One incredibly problematic, and absurdly expensive artifact finally left the Modern metagame yesterday. The One Ring was public enemy number one in the Modern format for months. Having a ridiculous 60% metagame representation, it was clear something had to change. As a result, The One finally got the boot from the Modern format, and no one was really surprised. What no one expected, however, was that The One Ring would be replaced by an even more expensive, and infamous, artifact.
Even though players got the Modern bans they had been asking for, no one is talking about them. Instead, the format was shaken to its core with four unbans. The Splinter Twin meme has finally ended – shocking, but not an absurdly unlikely possibility. The other three unbans, however, are something that no one could have expected.
Green Sun’s Zenith, Faithless Looting, and Mox Opal are three cards that define entire formats. Green Sun’s Zenith and Mox Opal see routine play in Legacy, and Faithless Looting was ejected out of Modern thanks to making Arclight Phoenix a little too frequent of a flier.
Now, players are making a mad dash to grab their playsets of Mox Opal for the Modern format. As a result, demand has far exceeded the current supply of Mox Opal on the market, and the card is skyrocketing.
Mox Opal
On the surface, Mox Opal seems almost kind of balanced, to the untrained eye at least. Sure it’s free, but you’ve got to invest resources to actually make it turn on. Unfortunately, this is incredibly easy to do, as Magic has plenty of zero-cost artifacts. This allows you to turn on Mox Opal from the very start of the game, massively accelerating your game plan.
Thanks to this increased speed, Mox Opal has been the cause of a ton of problematic strategies throughout Magic’s history. Most infamous for its strength in Affinity decks, Mox Opal offers speed and a frightening degree of consistency for this archetype. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this card has almost singlehandedly supported past strategies such as Lantern Control and Thopter-Sword Combo.
Now that it has been unbanned, Mox Opal is now free to run rampant over the Modern format once again. Many MTG players are already expecting past archetypes, like Hammer Time, to have a sudden resurgence following this unbanning. Even if this was the only card that was unbanned yesterday, the impact on Modern is likely to be revolutionary.
Beyond potentially reviving past archetypes, Mox Opal was a key part of the once-infamous Krak-Clan Ironworks combo. This combo was so strong, that Mox Opal bit the ban bullet in order to stop it from dominating the metagame. In the end, Opal’s banning wasn’t enough to stop the archetype from format dominance, and Krark-Clan Ironworks eventually had to go. This means that, despite Mox Opal’s reappearance, Krark-Clan Ironworks will not be coming along for the ride.
The Spike
Previously, while legal in Legacy and Vintage, Mox Opal saw most of its demand from Commander. For better or worse, this meant MTG players didn’t need too many copies of the card since Commander is a singleton format. Now it’s back in Modern, however, players are likely to need a full playset per deck.
Unsurprisingly, this massively increased demand has placed a lot of strain on the available supply of Mox Opal. Even before this surge in demand, however, the card was already expensive. Thanks to its legacy, and free play in Legacy and Commander for that matter, copies routinely sold for $85. While this was by no means cheap, it now looks like a pittance compared to current prices.
In just a little over 24 hours, Mox Opal has exploded in price. Now, finding a copy of this card for $150 is a miracle. According to recent sales, grabbing a copy for anywhere between $160-$180 is a bit more realistic. It doesn’t matter which of Mox Opal’s seven reprintings you look at, $150 is the cheapest price you’ll find.
If you need to save as much money as possible, your best bet may be trying to find a played copy of the artifact. Sadly, even these are going for the $150 range. Most of the worn Mox Opals out there are copies from the card’s original printing in Scars of Mirrodin, which are still expensive strictly from the merit of being old. If you can find a damaged copy of a newer printing of Mox Opal, you may be able to save $10-$20.
If you want the most expensive copy of Mox Opal on the market, there is a Kaladesh Masterpiece printing of the card. Thanks to the recent name change for that plane, everything related to Kaladesh has become even more desirable. Currently, Mox Opals from Kaladesh are pushing towards $600, which is about the price of a Booster Box from that set.
The Future is Hard to Predict
Obviously, it’s far too early to tell where the price of Mox Opal will end up in the long run. In the short term, it seems incredibly likely that prices will continue to increase, potentially even surpassing the $200 mark, depending on demand. What’s unclear, however, is if this card has the legs to stay that expensive in the long run.
The biggest factor for Mox Opal’s financial future is how effective the card ends up being in Modern. It should warp the format in theory, but Faithless Looting and Green Sun’s Zenith threaten the same amount of power. It will be very difficult to figure out which card comes on top. If one strategy ends up being more dominant than expected, then Mox Opal may not be as viable as we think, subsequently decreasing demand and lowering prices.
Another thing to discuss is the potential for another Mox Opal reprint. Many players expect that Wizards of the Coast has one lined up, thanks to the unban. This is certainly a possibility, but there’s no way to know for sure. If the price of Mox Opal remains around the $150-200 range then a reprint would obviously be very welcome. Without a reprint, many players could be priced out of the best Modern decks, which is a major concern for format health.
Worryingly, $800 for a playset of Mox Opal seems like a real possibility at this point. Right now, Mox Opal is even more expensive than The One Ring ever was. At its peak, you were still able to pick up copies of The One Ring for around $100, but Mox Opal has already surpassed that.
For now, Mox Opal is certainly the most expensive card in the Modern format. You could see if the card continues to increase in price but, if you have some Mox Opals collecting dust in your binder, you may want to consider selling them while the prices are high.
