Commander Masters was just recently released, and the set has been the talk of the town. As it’s name suggests, the set was designed to show off a big subset of important Commander staple reprints. While this was largely the case, many players complained about the prices of Commander Masters product overall. Couple that with the previews of the Wilds of Eldraine Enchanting Tales bonus sheet featuring cards like
Doubling Season
Doubling Season
If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.
If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead.
and
Smothering Tithe
Smothering Tithe
Whenever an opponent draws a card, that player may pay {2}. If the player doesn't, you create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
, and players got even more upset about the set’s value as a whole.
That being said, even if the value of Commander Masters is a hot topic, the set did help reduce the price of a bunch of reasonably expensive cards that were finally reprinted. A handful of Commander staples have become much more affordable thanks to Commander Masters.
Today, we will be going over the reprints with the biggest price drops resulting from Commander Masters, including reprints of old Portal Three Kingdoms cards that have seen enormous drop-offs. Notably, we will be using TCGplayer market prices to compare the prices of different printings of each card. With that in mind, here are some pricier Commander Masters reprints that used to be significantly more expensive.
Portal and Portal Three Kingdoms Reprints
Three of the biggest price drop-offs from Commander Masters featured cards that hadn’t been reprinted in a major MTG set since Portal or Portal Three Kingdoms. The card with the biggest drop-off was none other than
Capture of Jingzhou
Capture of Jingzhou
Take an extra turn after this one.
. Capture is a five-mana Sorcery that allows you to take an extra turn. This card is nearly identical to
Time Warp
Time Warp
Target player takes an extra turn after this one.
, with the only difference being that Time Warp can target another player to give them an extra turn instead of you, if so desired.
Yet, despite their similarities, Time Warp is an $11 card. Capture, on the other hand, cost $350 from Portal Three Kingdoms. While Capture was featured as a Judge Promo, even that version is still worth $112 and was worth $137 back in May. Commander Masters helped lower the price of Capture significantly, down to $20 at the time of writing. That’s a massive $117 price fall from early May to today, the biggest price drop of any Commander Masters reprint.
Similarly, Portal Three Kingdoms versions of Sun Quan, Lord of Wu currently sits at $119. The card also saw a reprint in From the Vault: Legends, but even that version was $67 back in May. Now, the card is only $14 thanks to Commander Masters, which is a big dropoff of $53.
One last card with an enormous price drop is Personal Tutor, originally printed in Portal. In early May, the card sat at $84. Personal Tutor didn’t even have any reprints to speak of until Commander Masters, which helped tank its price down to $8 at the time of writing. After all, Personal Tutor is generally just a strictly worse version of
Mystical Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Search your library for an instant or sorcery card, reveal it, then shuffle and put that card on top.
. Much like how
Imperial Seal
Imperial Seal
Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life.
dropped a ton in price after being reprinted in Double Masters 2022, Personal Tutor dropped $76 thanks to its Commander Masters reprint. These three cards finally get a significant supply boost, lowering each of their prices a great deal.
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Commander First-Time Major Set Reprints
Beyond cards that were originally printed way back over two decades ago, there are a few other cards that were printed in Commander sets in the last decade but didn’t see major set reprints until Commander Masters. Unsurprisingly, these cards also saw significant drop-offs in price. First up, we have Arachnogensis. Arachnogenesis was originally printed in Commander 2015 and is seeing its first reprint in Commander Masters.
This card is a great Commander card, allowing you to ambush a bunch of attacking Creatures and also prevent damage that would be dealt to you by attacking Creatures, assuming they aren’t Spiders themselves. Still, this card has dropped all the way from $60 in Commander 2015 in June to $7 in Commander Masters today. At a $53 price drop, this reduction is roughly the same as Sun Quan, Lord of Wu.
Another Commander staple originally from a Commander set that’s finally receiving a non-Secret Lair reprint is
The Ur-Dragon
The Ur-Dragon
Eminence — As long as The Ur-Dragon is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Dragon spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Flying
Whenever one or more Dragons you control attack, draw that many cards, then you may put a permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield.
. The Ur-Dragon was released in Commander 2017 and was going for $68 back in May. Thanks to the Commander Masters reprint, it’s dropped $43 since then, down to just $25.
Similarly,
Deflecting Swat
Deflecting Swat
If you control a commander, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost.
You may choose new targets for target spell or ability.
is down $36 since May. This card was only released three years ago, but still dropped in price by a decent margin, from $59 to $23 in Commander Masters today. This shows just how important initial reprints can be at making high-demand cards more affordable.
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Unique Price Drop-off
One more card that saw a huge recent decrease in price is Doubling Season. What’s interesting about this dropoff is that this isn’t entirely thanks to Commander Masters. Doubling Season has seen multiple important reprints, unlike the other cards on this list. Since its original printing in Ravnica: City of Guilds, it has been reprinted in three different Masters sets as well as Battlebond. Back in early May, the card was roughly $90 at in it’s cheapest form. While the card certainly dropped between then and mid-July, even the Commander Masters version was worth upwards of $61 on July 27, according to TCGPlayer.
However, on July 28, Wizards of the Coast released an article displaying some early information about Wilds of Eldraine. In this article, one of the things discussed was the release of a new bonus sheet called Enchanting Tales. One of the cards previewed was none other than Doubling Season. Importantly, as was the case with March of the Machine’s Multiverse Legends bonus sheet, bonus sheets often drive the price down of its chase cards a lot. Even multi-format staples like
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
saw enormous drops in price.
Since this announcement just over a week ago, Doubling Season has plummeted even further, with Commander Masters variants going for $44. This is a difference of about $46 since May and given the additional reprint in Wilds of Eldraine’s Enchanting Tales bonus sheet, the card is likely to keep falling. While Commander Masters may not be the most value-oriented set in recent memory, it certainly has contributed to a number of cards becoming much more affordable.
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