March of the Machine had its first big tournament weekend following prerelease, and a lot has shown up. We got MTG’s first mini-set leaked a little earlier than expected, but, surprisingly, that has nothing to do with the most significant movement overall this week. Instead, one historic MTG card worth $200 back in Fate Reforged Standard once upon a time is seeing competitive play again. Players may be experiencing PTSD early, because this Jace card absolutely exploded in price over the course of the week. Let’s take a look at this week’s most significant market changes!
Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy has absolutely exploded in price over the course of this week but shows a much larger arc over the last three months. Back in late December, Jace was only worth about $7, the lowest it had been all year. TCGplayer currently has copies of this card selling for about $24 (it was only worth $8 last week), but things get a bit stranger than that.
Some financial outlets have reported this card’s average market price as high as $45. This didn’t match TCGplayer’s sales history, so I had a quick look at some other sites to find that the Prodigy is sold out everywhere. Additionally, the average sales price for Jace on TCGplayer, at the time of writing, is about $40. Long story short, while Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy is currently worth around $24, there is a very strong chance that the card will jump further financially in the coming weeks.
Why is Jace suddenly jumping in price? Well, the card is a strong option in Commander and Oathbreaker (which was officially recognized as a format by Wizards of the Coast not too long ago), but Pioneer is the real reason why this card is moving so heavily.
Pioneer’s New Archetype
This is thanks to the new card Rona, Herald of the Invasion from March of the Machine. As we’ve written about previously, this card has created an entire new combo archetype in the Pioneer format. Long story short, combining Rona, Herald of Invasion with Mox Amber and Retraction Helix creates infinite mana. Add a Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler into the mix, and you’ve got infinite self-mill, loots and mana. Additionally, Tyvar allows Rona to start activating its abilities the turn it enters play and can reanimate the card from your graveyard.
Jace plays beautifully into this strategy. Not only does the card synergize incredibly well with Tyvar, but it can recur the Retraction Helix when it flips into a Planeswalker. Jace can help to find other combo pieces, fills your graveyard for Delve spells, acts as a win condition in some variants of the deck, and filters out a lot of your bad draws, like double Mox Amber.
Diminishing Returns
This bizarre card from Alliance saw its price double over the past week. Now worth about $6, Diminishing Returns may be a bit of an odd card to see a financial increase which means that, if you’ve been paying attention to the marketplace for the past few weeks, you probably already know where this is going.
Many weird, completely unplayable cards have been spiking in price over the past few weeks due to the Forgetful Fish format. Ever since MTG personality Rhystic Studies uploaded a YouTube video highlighting the format, it has absolutely exploded in popularity. Many of the card in Forgetful Fish do not have a lot of printings, which means a small amount of interest will drastically affect the card’s price. We saw this with Dandan and Crystal Spray over the past few weeks, and Diminishing Returns joins the group. Notably, Diminishing Returns does have a more recent reprint in Eternal Masters, but all of the card’s printings are not widely available.
Read More: Unreleased MTG Leak Reveals New Combo Tutor Card!
Cavalier of Dawn
Here’s another card that’s pretty easy to identify the cause for the price raise. As you may notice, Cavalier of Dawn is a Knight with a flexible removal effect, which means it’s a fantastic upgrade to the Cavalier Charge preconstructed Commander deck. There are a lot more noncreature threats in the Commander format than in competitive ones, so having accessible removal that synergizes well with the deck’s overall archetype is strong. To make things even better, the Eminence ability on the front-facing Commander for this precon allows you to loot whenever one or more Knights attack. This allows Cavalier of Dawn’s death trigger to be much more reliable, and you can reanimate the Cavalier with your Commander.
In terms of price, Cavalier of Dawn has creeped up from around $3.50 over the last few months to between $15 and $20 nowadays. The card occasionally sells for more than $15, but this seems to be the average price currently.
Mox Amber
This isn’t the biggest spike in the world, but Mox Amber’s immediate spike in price this week, even though it recently got reprinted in The Brothers’ War, is a huge flag that the new Rona deck might be a real thing. Besides potential Commander potential, this is the only new place that Mox Amber is seeing play, and the deck probably needs four copies in the 75. I was doubtful of this before trying the deck myself since finding two of them is equivalent to a dead draw, but you have a lot of looters and do need to find one to win the game.
Since the end of March, Mox Amber has increased from $23.50 to $32 at its high-end, but can be found for around $28 rather consistently.
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