Lorwyn Eclipsed has now been officially released, and it’s safe to say that players are hyped for its arrival. Not even a massive MTG TMNT spoiler was enough to tear players’ attention away. The new Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precons, in particular, are getting tons of attention.
In an effort to upgrade the new precons out of the box, all kinds of synergistic cards have seen big price increases over the last few weeks. Most recently, a Jurassic World enchantment that synergizes perfectly with the Dance of the Elements face Commander has spiked significantly in price.
MTG Life Finds a Way
Released as a booster insert in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Life Finds a Way is a bit difficult to maximize. Populate is a powerful mechanic, but because this enchantment only triggers when big nontoken creatures enter, it isn’t a natural fit in a lot of token-themed EDH decks. In fact, according to EDHREC, Life Finds a Way appears in less than 14,000 Commander decks total.
For the small subset of Commanders that can use Life Finds a Way, however, the enchantment is capable of being one of the best cards in your deck. The rare does a great job fueling Atla Palani, Nest Tender, for example, since the deck uses Egg tokens to cheat in big creatures. Life Finds a Way shines even brighter alongside legends like Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm, and Tawnos, the Toymaker, that create token copies of big threats you cast.
Now, with the release of the Dance of the Elements precon, another legend has entered the MTG universe that offers similar upside. The face Commander, Ashling, the Limitless, allows you to Evoke Elementals from your hand on a discount and net token copies in the process. With Life Finds a Way in play, if you stack your triggers correctly, Life Finds a Way will make a token copy of your Evoked Elementals that won’t vanish on the end step.
Unfortunately, Life Finds a Way doesn’t pair quite as nicely with Mass of Mysteries‘ Myriad-granting ability. Because the tokens you create only stick around until the end of combat, you’ll need an effect that grants your creature spells Flash to take full advantage of this enchantment. Nonetheless, this isn’t an impossible task, and the payoff is high.
The Spike
Thanks to Life Finds a Way’s synergy with Ashling, the Limitless, the card has seen a massive demand increase. The initial surge in demand started in the first week of January when the Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precon decklists were revealed. With immense hype throughout the EDH community, demand has stayed consistently high since.
Like every other card in the MTG Jurassic World collection, Life Finds a Way only appears in one out of every 12 set boosters of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. While available in Collector Boosters, this severely limits the number of copies of Life Finds a Way on the market.
At the time of writing, Life Finds a Way holds a market value of $24.91 in its traditional, near mint form according to TCGplayer. This represents a 418% price spike since it sat at $4.81 a month ago. That said, this enchantment is currently selling for even more, with the cheapest available copy being $30.
Unfortunately, the only other version of Life Finds a Way that players can look to pick up is the borderless Emblem variant, which is worth substantially more. With only one copy available for purchase on TCGplayer at a whopping $345, anyone hoping for a cheap alternative is out of luck.
The Future
Now that players are getting their hands on the Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precons, it’s only natural for strong upgrades to have their prices climb in the short-term. Other cards that synergize with Ashling, the Limitless that failed to earn a precon reprint, including Cavalier of Flame and Animar, Soul of the Elements, have experienced major price spikes, too.
At the same time, though, it’s common for precon-driven spikes to die down over time. It’s quite possible that that as we get closer to the release of TMNT MTG, many players will start to focus their attention on the new legends. Life Finds a Way is hardly a versatile EDH staple, either, so its demand could easily plummet in the long run.
The only caveat is that, due to this enchantment’s rarity, fewer copies may enter the market than other precon upgrades. This could result in Life Finds a Way maintaining a higher price point post-spike, but, as always, it’s impossible to truly predict the future. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out in the coming weeks.
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