The Avatar: The Last Airbender Source Material bonus sheet is far from perfect. Not only is this bonus sheet’s art highly controversial, but the reprints aren’t that good either. While there are some compelling $50 cards, the rarity of these reprints threatens to make them effectively useless.
Remarkably, as if these reprints weren’t bad enough at their job already, one recently revealed card has actually caused a price spike. For better or worse, it seems there’s a strange amount of unban speculation going on at the moment. Whether or not that will actually amount to anything, however, remains to be seen.
Dockside Extortionist
First released in Commander 2019, Dockside Extortionist instantly became a Commander powerhouse upon release. For two mana, this card threatens to create an obscene amount of Treasure Tokens in the right situation. This scenario, where your opponents have tons of artifacts on the board, is trivial to do in Commander.
Between Food, Clue, Blood, and Treasure Tokens, as well as mana rocks, there are always artifacts aplenty in Commander. This essentially guarantees that Dockside Extortionist will get positive value, especially if you follow up an opponent’s Dockside with your own. Due to this, the card was once an auto-include staple, routinely selling for around $80.
In September of 2024, however, the Commander Rules Committee banned Dockside Extortionist due to its explosive early-game potential. While this banning was warranted, the reaction to it led to the Rules Committee’s dissolution and Wizards taking over the format. Since then, there’s been a lot of speculation about whether or not Wizards might reverse the controversial bans.
So far, in the year since the bans happened, Wizards of the Coast has unbanned several cards, but not Dockside. According to some MTG players, however, this is all about to change. Recently, Dockside Extortionist was revealed as a Source Material bonus sheet reprint for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
While reprints can happen for a variety of reasons, it’s possible to argue that this is teasing an upcoming unbanning. Even though it’s incredibly easy to explain away this possibility, it has nonetheless stirred up a lot of interest. So much so, in fact, that the price of Dockside Extortionist has tripled in the past few days.
The Spike
Following its fall from grace after being banned, Dockside Extortionist has been steadily declining in price. This trend is incredibly unsurprising considering that the card barely sees any play outside of Commander. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that copies had been selling for around $9 until a few days ago.
Once the new reprint was revealed, there was an immense rush for sales as investors scooped up the available supply. A little under 200 near-mint copies have been sold in the past few days, leaving just 37 listings on the market. Prices for these technically start at $28.31; however, most copies and recent sales are closer to $30.
Unsurprisingly, the Commander 2019 variant of Dockside Extortionist isn’t the only one spiking right now. The Double Masters 2022 reprint, for example, has similarly shot up after 50 sales took place the other day. Now, near-mint examples from this set are selling for upwards of $35, up from $10.55.
For better or worse $35 appears to be the maximum price for a non-foil copy of Dockside Extortionist at the moment. Both The List and Borderless copies from Double Masters 2022 are also selling for this price. The only copies that are more expensive are Foil Etched ones, which are going for $57 now.
At the moment, it looks like Dockside Extortionist is well and truly back. That said, Wizards of the Coast hasn’t officially unbanned this card yet. Until this happens, this optimistic price spike feels incredibly dubious.
The Future
If we’re honest, even calling this price spike dubious feels like we’re putting it lightly. A card being reprinted is hardly a signifier that it’ll be unbanned in any format, let alone Commander. This was true of the Monstrous Rage promo back in September, and it’s true of Dockside today.
Realistically, Dockside Extortionist isn’t a card that depends on Commander, like Jeweled Lotus. While it doesn’t right now, this card could see play in Legacy or Vintage, and it has done so in the past. Outside of these formats, it’s also worth noting that Dockside Extortionist is a new card for MTG Arena.
Unless it gets pre-banned, this card will soon be playable in Brawl, Historic, and Timeless on Arena. There’s a good chance Brawl will be the main home for it, but even that’s a question mark for the format. Thanks to matchmaking and hell queue, Wizards shouldn’t have to worry about this card’s explosive potential so much.
Beyond this, it’s also worth remembering that MTG sets are in development for two years, with Universes Beyond sets taking even longer. Due to this, the cards on the Avatar: The Last Airbender Source Material bonus sheet could have been locked in during 2022 or 2023. If this is the case, then Wizards would have had no idea Dockside would be banned in Commander upon the set’s release.
Ultimately, as always, we’ll have to wait and see what happens with this price spike. That said, we really don’t expect it to last once the Avatar: The Last Airbender set is released. Once players realize this card isn’t being unbanned, demand should dry up, and the prices fall.
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