To put it lightly, today is a big day for Magic: The Gathering. At long last, Edge of Eternities prerelease events have begun, making the set legal in all formats while ushering in Standard rotation. Between the new precons and a massive metagame shift, today will undoubtedly cause huge ripples in the MTG financial markets.
As if these ripples somehow weren’t enough already, Wizards of the Coast hasn’t slowed down. Thanks to San Diego Comic-Con, we’ve been inundated with new MTG Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender spoilers since Wednesday. For better or worse, these spoilers haven’t even finished yet, as there’s more planned for today and tomorrow.
Unsurprisingly, these new Universes Beyond spoilers have already caught the eyes of the MTG community. Many of the new Spider-Man cards might be rather meh, but the new Katara, the Fearless promo is seriously exciting. Showcasing new support for a decade-old archetype, it’s no wonder that Katara is causing movement in the markets already.
Harabaz Druid
First printed in 2010’s Worldwake, Harabaz Druid is a cornerstone of the Ally archetype in Commander. According to EDHREC, Harabaz sees play in 91% of the Ally decks that have been created to date. This high play rate isn’t really a surprise, as they’re the perfect mana dork for this typal deck.
Not only can Harabaz Druid produce any color of many, but the amount they create can quickly scale up. Obviously, in Commander, this is a godsend, allowing you to play more cards and build upon your on-board synergies. While Harabaz is bound to always be popular, notably, there’s technically nothing making them stronger right this second.
While Katara, the Fearless offers a compelling Panharmonicon effect for Ally decks, she doesn’t synergize with Harabaz Druid. She might be an Ally herself, but Katara only doubles triggered abilities, not activated ones like Karabaz’s. Despite this lack of synergy, Katara has still caused a huge surge in demand as Allies are clearly coming back.
When Avatar Aang was first revealed, it was unclear if Allies were going to be a major theme in the set or not. Now that Katara also has the Ally type, it has seemingly confirmed this will be a major theme going forward. With this in mind, a lot of people are bound to be building Ally Typal decks in the near future.
When this time inevitably comes, MTG players are bound to need copies of staples like Harabaz Druid. For now, this has left an opening that investors and eager players have been more than happy to jump on. Following the reveal of Katara, the Fearless yesterday, there has been a steep surge in sales.
The Spike
In the past two days, over 50 near-mint copies of Harabaz Druid have been sold on TCGplayer. This might not sound like much, but lower conditions have significantly more sales. Over 150 lightly played copies have been sold, for instance, since Katara’s reveal. Similarly, 65 moderately played sales have taken place, so this rush of demand is evidently wide-reaching.
Thanks to the age of Harabaz Druid, this increase in sales has quickly drained the available supply on TCGplayer. Right now, there are only six listings for near-mint copies on TCGplayer with prices starting at $13.50. While this is by no means cheap compared to past prices, recent sales have pushed as high as $15.
Just a couple of days ago, you’d only have to spend around $2.30 for a copy of Harabaz Druid. That’s if you were feeling spenny too, as there is a reprint from The List which is even cheaper. Historically, this reprint was selling for just $1.22 on TCGplayer. Unsurprisingly, this variant has also seen a massive sales surge, pushing prices up.
Notably, while prices are up across the board, The List reprint hasn’t been selling for as much as the original copy. Sales for this variant have topped out at $5, which may show MTG players aren’t willing to spend too much if they can help it. That said, keen players may not have much choice in the matter.
Since Harabaz Druid is so useful in Ally Typal decks, there’s good cause for them to be worth decent money. In theory, this may mean that the current price spike will persist, if not continue, until Avatar’s release. For better or worse, such a trend is by no means guaranteed.
The Future
As mentioned, it feels like there’s a decent chance that Harabaz Druid will continue to climb in price. As the Ally archetype gets more and more popular, demand should steadily push prices up. Given the current trends, this seems inevitable; however, one change could completely crush this price spike.
If Harabaz Druid is reprinted in the Avatar: The Last Airbender MTG set, prices will undoubtedly fall. While this could technically happen in the main set, the lack of a flavorful connection to the source material makes this unlikely. In theory, the most sensible place for a reprint to take place would be a preconstructed Commander precon from Wizards.
Sadly, there’s no word right now on whether or not the Avatar: The Last Airbender MTG set will have Commander precons. While it’s believed this set will be a larger release, Wizards hasn’t officially confirmed this just yet. Hopefully, we should get more details this weekend, but a big announcement is scheduled for August 12th at the latest.
Ultimately, with how few copies of Harabaz Druid are left on the market, it’s clear that the ship has already sailed. If there’s no reprint, then those who got in early on for cheap will make bank here. Should there be a reprint, however, these eager players and investors may end up losing out. As always, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, and what themes the Commander precons have, if they exist at all.
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