With the one-two punch of Bloomburrow releasing and the format rotating, MTG Standard seems to have been jolted awake. Every week we see new decks emerge and evolve, and more players seem to be discussing the format online than we’ve seen in a while. As a result, some of Standard’s premier staples are now spiking in price. Deep-Cavern Bat, a classic MTG hand attack piece from Lost Caverns of Ixalan, is up over 300%. Urabrask’s Forge, a one-card win con for red, is up over 240% as well. Looks like Standard’s back on the menu, boys.
Deep-Cavern Bat (+320%)
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 1/1
- Text: Flying, Lifelink. When Deep-Cavern Bat enters, look at target opponent’s hand. You may exile a nonland card from it until Deep-Cavern Bat leaves the battlefield.
Chances are, you’ve seen this card before. Deep-Cavern Bat has been one of the most consistently-played cards in MTG Standard since its release last year. Its effect isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it is very efficient. Dealing with any nonland card in your opponent’s hand, even temporarily, can be a huge swing. Particularly if you can get the only removal spell they have, thus preventing them from removing Bat in response.
Thanks to this, and the Flying/Lifelink combo that lets it excel against Aggro and other grindy decks, the card has secured its place in every Midrange deck in Standard. Whether it’s Golgari Midrange or Orzhov Midrange, it’s very likely playing four copies of Deep-Cavern Bat. Decks like these are at the top of the format, too, so demand is very high for our flappy friend.
Because of all of these factors, it’s not surprising that the card is seeing a spike now. Where you could get copies for around $1.10 just under two weeks ago, you’re now looking at around $4.60 minimum. With some copies selling for even more than that. That’s an approximate spike of 320%, which is significant for an uncommon this far along in its Standard life cycle.
That said, given the card’s immense popularity and the range of decks it can fit in, I don’t see that price coming back down soon. Deep-Cavern Bat has always been great, so the main driver of the spike here is the increased popularity of Standard post-Bloomburrow. If Standard dies down again, this likely will too. But until then, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny.
Urabrask’s Forge (+247%)
- Mana Value: 2R
- Rarity: Rare
- Text: At the beginning of combat on your turn, put an oil counter on Urabrask’s Forge, then create an X/1 red Phyrexian Horror creature token with trample and haste, where X is the number of oil counters on Urabrask’s Forge. Sacrifice that token at the beginning of the next end step.
Urabrask’s Forge is in a similar boat to Deep-Cavern Bat. It’s another Standard card that has been seeing play since last year, in fairly successful decks. The new meta shift has actually benefited Forge even more than Bat, however. Bloomburrow’s token support pieces, Caretaker’s Talent, in particular, have made it possible for Control decks to rely on token generators as their win cons. Urabrask’s Forge is probably the best option available in that category.
The card gets to work the turn you play it and scales up slowly from there, keeping constant pressure on your opponent. If you drop it early as a Control deck, you can focus on removing threats, and then just chip away with your tokens until you win. It’s a very effective card, and one not nearly enough decks are playing main deck answers for.
Naturally, this has led to a price spike. A 247% price spike, to be precise. Copies of Forge have shot up from around $3.30 to $11.60, with signs pointing to a $15 median price soon. This feels about right, all things considered. Caretaker’s Talent is up around $10 itself, so it follows that another major piece of the strategy would follow suit.
The fact that Forge has a number of homes in Commander too makes it a more reliable spec than Deep-Cavern Bat, since its price should recover better post-rotation. $10 seems like a fair price for this one.
Read More: Tasty Eldraine Land Jumps Over 300% In Price
