At this point, everyone knows that the Final Fantasy MTG set and Commander decks are insanely popular. We’ve seen rampant supply issues for months, even though Wizards is trying their best. Despite this, the MTG financial markets have been surprisingly dormant, especially following the set’s precons being revealed.
Typically, we’ll see a ton of action on the financial markets whenever a new precon is spoiled. While some are better than others, each precon can do with upgrades, which players rush to buy en masse. The same is true of the Final Fantasy Commander decks, of course, however, players seem hesitant.
Thanks to containing 25 brand-new cards and new art throughout, each of the Final Fantasy Commander decks is incredibly flavorful. While this is undoubtedly a strong selling point, it does make buying upgrades more dubious than usual. As a result, we’ve seen fewer of the immense Commander-based spikes that we’re used to seeing.
As if fewer spikes weren’t disappointing enough for MTG finance fans, other spikes are rather dubious. The recent rise of Contractual Safeguard, for instance, is a bit eyebrow-raising, to say the least. While this is a good card, it may not be headed for the stratosphere anytime soon…
Contractual Safeguard
While we don’t think it’s the most solid spike that we’ve seen recently, Contractual Safeguard does undeniably have good synergy. Within the Final Fantasy X-themed precon, Counter Blitz, Safeguard can offer a lot of value.
At worst, Contractual Safeguard should let you put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures, provided you have one already. For three mana, this is perhaps a bit overcosted, but that is a worst-case scenario. Thankfully, things do get a lot better if you trigger the Addendum ability. This will give you a Shield Counter, which you can then spread to all your other creatures.
Essentially, when played at the right time, Contractual Safeguard is a bizarre bit of board wipe protection, which is always useful. While it does have to be played in advance, there’s no denying that Shield Counters are incredibly valuable. The same is true of Magic’s many Keyword Counters, however, you won’t find these in Counter Blitz.
Instead, Counter Blitz is almost singularly focused on +1/+1 counters. There is a lot of synergy in this regard, especially from the new cards, but that limits Contractual Safeguard’s potential somewhat. Rather than going all-in on Shield Counters, you might want just to make one and a bunch of +1/+1 counters too.
Thankfully, Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian, can still ensure that just one Shield Counter does a lot of work. By moving counters around before combat, Tidus can ensure that your main threat is always protected. Ideally, this should mean that combat always goes well for you, while packing an extra punch from the +1/+1 counters.
The Spike
Thanks to its counter-based synergy, Contractual Safeguard is genuinely a good upgrade to the Counter Blitz Commander deck. As a result of this, there has been a good amount of attention on this card. While it may not fit the deck’s theme, it does work especially well with other upgrades, like Slippery Bogbonder.
Unsurprisingly, Contractual Safeguard has been mentioned a few times on the mtgfinance subreddit when players have been theorizing potential specs. Due to this, it seems that a lot of players were keen to invest in Safeguard ahead of the full Commander deck’s reveal. This can clearly be seen on the graph above.
On May 9th, four days before the Counter Blitz Commander deck would be revealed, there was a massive surge in sales. 219 copies of the card were sold on this day alone, putting a massive dent in the available supply. Another surge happened just before the deck was revealed on May 12th, then again a little later on May 16th.
Notably, there weren’t a lot of sales on May 13th, when most players would be looking for upgrades themselves. As a result, this price spike appears to be largely investor-driven, but the price has still spiked nonetheless.
This time last month, copies of Contractual Safeguard were selling for around $0.37 on average. Now, however, you’ll have to pay at least $2.03 for a copy of this card. Currently, there are only a few near-mint copies at this price, as listings jump to $3.77 immediately after. Unfortunately, thanks to the mass buyouts this card has experienced, there aren’t any low-quality copies available for cheaper right now.
If you are looking for a deal, the Extended Art variant may be your best port of all. Even this, however, has seen a similar buyout-induced spike.
The Future
As alluded to in the title of this article, this price spike seems more dubious than most. While the price is up right now, the issue is that there may be a lack of genuine buyers. This may leave investors sitting on their stock until they get bored and release it back onto the market.
Even if this doesn’t happen immediately, it seems the price of Contractual Safeguard is unlikely to skyrocket. There simply isn’t enough demand for this card right now, even if it works well in Counter Blitz. Subsequently, it seems no amount of low supply is going to cause this card to hit $10 or beyond anytime soon.
Of course, it’d be foolish to never say never, as Contractual Safeguard could prove valuable in the long run. It’s surely only a matter of time before more Keyword Counters and +1/+1 counter support get printed. If this happens in a precon, Contractual Safeguard could be an amazing upgrade if it’s in color.
While it’s very possible this may happen eventually, there’s no guarantee it’ll happen soon. As usual, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks and months.
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