In recent weeks, Commander has been moving the MTG markets in a big way once again. The reveal of the new Commander Bracket System stirred up a whole bunch of speculation, and Aetherdrift has been moving mountains too. In particular, the Eternal Might preconstructed deck has been causing no end of impressive spikes.
A lot of these spikes have been to otherwise underused discard engines which have now been given a new home. Thanks to offering reanimation shenanigans, Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist has been doing serious work in the MTG financial markets. Now that Aetherdrift was officially released last week, it’s little wonder that these price spikes have continued.
Likeness Looter
After taking a look at both Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist and Likeness Looter, it should be obvious why this card has spiked. Likeness Looter’s discard effect allows for easy Hashaton shenanigans for basically no added cost. Better than just being a discard outlet, however, Likeness Looter lets you draw first, which is a fantastic boon.
Most of the time, discarding something relevant, while potentially finding it first, is all that this card will do. Should Likeness Looter stick around into the late game, however, then it can pull double duty. Any creature left in your graveyard can be copied for just its mana cost. While this might not seem too amazing, it’s nevertheless a welcome mana sink and one that keeps Flying intact.
Outside of this new home with Hashaton, Likeness Looter sees basically no play anywhere. Competitively this card is far from a staple, even if it did help a Dimir Oculus deck win a league last month. This card’s only saving grace is that it is moderately popular in Commander since discard effects can often prove useful.
The Spike
The price spike to Likeness Looter used to be a lot more impressive. For a brief time, as you can see above, this card had a market price of $2.59 on TCGplayer. Now, prices have slumped somewhat down to just $1.51 on average, but that’s still not half bad considering its original price.
Winding the clocks back one month, Likeness Looter used to be worth just $0.42 on average. As mentioned, the card saw moderate demand thanks to Commander, but that wasn’t really enough to move the needle. Since Wilds of Eldraine is a modern highly-printed MTG set, there are a lot of copies of this card floating about.
Even right now, there are still over 212 listings for Likeness Looter available on the market. Out of these 164 are near-mint copies, so it’s hardly in short supply. When you factor in the supply from other variants as well, then there are just shy of 300 near-mint copies available for purchase. Prices for copies in this condition currently start at just $1, although these cheaper copies are in short supply.
Given that cheaper copies of Likeness Looter are available for purchase, it seems likely that TCGplayer Direct has played a role here. As always, this service offers convenience to TCGplayer users, albeit oftentimes at a greater cost. Right now, a TCGplayer Direct copy of Likeness Looter is $9.99.
To date, the highest sale price of a Likeness Looter has been $14.98, likely from when demand was at its peak. Thankfully, if you are looking to pick up a copy or two of this card, you won’t nearly have to spend that much.
The Future
Looking ahead, it seems unlikely that Likeness Looter will maintain its current price point for too long. While the card may well end up being more expensive than it was originally, $1.50 is probably a bit dear. Given that this surge in demand will surely be temporary, a final resting price around the $1 mark seems more likely.
Ultimately, as always, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens for now. Given that Final Fantasy is quickly commanding attention, Aetherdrift Commanders may fade from the spotlight sooner than expected. This will hopefully be good news for anyone still looking to upgrade their new precons without breaking the bank.