Unsurprisingly, a lot of recent price spikes in the MTG finance world have been driven by Foundations. As the latest set to be released, it’s no wonder that players are excited about the new cards and possibilities. Sure, there might not be any Commander decks to easily drive demand, but there are still new constructed and casual staples.
Despite MTG Foundations arguably being the most important set of 2024, it’s not responsible for the latest and greatest price spike. Instead, that honor goes to something entirely unrelated to MTG. Back on September 9th, Saber Interactive’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 launched worldwide. Fast forward two months later, and now Marneus Calgar has gotten remarkably expensive.
Marneus Calgar
- Mana Value: 2WUB
- Rarity: Mythic
- Card Type: Legendary Creature — Astartes Warrior
- Stats: 3/5
- Card Text: Double strike
Master Tactician — Whenever one or more tokens you control enter, draw a card.
Chapter Master — {6}: Create two 2/2 white Astartes Warrior creature tokens with vigilance.
In case you’ve never seen them before, Marneus Calgar hails from MTG’s first major Universes Beyond crossover. In 2022, four Warhammer 40,000-themed Commander decks were launched and quickly became incredibly successful. While we had a few Universes Beyond Secret Lairs before then, the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks were in a different league entirely.
While the future of Universes Beyond had already been locked in, these Commander decks showed how popular crossovers could be. Despite being from a different franchise, Warhammer cards nailed the MTG look and the mechanically unique cards were seriously enjoyable. That was especially true for cards like Marneus Calgar who is a fantastic Commander option.
Easily able to lead the Forces of the Imperium deck they’re found in, Marneus Calgar can provide insane card draw. Without a ‘once per turn’ clause to slow them down, Marneus Calgar can easily fill up your hand in the right deck. Ideally, this synergistic deck should create tons of tokens separately, rather than all at once to maximize card draw.
Since they can create tokens themself, while also being a decent threat, Marneus Calgar is an all-around great Commander. There is one problem, however, which is their color identity. Within the token archetype, Esper Commanders are hardly the most popular choice. Instead, Naya is the fan-favorite, since most decks want access to green, and red too ideally.
For better or worse, this makes Marneus Calgar a bit of an oddball choice for a token deck. While it’s very possible to make tons of tokens in these colors, you’re not following the typical go-wide game plan. Instead, you’ll often be relying on artifact tokens, Fairies, or Zombies. Either that, or you’ll just be playing Forces of the Imperium but with Marneus Calgar in charge.
The Spike
Since the start of October, the price of Marneus Calgar has spiked over 1300%. Toward the start of last month, this card was a cheap-as-chips mythic, selling for just $0.79 on TCGplayer. In November, this price started to climb steadily, but it was slow going at first. On November 8th, the price had reached $1.51 but soon exploded after that.
In the past week, the TCGplayer market price of Marneus Calgar has absolutely shot up to $5.19. Recent sales have far eclipsed this price point, however, with many copies being sold for around $8.26. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, near mint copies have been going for even more, with sales peaking at $13.67.
Right now, if you want a near mint copy of Marneus Calgar, you’ll have to spend just about $10. While this isn’t cheap, these copies may not last long, since supply is now very scarce. Interestingly, demand for Marneus Calgar hasn’t been constant, but it seems a buyout is the cause of this price spike.
What’s strange is the fact this buyout has kind of come from nowhere. Yes, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 did release fairly recently, but this spike is two months late. With this in mind, it may seem like something in Foundations was the cause, but it’s unlikely Homunculus Horde did all this.
Instead, this price spike has likely just been caused by the increased demand draining supply over time. At first, this would have been primarily from Warhammer fans, but the card has clearly become financially lucrative too. With few copies of the normal foil and surge foil variants being available, it certainly seems like a sound investment.
The Trend
While the root cause of the absolute price explosion to Marneus Calgar is a bit mysterious, it’s undeniably interesting. Potentially, this spike could become something we see fairly often, specifically with Universes Beyond cards. When a new release or announcement causes renewed interest in a franchise or character, their Universes Beyond cards could spike.
For now, we’re not seeing this with any routine consistency. The Universes Beyond Arcane cards, for instance, haven’t spiked hard despite the show’s second season being recently released. Potentially these cards could spike in the future, but but expect the MTG markets to be more on the ball.
Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see whether or not this trend manifests in the future. As more and more Universes Beyond cards are released, the picture should hopefully become much clearer. Subsequently, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens as more sets are released, and more announcements happen.
