Despite Silverquill Influence being the most popular Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precon on the secondary market, it’s not the only one impacting the price of older cards. Thanks to the power of its Face Commander, Quandrix Unlimited has caused many X-cost spells to skyrocket in demand over the past few months. With a rush to grab the deck’s best upgrades, cards like MTG Doppelgang have suddenly become a lot more expensive.
MTG Doppelgang
Doppelgang demands a ton of mana to get off the ground, but it can absolutely take over the game if you have the resources. At worst, this will create a copy of a permanent in play for five mana, which is under rate. At eight, mana, however, this card’s value starts to pick up quickly, creating four copies of the two best permanents in play. At eleven mana, nine copies should be more than enough to end the game with a focused strategy.
Thanks to this, Doppelgang sees most of its play in decks that can satisfy these massive mana costs. X-spell decks, like Zaxara, the Exemplary and Magus Lucea Kane, for example, both ramp towards a massive Doppelgang while getting additional value. Magus is the clear frontrunner here, outright copying Doppelgang as she helps cast it. Otherwise, decks that can maximize Doppelgang’s payoff, like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters or other Doubling Season decks, can also make the most of this explosive spell.
Considering that Doppelgang performs best in X-spell decks, it should be no shock that Quandrix Unlimited is the cause of this price spike. After all, Zimone, Infinite Analyst can both massively reduce the casting cost of Doppelgang once she has some +1/+1 counters on her, and will continue to grow after its cast. Thanks to this, Doppelgang sees play 1720 Zimone decks, creating a massive rush of demand for the sorcery.
The Spike
For quite a while, Doppelgang was a total budget card, worth just $0.43 near the end of February. That lasted until the beginning of April, when Doppelgang would suddenly see a massive spike in demand. Selling 128 near-mint copies at the beginning of April, this demand rush coincides with the reveal of the Secrets of Strixhaven precon decklists on April 1st. Once players saw that Doppelgang was not getting reprinted in Quandrix Unlimited, there was a massive rush to obtain the card.
Since the beginning of April, Doppelgang has continued to see increased demand, pushing prices up. Now, the cheapest traditional variant copy on TCGplayer goes for $2.86 after shipping, representing a 565% price spike. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any cheaper copies of Doppelgang between variants, either. While extended art variants are more or less the same price after a massive demand spike in late April, Promo Pack variants start at a staggering $8. Prerelease copies are even more expensive, selling for a staggering $50 at the time of writing. This is likely overpriced, but supply for Prerelease Doppelgangs is extremely low, nevertheless.
Not Done Yet?
While it’s impossible to truly predict the financial future of most MTG cards, Doppelgang seems to have a bright one. Thanks to its explosive late-game power, Doppelgang sees a ton of play in Commander, appearing in just under 50,000 decks according to EDHREC. Considering that the card finally has a spotlight shone on it, this high level of play could suggest that Doppelgang will keep on spiking.
Recent demand suggests that players aren’t nearly done picking up the card, either. With players continually picking up 10-40 copies of the card daily throughout late April and May, there still seems to be plenty of homes for Doppelgang to join. Thanks to this, while demand for this card should eventually slow down, Doppelgang could spike further until it finds a new price point. Even with all this in mind, however, only time will tell for sure.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!