The biggest announcement of the past week in the world of Magic: The Gathering was undeniably the Commander Bracket System. While this offers the Commander community a more concrete way to matchmake against strangers, it also brings with it a ban and unban potential. The Game Changers list, a list of cards that are a bit too powerful for weaker Commander decks, serves as a sort of ‘half-ban’ list. In order for cards to get unbanned or banned in Commander, they need to appear on this list at some point.
Importantly, that confirms that there will be a Commander ban and unban announcement. According to MTG designer Gavin Verhey, we’ve been told to expect an update sometime in April. Now that players are expecting Commander cards to get unbanned, some of the banned cards are rising in price. While anything could get unbanned, this particular Commander card seems way too powerful for the format.
Hullbreacher
I would be incredibly surprised if Hullbreacher gets unbanned in the Commander format. This is one of the most broken things that Commander has seen in the past decade. Regardless, the card is spiking in price thanks to unban speculation.
Any card an opponent would draw outside their one card per draw step gets turned into a Treasure Token for you. Hullbreacher stops almost every card advantage engine in the Commander, which is already a disgusting amount of value.
Stepping things up a notch, Hullbreacher ends games when combined with Wheel of Fortune or other effects like Windfall. You’ll draw a fresh seven and get 21 Treasure Tokens while your opponents lose all the cards in their hand.
The worst part? Hullbreacher has Flash. If your opponent tries to draw cards while anyone has three mana open, they could get punished by Hullbreacher. Perhaps the only positive thing about Hullbreacher is it absolutely ruins Rhystic Study.
The Spike
Before Hullbreacher was banned in Commander, it was worth a decent amount. The card went for about $28 before it was banned in the format. Since then, the card has dropped to about $1.50, where it stands three years later. After the unban speculation, Hullbreacher ticked up to about $5.50 on average in recent sales.
The traditional foil and nonfoil iterations of Hullbreacher don’t have a noticeable price change. Extended art variants are worth a bit more than traditional variants.
Nonfoil Hullbreachers go for about the same as their traditional versions, but there are many more outliers on the higher end. The most expensive nonfoil extended art Hullbreacher sold in recent days was around $8. Foils have yet another premium, going for above $15.
Finally, a Future Sight Hullbreacher was printed in the recent Mystery Booster 2 set. Nonfoil versions of this new variant go for about the same as the traditional variant.
The Future
I would be surprised if this price spike sticks around. This spike appears to be due to the potential for Hullbreacher to be unbanned in the Commander format. The card is technically legal in other formats like Legacy and Vintage, but sees little play there, and no shifts in those formats should have caused a price spike for Hullbreacher.
Once April passes and the card is not unbanned, chances are Hullbreacher will go back to a buck. Of course, on the unlikely chance that the card is unbanned, it will likely easily climb back to its previous $28 value. Hullbreacher could go even higher in this instance.
But, once again, our bet is that this card will not be unbanned. Hullbreacher is an incredibly powerful and incredibly unfun card to play against. This kind of card is likely too much for the format outside of cEDH and very high-powered Commander games, where nothing is held back. Even in that context, Hullbreacher may continue to be a problem.