Despite how powerful the new main set Reality Fracture cards look, the set’s Commander Precon has driven most of MTG’s recent secondary-market movement. By pursuing a Polymorph theme, Multiverse Reforged delivered tons of incredibly powerful Commanders that reimagine existing cards and characters. With many players excited to build around them, all kinds of cards are now spiking in price, including Azor, the Lawbringer.
MTG Azor, the Lawbringer
While
Azor, the Lawbringer
Azor, the Lawbringer
Flying
When Azor enters, each opponent can't cast instant or sorcery spells during that player's next turn.
Whenever Azor attacks, you may pay {X}{W}{U}{U}. If you do, you gain X life and draw X cards.
is a bit slow to show its value, the card can do a lot in the right circumstances. Shutting down instants and sorceries until your next turn, playing Azor on an established board essentially acts as temporary board wipe protection. Basically casting
Sphinx’s Revelation
Sphinx’s Revelation
You gain X life and draw X cards.
on attack is also attractive for slower decks, turning all your extra mana into card advantage.
While both abilities are interesting, Azor’s enters-the-battlefield effect becomes much deadlier with a Blink effect. Blinking Azor with
Conjurer’s Closet
Conjurer’s Closet
At the beginning of your end step, you may exile target creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under your control.
or
Teleportation Circle
Teleportation Circle
At the beginning of your end step, exile up to one target artifact or creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control.
, for example, creates a two-card lock that prevents opponents from casting instants and sorceries during their turn as long as Azor remains in play. Of course, players can still cast instants on other people’s turns, so this lock is hardly perfect.
Still, between its board-wipe prevention and turning all your extra mana into card draw, Azor, the Lawbringer is a decent addition to Commander decks that can synergize with it. With the release of Multiverse Reforged,
The Ur-Sphinx
The Ur-Sphinx
Eminence — As long as The Ur-Sphinx is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Sphinx spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Flying
Whenever one or more Sphinxes you control attack, each player mills that many cards. For each player, you may cast a card that player milled this way without paying its mana cost.
might be the best home for this card yet.
Reducing the cost of all Sphinxes by one from the command zone, Azor is a far better deal for five mana instead of six. The Ur-Sphinx also cares about Sphinxes attacking, which somewhat works with Azor’s attack trigger.
While the synergies here certainly aren’t overwhelming, Azor is one of the stronger Sphinxes you can include in an Ur-Sphinx deck, mostly because the creature type lacks support. As a result, Azor now appears in 54% of Ur-Sphinx’s decklists, according to EDHREC, adding about 1,100 new homes for the card. Considering the card now appears in about 7,500 decks, this is a serious jump in playability for Azor.
The Spike
Since
The Ur-Sphinx
The Ur-Sphinx
Eminence — As long as The Ur-Sphinx is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Sphinx spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Flying
Whenever one or more Sphinxes you control attack, each player mills that many cards. For each player, you may cast a card that player milled this way without paying its mana cost.
was revealed during Multiverse Reforged’s debut on September 16th,
Azor, the Lawbringer
Azor, the Lawbringer
Flying
When Azor enters, each opponent can't cast instant or sorcery spells during that player's next turn.
Whenever Azor attacks, you may pay {X}{W}{U}{U}. If you do, you gain X life and draw X cards.
‘s demand has skyrocketed. 90 near-mint copies have sold since then, which may not sound like much, but only 10 near-mint copies of Azor sold for the rest of September. As a result, Azor’s near-mint variant jumped from $1.47 to $5.48 after shipping over a couple of weeks, representing a 278% price spike.
Notably, Azor, the Lawbringer only has one printing, appearing solely as a Mythic in Rivals of Ixalan. With supply now limited to only 54 total listings for the base variant, scarcity is certainly a factor in this price spike. This was before the Collector Booster era, too, so the foil multiplier here is substantial, with near-mint foil copies starting at $9.36.
If you want to save some money, you may be able to do so if you’re lucky enough to find a damaged copy of Azor. While there’s currently only one available on TCGplayer, it’s cheap, at only $2.25. Past this point, however, savings are basically nonexistent for Azor, at least at the time of writing this article. Alternatively, if you want to splurge, Prerelease foils of Azor are available for $13 and up.
A Temporary Spike?
With many of Magic’s recent secondary market spikes being Sphinx-related, it’s quite clear that players are excited to build
The Ur-Sphinx
The Ur-Sphinx
Eminence — As long as The Ur-Sphinx is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Sphinx spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Flying
Whenever one or more Sphinxes you control attack, each player mills that many cards. For each player, you may cast a card that player milled this way without paying its mana cost.
. While this has pushed the price of many cards, like Azor, there’s a very good chance that this will be temporary. Like many other Sphinxes spiking, Azor isn’t incredibly strong in a vacuum, so its demand depends heavily on players building The Ur-Sphinx.
Once players have put together their Ur-Sphinx decks, demand for Azor will likely plummet. If this is an investor-driven spike, which is a possibility given how suddenly demand rose and dropped, this could be an even more severe drop.
That said, as always, we can’t predict the future here at MTGRocks. Azor can cause some rather nasty locks in the right decks, which could give it some lasting demand in the future. While that admittedly seems unlikely, anything can happen in MTG. With that in mind, we’ll have to wait and see how Azor’s price develops.
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