Sometimes, it takes players quite some time to find a hidden gem. Despite this card being around for quite a few years, players are just beginning to realize how powerful it is. Considering that Prosper, Tome-Bound, the Commander to the deck that Grim Hireling came in is also rising in price means that Planar Portal is a particularly good buy right now!
A Card That Does Everything
Grim Hireling is indeed capable of doing a bunch of different things. Not only can it create a ton of Treasure Tokens whenever you connect, but if you don’t use those tokens for mana, Grim Hireling can repurpose them as removal. In one concise package, this card provides a disgusting amount of mana advantage and can also deal with problematic threats in a pinch.
Grim Hireling’s triggered combat damage ability does work better than it reads at first glance. Not being able to generate more than two Treasure Tokens per opponent is a bummer but, in most games of Commander, you should have more than one opponent. Connecting with all three of your opponents should create six Treasure Tokens, which is a ludicrous amount of advantage. If you can attack all three opponents the turn you play the Hireling, you’ll net two mana, which is absurd.
The potential to generate six Treasures also gives Grim Hireling some infinite combo outlets. Aggravated Assault and Najeela, the Blade Blossom will both win the game with infinite combats if your opponents can’t stop it. Considering Najeela is a cEDH Commander, this certainly gives Grim Hireling a lot of potential.
Notably, Grim Hireling does have two printings. This card appeared in both Dungeons & Dragons crossover sets. The card appears in the Planar Portal Commander deck for Adventures of the Forgotten Realms and appears in Party Time for the Baldur’s Gate expansion.
Even though Grim Hireling has been around for quite some time, the card is only starting to get the financial recognition it deserves on the secondary market. The card rose from $10 to $25 in the middle of April, and while slowly losing value, has more or less stabilized at $20 and above. Unsurprisingly, given it launched in April, it seems Outlaws of Thunder Junction may be pushing up the price somewhat.
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Doubling Triggers
Felix Five-Boots was one of the more exciting Commander options introduced in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. For five mana, Felix Five-Boots doubles up on any triggers from permanents you control that trigger on combat damage. This did cause a series of financial upticks last month, and Grim Hireling was among those.
Suddenly, a card that can create six Treasure tokens on impact can create 12! Grim Hireling can now go +8 on the turn you cast it, and can essentially allow you to cast any card you’d want to for the rest of the game. Should you want even more tokens, giving Grim Hireling Myriad makes them even more insane, potentially producing 36 tokens if they attack themselves.
Outside of Grim Hireling synergizing extremely well with Felix Five-Boots, it also happens to be an Outlaw. That means it synergizes well with the cards from the Most Wanted Commander deck. Any Commander deck that has Outlaw synergies and cares about attacking opponents is going to want Grim Hireling. Treasure decks will definitely be interested in this card as well, even if it’s just for its removal ability.
Hireling’s removal ability is also capable of committing Crimes, which gives it even more synergy with payoffs from the new set. While Grim Hireling has always been underrated, some extreme synergies from Outlaws of Thunder Junction appear to have brought the card some attention, and now that people see it, they realize how powerful Grim Hireling actually is.
Planar Portal Surges in Price
Planar Portal, the Commander deck that Grim Hireling is a part of, is surging in price at the moment, approaching $100 a copy according to TCGplayer sales! While this does seem a tad extreme, two cards have seriously spiked in price from this deck in recent times. Grim Hireling is one of them, and the deck’s face Commander, Prosper, Tome-Bound, is the other.
Prosper has always been a powerful Commander and a decent card in many 99s. Able to generate Treasure and card advantage, Prosper heavily awards players for casting spells from exile.
Casting spells from exile just so happens to be what the new Outlaws of Thunder Junction mechanic Plot wants to do. While Plot is more of a mechanic that allows players to plan for gigantic payoff turns in exchange for some tempo, it also functions from exile, turning on payoffs like Prosper. Thanks to this synergy, Prosper, Tome-Bound has unsurprisingly been spiking in price recently.
Would we recommend buying Planar Portal for $100? Absolutely not. With some work, finding this deck for about $75 seems doable, but could honestly still be a tad bit too expensive.
Now that players have finally realized the power of Grim Hireling, there is certainly a ton of interest in it. Sadly, this isn’t the easiest creature to acquire, which has left it being quite expensive. What other undiscovered Commander staples have players simply failed to find?
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