Fastbond is one of the scariest enchantments in all of Magic. Allowing players to drop as many lands as they could possibly want on the first turn, it’s easy to win the game from absolutely nowhere. The downside of losing a life is easily relegated by cards like Courser of Kruphix, which can start allowing you to dump lands from the top of your deck directly into play.
Considering how powerful this card is, players may be surprised to find that Fastbond, outside of its appearances in Magic’s older sets, is not that expensive. Sometimes, being too powerful can become a card’s downfall. As a result of Fastbond’s ridiculous power, there are very few places that players can actually legally play it.
Despite this, it appears that Fastbond is seeing price increases this week across the board. More specifically, these spikes are occurring in sets where Fastbond is normally at its cheapest. As such, if you’re looking to pick up a copy soon, you may have to fork over a bit more money for it.
Fastbond Spike
- Mana Value: G
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Revised
- Card Text: You may play any number of lands on each of your turns. Whenever you play a land, if it wasn’t the first land you played this turn, Fastbond deals 1 damage to you.
While it’s not entirely obvious why Fastbond is seeing a notable price increase, what is clear is that Revised edition copies of the card in good condition are worth significantly more than they were even a week ago. According to TCGPlayer market price, near mint copies of Fastbond sat just under $16 on August 26. Now, that price has ballooned to about $26. Similarly, lightly played versions went up from $12 on August 26 to $25 today.
Revised copies of Fastbond are still much cheaper than their Beta or Alpha counterparts. Unfortunately, though, because Fastbond is on the Reserved List, we won’t be seeing a tournament legal reprint anytime soon. Players may be able to pick up Collector’s Edition or International Edition variants of Fastbond for slightly cheaper, but these cards are not available for use in tournaments.
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The Odd Case of Fastbond
- Mana Value: 2U
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited
- Card Text: Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards. (Then put Timetwister into its owner’s graveyard.)
What’s interesting about this price spike, all things considered, is that it really can’t be chalked up to an increase in competitive play or anything of the sort. This is because Fastbond sees virtually no play in any of the Constructed formats it’s legal in. The card is banned in Commander and Legacy and has never been printed in a Modern legal set. The card remains legal in Vintage, but it makes barely any noise there in a format that powerful.
The one place where Fastbond makes its presence felt is actually Vintage Cube. There are a lot of ways for green ramp decks to abuse Fastbond in Cube. With access to both Strip Mine and Crucible of Worlds, you can continuously keep blowing up your opponent’s lands by paying a bit of life. Fastbond also pairs nicely with “Wheel” effects like Timetwister, allowing you to get a huge mana advantage and quickly dump the new hand of cards you draw.
Nonetheless, the price spike is a bit peculiar. It’ll be interesting to see if this pattern continues, so make sure to monitor this one closely.
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