As a whole, MTG Spider Man was not the most well-received set. The Limited format was extremely unbalanced and the concept of having different versions of cards for online and in-person play rubbed a lot of players the wrong way.
Even without the set living up to expectations, though, MTG Spider Man still had a big impact on the secondary market. For example, one particular enchantment from Stronghold has seen an enormous spike over the last week thanks to its involvement in a sweet infinite combo alongside a new Spider Man legend.
Mortuary as a Combo Piece
Mortuary is the card that has risen significantly in price, and it’s a bit of a strange one. On its own, the effect it provides is pretty mediocre. You don’t get any card advantage out of the deal by putting creatures that die on top of your library, and paying four mana for some minor versatility is not worth it.
However, if you can pair Mortuary with another effect that lets you cast spells from the top of your library, you can set up some gnarly combos. Prior to the release of Spider Man and the arrival of Gwenom, Remorseless, Commander players would often pair Mortuary with Bolas’s Citadel. With Mortuary, Bolas’s Citadel, and Death Cultist all in play, you’re free to repeatedly cast Death Cultist and end the game by executing the following steps:
- Sacrifice Death Cultist, causing an opponent to lose one life and you to gain one life
- Mortuary triggers, allowing you to put Death Cultist on top of your library
- Pay one life via Bolas’s Citadel to cast Death Cultist from the top of your library
- Repeat steps one through three over and over until your opponents have lost all their life
There are plenty of other similar combos you can execute using Death Cultist and Bolas’s Citadel. For instance, if you replace Death Cultist with Blood Pet and add any Blood Artist to the mix, you’re able to sacrifice and recast Blood Pet over and over all the same.
Now, with the printing of Gwenom, Remorseless in MTG Spider Man, you have tons of extra redundancy to your combos. Gwenom plays the exact same role as Bolas’s Citadel as long as you get an attack in unscathed. Having access to this effect in the Command Zone is a huge deal when it comes to consistency.
Gwenom is a popular Commander choice from the Spider Man set, so it makes sense why Mortuary would be garnering a lot more attention. Outside of its infinite combo potential, Mortuary’s presence makes your attacks more profitable, since if any other creature besides Gwenom gets blocked down in combat, you’ll be able to cast it again by putting it on top of your library and paying life in your second main phase. The shenanigans with Mortuary and Gwenom are truly limitless.
Mortuary Spike
Back in mid-September, Mortuary was worth $5.23 in its near mint form according to TCGplayer. It didn’t surpass $6 until later in the month, once MTG Spider Man had officially released. Over the next couple weeks, demand continued to rise, and Mortuary’s price tag followed suit.
Mortuary experienced a particularly large surge on October 7, when 17 near mint copies sold on TCGplayer. By contrast, only three near mint copies had sold in the three days prior combined. This caused the supply for near mint copies of Mortuary to fall hard.
At time of writing, there are only six sales listings on TCGplayer for Near Mint Mortuaries. The lowest listing is at $30, yet this is the only one that rests below $56. Multiple near-mint sales were completed in the last three days, reaching or exceeding $55, representing a 952% increase over the last month since its $5.23 price tag back in September.
Even in the case of lightly played variants, the cheapest listing available is $34.80, and the latest sale price was $37.94. With supply plummeting, prices continue to soar well after the card’s initial spike weeks ago, a notable trend.
Moving Forward
In spite of how things look, there is a chance that Mortuary’s price begins to settle in the coming months. It’s impossible to predict the future, but it’s common for synergistic Commander cards that spike following a particular release to have their prices fall as hype dies down.
In the case of Mortuary, the card’s value is largely tied to its appeal specifically in Gwenom shells. According to EDHREC, among the top Commander strategies where Mortuary appears most, Gwenom and Gyruda, Doom of Depths are the only archetypes to feature Mortuary in at least 10% of decks.
This shows that while the enchantment is a sweet combo piece, it’s far from an EDH staple. As players start to focus their attention on Avatar: The Last Airbender and Lorwyn Eclipsed, it would be natural for players to focus less on Spider Man, and thus less on Gwenom and Mortuary synergies.
That being said, supply could be low for quite some time, considering the lack of reprints for Mortuary. This card was printed approximately 27 years ago and has never been reprinted, so it’s not in continuous circulation. It just goes to show that all it takes is a new synergy to pop up for an old design to become a lot more appealing.
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