Duskmourn: House of Horror may have officially released a while ago at this point, but it’s still making waves. New decks and strategies continue to pop up all over, fuelled by the set’s exceptionally powerful new staples. This, in turn, has caused all manner of price spikes as players rush to predict and pick up the latest staples.
While we’ve seen plenty of development in Standard, Pioneer, and even Modern, it’s much harder to crack eternal formats. Commander can cause plenty of price spikes, sure, but those are usually based around new precons, rather than cEDH play. So, when a new card breaks into a format like Legacy, it’s no wonder that MTG players take notice.
With this in mind, it’s no wonder that Metamorphosis Fanatic has been on the up and up in recent weeks.
Metamorphosis Fanatic
- Mana Value: 4BB
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Creature – Human Cleric
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Lifelink
When Metamorphosis Fanatic enters, return up to one target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a lifelink counter on it.
Miracle {1}{B} (You may cast this card for its miracle cost when you draw it if it’s the first card you drew this turn.)
During the spoiler season for Duskmourn: House of Horror, Metamorphosis Fanatic looked like a serious contender. When the Miracle Worker precon was unveiled, this card was hailed as clearly being the deck’s strongest card. Should you hit the Miracle cost, Metamorphosis Fanatic is simply a two mana reanimation spell, which is insanely good.
It’s so good, in fact, that Metamorphosis Fanatic has been seeing Legacy play from the moment it was released. Unsurprisingly appearing in Reanimator decks, Metamorphosis provides added consistency alongside reanimation with no downside. Unlike Animate Dead or Reanimate, you don’t have to worry about any lost stats or life.
On top of being able to simply reanimate threats like Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Troll of Khazad-dûm, or Archon of Cruelty, Metamorphosis Fanatic is no slouch either. Offering a 4/4 body with Lifelink, Metamorphosis can pack a decent punch to pile on the hurt even more. Unsurprisingly, this added power has been a very effective addition to the longstanding archetype.
Obviously, there is one catch to Metamorphosis Fanatic, which is its mana cost. If you’re not playing it for its Miracle cost, it’s far too expensive for a competitive Legacy deck. Thankfully, Legacy has no trouble sculpting your draws. Between Brainstorm and Ponder players should have no trouble hitting Miracle when needed.
The Spike
Somewhat unsurprisingly, given how strong Metamorphosis Fanatic is, Reanimator has been on a winning streak recently. A huge number of recent Legacy leagues have been topped by Reanimator decks now using Metamorphosis. The card has also been performing well in major tournaments, albeit to a lesser extent.
At the moment, it seems that if you’re not running Metamorphosis Fanatic in Reanimator, you’re missing out. Since Reanimator is the most popular deck in Legacy, this has caused steady demand for this new tech. Unsurprisingly, this has led to the card’s price climbing over time as supply from the new precon has slowly dwindled.
When Duskmourn was first released, and supply was at its peak, Metamorphosis Fanatic sold for around $9.50. This was the lowest market price for the Extended Art variant, which appeared in Collector Boosters, rather than the precon. For the regular bordered card from Miracle Worker, the lowest price on TCGplayer is around $13.
Since these lows, the price of Metamorphosis Fanatic has been steadily climbing day by day. Steady sales have stripped the available supply to the point that only 60 or so copies are available on TCGplayer. The starting price for one of these cards is now around $25, regardless of which variant you’re after.
While this climb is already impressive for an MTG card in a Commander precon, it has technically sold for a lot more. On TCGplayer, there are recorded sales for as high as $59.99 for the extended art variant. Mercifully, this incredibly high sale appears to be an outlier. The same is true for $35 sales of the card’s normal variant, which are unusually high given listed prices.
A Soft Price Cap?
Right now, without any kind of magical future foresight power, it’s unclear which way the price of Metamorphosis Fanatic will go. In theory, the Legacy demand could keep up for a while, but players will eventually get their fill. Over time, this should cause the price to come down, even if the card does have decent legs in Commander too.
Before we see this, however, there’s another aspect that may keep the price of Metamorphosis Fanatic in check. Thanks to appearing in the Miracle Worker Commander deck, this precon would need to entirely sell out for prices to explode. Even if this did happen, it can still appear in Collector Boosters which should keep things in check.
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