Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast gave us a surprisingly in-depth look at the MTG Marvel Superheroes set. It might be over six months from being released, but that didn’t stop Wizards from showing off 18 cards. Unsurprisingly, some of these cards are pretty powerful, especially in Commander.
Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk, in particular, looks like a fantastic value engine that also packs a punch. While his color identity might make using him in the 99 difficult, building around him is a breeze. There’s even a spicy infinite combo using a long-forgotten Urza’s Saga card that threatens to end the game easily.
MTG Caltrops
The two-card infinite combo between Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk and Caltrops is hardly a secret. When Wizards of the Coast previewed this card, they even mentioned this synergy during the livestream. Due to this, tons of MTG players have been rushing to pick up this long-forgotten card.
Thankfully, this combo is incredibly simple to use, although it’s not the cheapest wincon in MTG. Essentially, all you need to do is have Caltrops and The Incredible Hulk in play at the same time and attack. When doing this, The Incredible Hulk will be dealt damage, putting a +1/+1 counter on him, while giving you another combat step.
Since The Incredible Hulk gets untapped during this process, you can easily attack with him again, triggering Caltrops and the loop once more. If your opponents don’t have blockers, this can easily end the game worryingly quickly. Admittedly, relying on an empty board isn’t ideal, but it’s easy to add synergy to make this combo more consistent.
For starters, adding in anything that can make The Incredible Hulk unblockable is practically essential. On top of this, it’s also worth cheating The Incredible Hulk in, since otherwise this combo takes ages to deploy. Mercifully, doing this is fairly easy. Between Airbending Bruce Banner and using Moonmist, there are plenty of options.
Notably, outside of this new two-card combo, Caltrops isn’t a terrible MTG card. While it is a symmetrical effect, it can provide a fair bit of protection against decks with tons of tokens or smaller creatures. On top of this, there’s also synergy with cards like Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph, Death Pits of Rath, and Maha, Its Feathers Night.
The Spike
Following Wizards of the Coast shouting out this new MTG combo, demand for Caltrops has shot through the roof. This, in turn, has cleaned out almost all of the supply on TCGplayer, causing prices to skyrocket. Thanks to the card’s age and implicit rarity, this sudden price spike is especially evident in near-mint copies.
Just a couple of days ago, near-mint Urza’s Saga copies of Caltrops were selling for around $3.75 on TCGplayer. Since then, 95 near-mint copies have been sold, with similar demand spikes hitting worse condition copies. Unsurprisingly, due to how little supply there is to go around, this has pushed prices up to the extreme.
Currently, a near-mint non-foil Urza’s Saga copy of Caltrops will set you back $49.95. Worryingly, this isn’t just an optimistic punt from sellers, as copies have been selling at this price point. Thankfully, while prices are up across the board, heavily played copies are still available for $34, including shipping.
Thankfully, Caltrops has been reprinted once, in 2007’s 7th Edition. Currently, this variant is a fair bit cheaper, with near-mint copies only selling for $35. Considering this variant used to cost $4.30, this is still a 713% price spike, but it’s cheaper than the alternative. Much like the Urza’s Saga variant, worse condition 7th edition copies are slightly cheaper, with lightly played copies going for $30.
Should you really want to show off, the foil prices for copies of Caltrops have also gone insane. Currently, foil Urza’s Saga copies start at $179.99, while 7th Edition ones are going for $139.99. Unfortunately, cheap copies of this MTG card don’t really exist anymore…
The Future
Looking ahead, the long-term future of Caltrops is very much up in the air at the moment. Demand is at an all-time high at the moment, but there’s no telling how long that will last. Considering that the Marvel Superheroes set doesn’t come out for another six months, anything could happen in that time.
Realistically, I suspect that the current demand is unsustainable, especially since three sets will be released before Marvel Superheroes. If this does happen, the price should fall, although there’s no telling by how much this might happen. Currently, it’s unclear just how many The Incredible Hulk decks want this card, which makes predictions difficult.
It’s also worth noting that, while currently popular, this is technically a two-card infinite combo. Due to this, you can’t really play Caltrops and The Incredible Hulk below bracket three, and even then, you have to be careful. In theory, this could limit how much this combo gets played and how desired Caltrops really is.
Technically, it’s also possible that Caltrops could be reprinted by Wizards in the next six months. While this is always a concern for long-term prospects, it feels more notable here since Wizards called out the combo specifically. That said, that would have been the perfect opportunity to spoil it as a bonus sheet reprint, which didn’t happen.
Ultimately, as always, we can’t predict the future. As such, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in six months. Thankfully, until then, we’ve got plenty to keep ourselves busy with. Between Lorwyn Eclipsed, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Secrets of Strixhaven, the first half of 2026 will be very full on.
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