It’s no secret that Landfall-related MTG cards have been extremely popular for the last few months. In addition to World Shaper creating tons of demand for anything and everything related to sacrificing and returning lands, Toph, the First Metalbender was revealed. This is one of the most unique MTG Commanders we’ve ever seen, from a beloved crossover, nontheless.
As strong as Blossoming Tortoise is as an upgrade for World Shaper, it’s even better with Toph. Thanks to its mana reduction ability, Blossoming Tortoise can create infinite combos when in play alongside Toph, the First Metalbender.
MTG Blossoming Tortoise
Blossoming Tortoise, like many other landfall cards, is a great upgrade in World Shaper. That said, the main cause for this card’s spike appears to be Toph, the First Metalbender. Since Toph makes your nontoken artifacts count as lands, their activated abilities will also be reduced by Blossoming Tortoise. This turns on infinite mana combos with Toph, the First Metalbender, and cards like Basalt Monolith. Thanks to reducing the cost of Monolith, you can repetitively tap and untap the card to generate infinite mana.
This interaction also causes a lot of other combo-generating artifacts to become a lot more efficient. Staff of Domination suddenly untaps for free, for example. Combo that with a creature that can tap for more than two mana, and you have another infinite. As an added bonus, Blossoming Tortoise’s last ability works well with Earthbending.
While Blossoming Tortoise looks great alongside Toph, it also excels in World Shaper as an upgrade. Because World Shaper’s upgraded form revolves around using sacrifice combos and reanimating lands from the graveyard, Blossoming Tortoise’s enters and attacks ability is perfect for this deck. Milling three cards furthers your overall game plan, and recurring a land is not only in line with the deck’s core goal, but is rather easy thanks to the inherent focus on the strategy.
Getting as many lands into play also enables your combo turns to happen faster. You’ll have more lands to sacrifice to Zuran Orb, and subsequently return with Splendid Reclamation. In other words, Blossoming Tortoise speeds up World Shaper’s core game plan, and will continue to do so for as long as the Tortoise remains in play.
This turns Blossoming Tortoise into a must-remove card, but as long as you recur a land with it, you’ve already done what you need to do. Any removal that isn’t pointing at your Commander is just icing on the cake. Whether you’re playing it with Toph or Hearthhull, the Worldseed, Blossoming Tortoise is a must-remove threat that generates value immediately.
The Spike
Thanks to Blossoming Tortoise’s past demand patterns, the reasoning for this spike becomes exceptionally clear. A massive spike in demand occurred on August 13th, when 142 copies of Blossoming Tortoise exchanged hands. This happens to be a day after Toph, the First Metalbender was revealed to the world.
This would ultimately cause Blossoming Tortoise to spike from $1.71 to $5.93. Since then, the card has calmed down somewhat and is generally available for about $5, a $192% price spike. As the above graph demonstrates, demand for this card has fallen by the wayside after an initial spike, causing the card to find its price point. The traditional variant of this card still has 372 copies available, which easily satisfies the low amounts of demand that the card is seeing currently.
Notably, while there are a few different variants of Blossoming Tortoise, the card only has one printing from Wilds of Eldraine. According to recent sales, the extended art in nonfoil and foil are worth about $7 and $10, respectively. Prerelease foils have a very small 50-cent premium compared to the traditional variant.
Because there’s so much supply, there aren’t really any discounts to be had for variants in poor condition.
The Future
The state of this price spike suggests that Blossoming Tortoise is already beginning to find its price point. $5 seems like a solid place for where the card is at the moment, but depending on what gets revealed in Avatar’s spoiler season, Blossoming Tortoise could see a second round of demand.
Thanks to buffing land-based creatures, Blossoming Tortoise synergizes really well with Earthbending. This could also give it some Standard playability if some strong Earthbending cards are revealed in the set. By the time Avatar comes out, chances are Vivi Ornitier will have kicked the bucket, too. Wizards recently announced that the November ban announcement has been moved up, revealing that Vivi has a very good chance of getting banned.
Unfortunately, the time of Tortoise being a sub-$2 card has probably passed. Even if there isn’t a lot of demand for the card, Blossoming Tortoise’s synergy with Toph, the First Metalbender is clear. We won’t be getting new Commander precons until the new year, either, so World Shaper could continue to have an impact on the secondary market for longer than these products usually do.
It’s a bit tough to predict where Blossoming Tortoise will go from here. Really, anything is possible. While the card has lots of potential, current trends actually have this card going down. Should nothing new get spoiled to that synergizes well with this card, things will likely stay the same, but that seems rather unlikely.
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