Despite Elf Typal being one of the larger themes in The Hobbit, it hasn’t driven much financial movement. Instead, Dwarf Typal, Treasures, and Bear Typal decks have been responsible for larger shifts, but there does seem to be one Elf that’s increasing in price. Even though it has a whopping seven reprints, all of Immaculate Magistrate’s variants are getting more expensive.
MTG Immaculate Magistrate
While Immaculate Magistrate offers a simple ability, this is an MTG card you’ll want in every Elf Typal deck you own. Since Elves naturally want to go wide using small mana dorks like Llanowar Elves, or Commanders like Lathril, Blade of the Elves, Immaculate Magistrate can add a ton of power to your board each turn. Some Elves, like Marwyn, the Nurturer, have additional +1/+1 counter synergies, turning Magistrate’s extra counters into mana.
If that weren’t enough, Elves also have a lot of untap effects, found on cards like Dionus, Elvish Archdruid, Quirion Ranger, and Wirewood Symbiote, doubling the speed you grow your army. Then, trigger doublers like Roaming Throne, or replacement effects like Hardened Scales make things truly go out of control.
While all of this means that Immaculate Magistrate is incredibly powerful in Elf Typal decks, the card is even better with Thranduil, the Elvenking from The Hobbit. Thanks to Thranduil retaining the activated abilities of all your fallen Elves, the Elvenking can use Immaculate Magistrate to create infinite mana with Devoted Druid.
To pull this off, with at least two Elves in play, simply use Thranduil to activate Magistrate’s ability, putting at least two +1/+1 counters on itself. You can then untap Thranduil using Devoted Druid’s ability, putting a -1/-1 counter on Thranduil. A +1/+1 counter from Magistrate’s ability will cancel this out, meaning that Thranduil can repeat this loop as many times as possible. Ultimately, you’ll end up with infinite +1/+1 counters on all of your creatures, Elves or not.
Thanks to this combo, Immaculate Magistrate appears in over 4,250 Thranduil, the Elvenking decks according to EDHREC, making it a staple with the Commander.
The Spike
While every variant of Immaculate Magistrate is seeing a price spike, some are spiking more than others. Regardless of the variant, however, it’s exceptionally clear that demand for the elf picked up during prerelease week for The Hobbit, between August 7th and 14th. Considering how powerful Immaculate Magistrate is with Thranduil, the Elvenking, this makes a lot of sense.
Right now, lightly played copies of Immaculate Magistrate’s Commander 2014 reprint appear to be among the biggest spikes, jumping from $0.84 to $5.20. Near mint copies of this variant are even more expensive, starting at $7.24 after shipping.
Among all of the Immaculate Magitrate reprints, however, the Commander Legends variant seems to have the most supply available on TCGplayer. These are a little bit cheaper, starting at $3.98 before shipping, spiking from a previous reprint value of about $1. This seems to be the cheapest Immaculate Magistrate variant currently available, but if you do pick this one up, be sure to avoid foils. Commander Legends foils have a notorious curling problem.
Thranduil or Bust
With all seven of Immaculate Magistrate’s variants spiking over the course of August, there’s a very strong chance that this spike is a player-driven one instead of an investor buyout. From that perspective, Immaculate Magistrate has a higher chance of keeping its higher price longer, but the cause of this price spike suggests otherwise.
Despite Immaculate Magistrate’s popularity in Elf Typal decks, Thranduil, the Elvenking, in particular, is the clear cause of this price spike. Other new Elf Typal Hobbit Commanders like Thranduil, Sindarian Liege, and Thranduil the Strategist are excellent homes for Magistrate, but the Elvenking is the only new legend playing this card in a high quantity.
Because of this, once players have their Elvenking decks assembled, demand for Immaculate Magistrate may revert to what it was before August. Should this be the case, with the amount of reprints Immaculate Magistrate has, prices could drop back down over time.
Of course, as always, it’s impossible to tell the future in MTG, especially for cards like Immaculate Magistrate. With Elf Typal being such a popular Commander theme, a future legend could easily cause Magistrate’s demand to spike again, while a reprint could equally drop the card’s price overnight. With all these possibilities in mind, only time will tell how expensive this card becomes.
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!