MTG Fallout is officially on shelves! Players now have an opportunity to try out Magic’s newest Universes Beyond crossover themselves. If you want a bit of extra info before jumping in, we’ll be putting out some reviews for each new Fallout Commander deck, including gameplay overall and what we think needs to be improved.
Since the new MTG Fallout set is all about Commander, it may be no surprise to hear that many of the cards moving on the secondary market are a result of new Commander strategies coming out of MTG Fallout. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest MTG spikes this week.
Vexing Puzzlebox
Vexing Puzzlebox is an interesting card that cares about dice rolling. While dice rolling isn’t a core mechanic in the new Fallout set, it did get some support. Namely, the mechanic got a new win condition and a new Commander.
Mr. House, President and CEO is the new dice rolling Commander from the MTG Fallout set. Found in the Hail, Caesar precon, dice rolling can reward you with a 3/3 colorless Robot and some extra mana. Combine this with Vexing Puzzlebox, and the results are obvious. Not only will you be creating a ton of tokens, but other dice rolling effects will allow Vexing Puzzlebox to quickly become a tutor effect.
Why is this new support so popular? We probably have Luck Bobblehead to blame for that. This artifact acts as an incredibly difficult win condition to pull off that involves dice rolling. Even if you don’t win, and you likely won’t unless you assemble 49 copies of this, you can roll multiple dice, triggering your payoffs appropriately. That said, the harder this is to pull it off, the harder that some wacky players will try to do so.
Either way, likely thanks to these new additions, Vexing Puzzlebox has more than tripled in price, rising from $2.79 to $8.37, roughly. Prices are still somewhat all over the place for this card, as the spike is really recent, but there are signs that the price will continue to increase.
Mesmeric Orb
If you’ve been playing MTG for some time, chances are you’ve seen this card and how absolutely broken it can be in the right circumstances. Mesmeric Orb is a fantastic mill card, seeing play in both competitive MTG and Commander alike. If your objective is milling your opponent, Mesmeric Orb is a serious consideration. That said, competitive MTG has moved away from this card in recent times.
Commander games go for a long time, meaning that obtaining a ton of permanents on a board state is trivial. Mesmeric Orb will then get to work, milling large chunks of each player’s library. This can fuel your graveyard strategies while decking your opponent.
Why is Mesmeric Orb rising in price right now? This is likely because the card has some incredible synergies with the new Rad Counter mechanic. Rad Counters are interested in milling out players while benefitting your graveyard shenanigans, and Mesmeric Orb lines right up with a lot of gameplans that would want to utilize Rad Counters. There are also a surplus of fantastic mill support cards coming out as part of MTG Fallout as a result, like the new Commander Raul, Trouble Shooter.
Thanks to all the new mill support, Mesmeric Orb has just about doubled in price, rising from around $7 to $16ish depending on the variant. As a result, its safe to say that mill appears to be rising in popularity in Commander.
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Phenax, God of Deception
Another mill classic, Phenax, God of Deception has seen a significant price increase over the course of the last month (mid-February to now). This Born of the Gods mythic rare is capable of milling your opponents at lightning speed, so long as you have some high-toughness creatures to tap. Making big creatures in mill strategies in Commander is not difficult with cards like Lord of Extinction to choose from, so with some slight deckbuilding considerations that already synergize with what you’re interested in doing in a mill or Rad Counter plan, Phenax can supercharge your win condition.
In terms of market value, Phenax, God of Deception has seen an increase across its two nonfoil variants from about $9.50 to $15, but copies of the card have been selling for as much as $27 in current sales. $27 is a bit of an outlier, however, with most prices above market average hanging around the $20 mark. The foil-exclusive Secret Lair variant is selling for between $20 and $45, with a majority of sales sticking around the $26 mark.
Energy Payoffs
We’ve highlighted and speculated on some of these MTG cards for quite some time now, but larger Energy payoffs continue to increase in price. The reason is obvious.
Science!, a new Fallout Commander precon releasing alongside the Universes Beyond crossover, focuses on the Energy mechanic. This is some of the first serious support the unique mechanic has received since its introduction in Kaladesh.
Not only this, but Energy is confirmed to return as a mechanic in Modern Horizons 3, the biggest MTG release of the year. Included with that release is yet another Commander precon focusing on the mechanic. The precons even have the same Jeskai color combination.
Now that Energy has some new toys to play with, old payoffs that do a ton of work are becoming popular upgrades for the Science! deck. Aetherworks Marvel and Gonti’s Aether Heart seem to lead the charge here.
Gonti’s Aether Heart, in particular, continues to see a significant price increase thanks to being a part of some new infinite combos. Worth $5 in mid-February before it began spiking, nonfoil copies of the Aether Heart are now selling for $14.
Notably, there is only one printing of Gonti’s Aether Heart in existence from Aether Revolt. This means that a lack of supply may be driving the price of this card upwards.
Aetherworks Marvel appears to be stabilizing around $11 in its nonfoil variant, but foils continue to spike, approaching $20 aggressively.
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