The Final Fantasy Magic: The Gathering set really has something for everyone. Not only are there tons of fantastic new Commanders to enjoy, but there are plenty of new competitive staples too. On top of these, there are also a handful of new MTG cards that are just plain fun and flavorful.
Overkill is a perfect example of Final Fantasy’s fun and flavor-first designs. -0/-21 would be enough to kill any creature in Commander, yet Wizards leaned into the franchise’s lore. For the most part, this is just added flavor that ensures you can punch through any non-infinite buff. It turns out, however, that this unique flavorful touch also creates a wild instant kill combo alongside the right card.
This combo, in turn, has led to a rather impressive price spike over the past few weeks.
Jaws of Defeat
When it was first spoiled, as part of the Abzan Armor Commander deck, Jaws of Defeat didn’t seem that amazing. In a toughness matters-focused deck, like the Tarkir: Dragonstorm precon, it can put in a decent amount of work. Outside of that somewhat niche appeal, however, this card isn’t really that special.
At best, it seemed you’d be hoping to hit an opponent for 13 when playing a creature like The Pride of Hull Clade. While this isn’t bad, especially for four mana, this card wasn’t going to be winning any games on its own. Thanks to the aforementioned combo, however, Final Fantasy has changed that.
If you Overkill your own creature right after casting it, you can deal up to 9998 damage to your opponent. While this seems rather unintuitive, since Overkill will kill the creature you target, this won’t cause Jaws of Defeat’s trigger to fizzle. Instead, it looks at the creature’s stats at the last moment it left the battlefield.
With a Sol Ring, an Ornithopter, and a dream, this is a somewhat viable turn three combo kill. This may seem pretty spicy in Commander, however, it’s worth remembering that Jaws of Defeat only hits one opponent. Without more cheap creatures and a way to recur Overkill, you may struggle to win the game with this combo alone.
That’s not to say it’s bad, however, as being able to effectively guarantee one kill is defintely better than nothing. Due to this, it’s no wonder that many MTG players have been interested in this combo and subsequently buying up the pieces.
The Spike
Before this new Final Fantasy combo was revealed, Jaws of Defeat really wasn’t a hugely exciting MTG card. While fun for some, toughness matters-focused decks are definitely a niche within the grand scheme of Commander. Due to this, copies of Jaws of Defeat were incredibly cheap, selling for around $0.31 this time last month.
Unsurprisingly, this price started to climb from the moment that the new combo was discovered. As usual, things were slow going at first, even as sales surged; however, it didn’t take long for supply to dwindle. When this happened, prices shot up rather quickly, although Jaws of Defeat still isn’t a hugely expensive MTG card.
Currently, a near-mint copy of Jaws of Defeat will set you back $2.49 on TCGplayer. This marks a 703% price spike in just one month. Potentially, this spike may continue to climb in the coming days and weeks, since there are only 33 liftings left on TCGplayer. Notably, however, this is just for the normal variant of the card.
Thanks to being found in Collector Boosters, there are significantly more Extended Art copies of Jaws of Defeat floating around. Prices for these copies start at just $1.56, which is a steal considering you get more art for your money. With over 100 unique listings still on TCGplayer, this variant is definitely the preferred choice for value-conscious players.
In case you’re curious, the other part of this combo, Overkill, is even cheaper at the moment. Copies of this otherwise mediocre uncommon are selling for just $0.36 on average. This makes this combo both cheap and effective.
The Future
In the short term, considering the low supply of the normal variant, there’s a good chance prices will increase. $2.50 is still rather cheap at the end of the day, so a buyout isn’t out of the question. For better or worse, it’s unlikely that the same will happen to the Extended Art variant, which may keep prices in check.
Looking further ahead, it seems very unlikely that Jaws of Defeat will be able to retain much of its currently inflated price. As fun as this combo is, it isn’t cEDH viable, and it’s part of a rather niche strategy. Technically, you don’t have to include this combo within a toughness matters deck, but that’s where it’ll see most play.
Sadly, outside of this niche archetype, Jaws of Defeat just isn’t that powerful of an MTG card. Due to this, demand is likely going to fall off once players have had their fill. It’s technically unclear when, or if, this will happen, but there’s a lot more still to come in 2025.
Thankfully, even if Jaws of Defeat isn’t a fantastic investment at the moment, it’s still a lot of fun. It’s not every day that we get an instant kill combo like this one, especially one that’s so cheap.
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