he’s great to build around. Getting to avoid the equip costs of synergistic equipment like Argentum Armor and Ultima Weapon sweetens the deal even further. Arguably, Midgar Mercenary is the more synergistic option; however, Ex-Soldier is easier to upgrade.
Regardless of which Cloud you’re building around, there’s no denying that Codsworth, Handy Helper is fantastic in the 99. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that Codsworth has been climbing in price recently.
The Spike
Unlike many of the price spikes that we’ve seen recently, Codsworth, Handy Helper was already fairly expensive to begin with. As mentioned, Codsworth is decently popular in Commander, and they’re not exactly the most common MTG card. Due to this, at the start of June, Codsworth was selling for around $7.65 on average.
As you can see above, sales for Codsworth have been fairly steady throughout June, although one day changed the tide. On June 21st, over 80 near-mint copies of Codsworth were sold, putting a serious dent in the available supply. As regular sales continued after that, it didn’t take long for prices to start climbing fast.
In the past week and a half, the price of Codsworth, Handy Helper has more than doubled. While there is one cheap near-mint copy available for $13, most listings start at $20 at the moment. The market price may be slightly behind this point; however, many recent sales have been at or above $20.
When factoring in shipping costs, the Extended Art variants of Codsworth are selling for a similar price point. Notably, this variant does have significantly less available supply, so prices appear to be more volatile. The same is true for the Surge Foil variants of Codsworth, which are even rarer. Currently, both normal and Extended Art Surge Foil copies start at around $28.
The Future
Unlike many of the Commander-based price spikes that we look at, it seems Codsworth, Handy Helper could stay rather expensive. Thanks to being generally useful and providing a ton of value, there should always be demand for Codsworth. At the very least, we’d expect a value floor of $10, but Codsworth could easily sell for $15+.
While this valuation may be rather high, Codsworth is a Fallout-themed Universes Beyond card. For better or worse, this makes him rather difficult to reprint, although definitely not impossible. While Mark Rosewater has ruled out Universes Within-focused sets, there’s nothing to explicitly say Codsworth couldn’t be reprinted.
That said, I definitely wouldn’t expect a Codsworth reprint to happen anytime soon. After all, since he’s a Universes Beyond card, which typically have rights issues attached, any reprint would likely need to be reskinned. Even with that in mind, Codsworth is hardly the most needed reprint for any future Masters set.
Due to this quirk of Universes Beyond, Codsworth could easily keep climbing and climbing in price. Thanks to the value they provide, Codsworth is likely always going to be a staple in Equipment-themed decks. Even if they’re outclassed by power creep, Commander’s consistency-rewarding singleton construction should keep Codsworth around.
This is all to say that it’ll be worth watching the price of Codsworth, Handy Helper closely. As always, there’s a chance this card’s price will crash when new precons come along, but that does seem unlikely.
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