The Final Fantasy MTG set has been out for almost three months at this point, but it’s still moving the markets. Considering the set is far and away the most successful MTG release of all time, this shouldn’t really be a surprise. What is a surprise, however, are the cards that are now causing the spikes.
Commanders like Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed and Choco, Seeker of Paradise have had their time in the spotlight already. With new Spider-Man spoilers still failing to gain traction, this has left room for old legends to shine once more. In particular, it seems Hope Estheim is back in vogue as a number of synergistic cards have spiked in price recently.
Hope Estheim
While Hope Estheim has been moving the markets recently, he’s actually one of the most popular Final Fantasy Commanders. Between the main set and precons, too, Hope Estheim is the tenth most popular legend, according to EDHREC. This isn’t too surprising, as not only are they an iconic character, but their gameplay is rather unique too.
At their core, Hope Estheim is a lifegain Commander that also Mills each opponent at the same time. Thanks to Hope’s color identity, you can easily play into both of these game plans at once; however, that’s not entirely needed. All you really need to make Hope work is a whole bunch of Linegain, as he’ll take care of the rest.
Even if you’re just going down the lifegain route, there are still tons of ways to build Hope Estheim. You can go wide and creature-focused with Soul Warden, for instance, or Stax-y with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. Naturally, cards like Bruvac the Grandiloquent will help out with extra Mill, too, if you want to focus on that.
Regardless of which way you go about things, Hope Estheim decks did get a major boost from Edge of Eternities. The new Space-Time Anomaly, which is only a $0.50 card, can be insanely powerful if you’ve gained enough life. Thanks to this card, and others like Haliya, Guided by Light, it’s no wonder that Hope Estheim continues to be popular.
Beacon of Immortality
While there are plenty of cards you can cram into a Hope Estheim deck, you won’t want to miss Beacon of Immortality. While it’s not the cheapest, at six mana, doubling your life total is obviously a huge effect. Beyond just keeping you alive, doubling your life counts as life gain, which means it works wonders with Hope.
Even if you haven’t gained any extra life, this is essentially a Mill 40 spell if Hope is in play. Thanks to the nature of Hope Estheim decks, this is pretty much a worst-case scenario, as you should have gained tons more life by then. Alternatively, you could always hold Beacon of Immortality up until later, so it can close the game out.
Thanks to this synergy, it’s no surprise that demand for Beacon of Immortality is up a great deal. This, in turn, has pushed prices for the card up significantly, especially for older printings. Curiously, while it’s not the oldest printing, 10th Edition copies have exploded the most in price.
Previously, around the time of Final Fantasy’s release, 10th Edition copies of Beacon of Immortality were selling for barely $7. Since then, prices have steadily been climbing, and the market price now sits at $14. While this might not seem like much, new listings now start at $25. Thankfully, other printings of Beacon of Immortality aren’t quite so expensive at the moment.
Currently, the cheapest printing of Beacon of Immortality is the Explorers of Ixalan variant, but even that is selling for $16+. This seems to be the average price for near-mint copies of the card across all printings at the moment. Unfortunately, even worse condition copies have crept up to this price point, thanks to the increased demand.
Boon Reflection
Much like Beacon of Immortality, Boon Reflection is an obvious auto-include to any Hope Estheim Commander deck. Once again, it’s not the cheapest, but it can easily put in work over the course of a game. Doubling the life you gain obviously means double the amount of Mill with Hope, which is great in any amount.
Beyond providing long-term value, Boon Reflection can create a nasty combo with Beacon of Immortality. Alongside Hope you can play Boon on five and then Beacon on six, to Mill each opponent for 80 cards. If you’re at 45+ life when you do this, it should easily be enough to close out the game in an instant.
Thanks to this synergy, it’s no wonder that demand for copies of Boon Reflection has also been on the up and up. Once again, it’s the older variants of this card that have spiked the most in price. The original Shadowmoor printing, for instance, has climbed from a price of $8.60 to $30 on average.
Thankfully, if you’re on a budget, the Double Masters reprint is significantly cheaper at the moment. New listings for this variant start at $15, and there’s almost 14 times more supply available. That said, this variant only has 73 copies left for purchase, so that supply could be drained rather rapidly.
The Future
Ultimately, while we can’t ever predict the future, things are looking pretty good for Hope Estheim Commander decks. Not only does this Commander support a unique strategy, but it should continue to see new support in future sets. While new cards are unlikely to be as perfect as Space-Time Anomaly, lifegain tends to get a lot of casual support from Wizards.
Due ot this, it feels like there’s a good chance Hope Estheim and the support cards surrounding him may remain popular. As always, however, there’s no guarantee that this will actually happen. Tastes may change when new Commander decks come out, and there’s always the possibility of reprints, too.
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