Tarkir: Dragonsform has already proven to be an all-around success. Things are going so strong, in fact, that this set may even help shape the future of MTG. Not only is the flavor fantastic, but the set is packed with competitive staples. On top of all of these, there’s plenty of exciting new Commander cards and synergies too, of course.
In particular, the set’s preconstructed Commander decks have been drawing a lot of attention, as usual. The Abzan Armor deck, especially, has been the cause of a few price spikes already. That deck, however, isn’t the only one that players are excited about. Now, it seems that the Sultai Arisen deck is in vogue, causing price spikes of its own.
Lost Monarch of Ifnir
Originally printed in Aetherdrift Commander, it’s little wonder that this designed-for-Commander card is good in Commander. Specifically, Lost Monarch of Ifnir excels within any deck with a lot of Zombies. Not only is each Zombie made more powerful thanks to Afflict 3, but you can even get some self-mill and reanimation to your hand.
Thanks to this power and its nonrestrictive color identity, Lost Monarch of Ifnir has already worked its way into over 15,000 Commander decks. Now that Tarkir: Dragonstorm is available everywhere, it seems this number may increase before too long. As we alluded to earlier, Lost Monarch of Ifnir is a fantastic addition ot the new Sultai Arisen precon.
Within this deck, there’s a lot of synergy with the deck’s face Commander, Teval, the Balanced Scale. In fact, both of these cards’ abilities synergize with one another. Not only does Ifnir help create Zombie Druids thanks to taking cards out of the graveyard, it buffs them with Afflict 3 too.
On top of working wonders with Teval, the Balanced Scale, Lost Monarch of Ifnir synergizes fairly well with the rest of Sultai Arisen. While this precon is by no means a Zombie Typal deck, there’s still plenty of Zombies to buff. On top of these, there’s a self-mill strategy running throughout, which Ifnir obviously helps with.
Thanks to this synergy, Lost Monarch of Ifnir is simply a fantastic upgrade to the Sultai Arisen precon. Since this is pretty clear to see, it’s no wonder that many MTG players have been steadily picking up copies of Ifnir since the deck was announced. Over time, this has resulted in a rather impressive price spike.
The Spike
Winding the clock back before this spike started, Lost Monarch of Ifnir wasn’t a hugely expensive card. While Zombie Typal decks could benefit from running it, it was by no means a super staple. At the same time, however, this card wasn’t so unpopular that there were tons of copies lying around, preventing potential spikes.
As you can see in the graph above, copies of Lost Monarch of Ifnir have been purchased fairly frequently over the past month. Unsurprisingly, there was a spike around the Commander deck’s reveal, but it’s been fairly steady since then. More recently, however, another surge in sales did take a significant toll on available supply.
Currently, there are only 18 near-mint normal variant copies of Lost Monarch of Ifnir available for purchase on TCGplayer. As usual, this low supply has quickly driven up prices, especially over the past few days. Right now, the market price for Ifnir sits at $3.12, however, this may soon trend higher. Including shipping, prices for near-mint copies currently start at $5.24.
Thankfully, while the normal variant of Lost Monarch of Ifnir is suffering from low supply, it’s not all bad news. At the moment, there are still plenty of Extended Art copies still available for purchase at significantly lower prices. With 134 listings starting at just $1.22, you definitely don’t have to break the bank if you don’t want to.
Curiously, while there are plenty of cheap copies available, the market price of this variant has still shot up. Over the past month, the Extended Art variant has spiked by 241% up to a price of $2.49. Since there are plenty of cheap copies still available, it seems this specific spike has largely been driven by TCGplayer Direct.
The Future
For better or worse, as always, this current price spike is bound to be temporary, to some extent. Since Tarkir: Dragonstorm is the hot new thing, it makes sense that players are rushing out to upgrade their newly acquired decks. Over time, likely when Final Fantasy comes along, interest will fade as new decks step into the limelight.
That doesn’t mean that the price of Lost Monarch of Ifnir will completely crash in the coming weeks, however. The Zombie Typal archetype has been, and always will be, a popular one, after all. Thanks to this, we can likely expect Ifnir to maintain a somewhat steady price even once new sets come along.
Admittedly, Lost Monarch of Ifnir probably isn’t going to be an expensive card in the long run. A final resting price around the $2 mark seems a lot more likely than this card routinely selling for $5. While this might not seem like a lot for what’s quite a synergistic Zombie, it’d still be almost double what it used to be worth.
As always, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens, as it’s impossible to predict the future. That being said, this surely isn’t the last time that Wizards creates a Zombie or self-mill themed precon. When another one of these decks inevitably gets made, we may see the price of Lost Monarch of Ifnir spike once again.