It’s no secret that one of the most impactful cards from Duskmourn is Abhorrent Oculus. We ranked the Overlord cycle as the most impactful cards from the set in our Best 2024 cards article, but when it comes to older formats, Abhorrent Oculus shines above the rest.
While the card was a Standard staple for a long time, it is currently terrifying in the Modern format. Abhorrent Oculus is performing so well in the format that some players are worried that the card is becoming a problem. Recent results suggest that Energy is still the top dog, however.
Regardless, Abhorrent Oculus has been performing incredibly well in Modern, and is making some noise in the Legacy in the format, as well.
Abhorrent Oculus
Psychic Frog got the boot in the Legacy format. Maybe it’s time for the Frog to bow out of Modern, as well. The card left the Legacy format for enabling too powerful of a fair game plan in reanimator-style decks. The card is now doing the exact same thing in Modern format alongside Abhorrent Oculus.
Entomb and Reanimate are two Legacy staples that Modern is (thankfully) missing. As a result, they instead must settle for Unearth. Unearth can’t reanimate gigantic threats like Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but it can reanimate Abhorrent Oculus.
Abhorrent Oculus is way above rate for a three-mana creature. A 5/5 flyer for three mana is already bad enough, but this creature will create another body at the beginning of each of your opponent’s turns. You can even Manifest Dread into another Abhorrent Oculus, basically sealing your opponent’s fate.
Because Abhorrent Oculus is way too efficient for a three-drop, there is an additional casting clause to balance things out: you need to exile six cards from your grave to cast this. That’s a tall order in formats with smaller card pools like Pioneer and Standard. It’s much easier to accomplish in Modern but, more importantly, Unearth can completely bypass the additional clause.
This can turn Abhorrent Oculus into a one-mana death threat – as long as you can get it into your grave. Binning the card with a Surveil Land is very doable, and can create an incredibly uphill battle as soon as turn two. Of course, Psychic Frog can use its effects to both discard Abhorrent Oculus for Unearth, or discard fodder to use for casting the eyeball.
Before the bans, this was a viable strategy, but it paled in comparison to Boros Energy. Energy is still likely the best deck in the format, but the space between itself and the rest of the format is much smaller than it used to be. Abhorrent Oculus has managed to catch up.
The Spike
This is not the first time that Abhorrent Oculus has been worth $40 or more. When the card was initially released, it created similar waves to what it is creating now. Oculus originally played a much larger role in Standard than it used to, but its current role in Modern is bigger than ever.
Now that Abhorrent Oculus is considered one of the best, and potentially the problematic, thing to be doing, it has experienced another massive spike. After cooling down to $20 after its initial discovery, Abhorrent Oculus has spiked back up to about $45. This is the highest the card’s market average has ever been.
At the time of writing, the cheapest original variant of Abhorrent Oculus is actually the foil one. A majority of players purchasing this card want to play it in competitive events. Foils are problematic in this setting because they can easily become marked cards. As a result, it is much safer to play with non-foil cards. You can find these for as cheap as $30, but $35 seems more reasonable.
The traditional foil variant of the normal Abhorrent Oculus rivals the price of the borderless version. These seem to be going for about $30 as well, which makes it the best option for buying non-foil copies of Abhorrent Oculus. There isn’t really a discernable relationship between foil and non-foil copies of this variant. Both sell for between $30 and $50. Like the normal Oculus, this card does seem to be ticking up towards the $50 mark, but at a slower pace. According to available listings on TCGplayer, it will be difficult to find borderless copies of Abhorrent Oculus for below $40, but they do exist.
Looking At Past Data
Unlike most MTG cards we discuss, Abhorrent Oculus has a history of spiking in price, so we can predict what may happen to the card more confidently. Eventually, Abhorrent Oculus fell out of the Standard format and took a back seat in Modern to Boros Energy. When the card’s competitive outlook waned, so did its price.
Now that Abhorrent Oculus looks very powerful in Modern, the card’s stock is back up. So, Abhorrent Oculus’s financial future should be tied to its success in the upcoming Modern Regional Championship circuit. That said, even if the card doesn’t overperform, it will likely retain a respectable secondary market value.
Abhorrent Oculus is one of the most powerful three-drops Magic has ever seen. As a result, I would expect the card to be a repeat offender in the secondary market until something better gets released.
