The MTG Foundations spoilers have been a much bigger deal than many players expected. Tons of powerful reprints are suddenly becoming Standard and Pioneer legal, and it will change the landscape for both formats. Burst Lightning is an example of an iconic card experiencing this change.
We saw a similar spike to Pyroclasm after it was announced as a reprint in Duskmourn: House of Horror. While the card is widely available in its cheaper printings, expensive variants of these iconic commons tend to experience a staunch rise in demand. The same is true for the textless Burst Lightning promo.
Burst Lightning
- Mana Value: R
- Rarity: Promo
- Card Type: Instant
- MTG Sets: Foundations, The List, Modern Masters 2015, Magic Player Rewards 2010, Zendikar
- Card Text: Kicker (4). Burst Lightning deals two damage to any target. If this spell was Kicked, it deals four damage instead.
Two full art Burst Lightning variants currently exist. The first is from The List, and the second is the original MTG Player Rewards promo from 2010 where this variant of the card originated. This already differs this Burst Lightning a bit from the Pyroclasm spike seen recently. Only one variant of that card existed.
Burst Lightning is an incredibly iconic MTG card, seeing play across a ton of different metagames. The upgraded Shock will function as one most of the time, but topdecking this card in lategame situations sometimes allows for four damage, which is an incredible upgrade.
On to TCGplayer, only the Player Rewards 2010 version of the card seems to be available, which notably only comes in foil. That variant of the card started spiking hard a week ago, jumping from $1 to $2.50. This may not seem huge, but this spike is very recent. Given some time, the card will likely spike further.
Today, an outlier sale occurred for $9, which shows the potential that Burst Lightning can reach. That said, this is solely an outlier right now, and I would not consider buying a Player Rewards Burst Lightning for anywhere close to that price. Finding one for $2.50 should be a reasonable endeavor.
Keep Watch
If you’re interested in this Burst Lighting, you have two choices: pick it up now if you’re worried that the card will continue to increase, or wait and see where it stabilizes. For reference, the extended art Pyroclasm did end up stabilizing at above $10, which suggests that players may want to pick this card up as soon as possible.