More often than not, when an MTG card’s price rises, it’s a direct reaction to new Commander content or a competitive development. Occasionally, however, MTG players will rediscover a piece of lost tech from a past set, and that rediscovery is enough to send its price spiking.
That appears to be what happened with Naked Singularity, a bizarre MTG artifact released back in Ice Age. By messing with the mana that lands produce, this easily shuts down all kinds of decks in MTG Commander.
MTG Naked Singularity
Making lands with basic land types produce different colored mana, Naked Singularity can be one of the most frustrating MTG cards to play against. For mono-colored decks, having all of your basic lands produce a different color of mana can be completely devastating, while two-colored decks can also struggle to play their cards.
That said, despite its ability to shut your opponents down, Naked Singularity is, frankly, an awful MTG card. The Cumulative Upkeep trigger is extremely costly, forcing you to funnel tons of mana to keep Naked Singularity around. While
Solemnity
Solemnity
Players can't get counters.
Counters can't be put on artifacts, creatures, enchantments, or lands.
lets you avoid paying this card’s additional costs, since Cumulative Upkeep is tracked by Age Counters, Naked Singularity can be a disaster without it.
If that weren’t enough, Naked Singularity has all five mana pips in its text, so it’s technically a five-color card in MTG Commander. This means that only five-color Commanders, like
Child of Alara
Child of Alara
Trample
When Child of Alara dies, destroy all nonland permanents. They can't be regenerated.
or the new
Arzakon
Arzakon
+2: Arzakon deals 3 damage to any other target.
−3: Create a Black Lotus token. (It's a {0} artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add three mana of any one color.")
−7: Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards.
Arzakon can be your commander.
, can use a card like this. With that in mind, it’s no wonder Naked Singularity sees basically no play in Commander, appearing in slightly over 1000 decks, according to EDHREC.
While Naked Singularity certainly isn’t the strongest MTG card in the world, it can still absolutely ruin your opponent’s day, which has drawn a lot of attention. Multiple MTG TikTok videos are currently highlighting this card as a way to make your Commander opponent’s life a total misery.
While this sudden surge of attention isn’t necessarily driving demand for Naked Singularity, it is the most likely cause. Now, with a stark increase in copies sold, this card’s price is beginning to climb.
The Spike
With only one paper printing of Naked Singularity from Ice Age, scarcity is certainly driving this card’s price spike. Among the Ice Age variant’s conditions, lightly played copies are selling the most, drawing our attention to this variant.
This price spike kicked off on October 19th, just one day before MTG Star Trek spoiler season started, when 42 lightly played copies of Naked Singularity sold. It may not seem like much, but supply for older cards like this is extremely limited, causing even a small uptick in demand to trigger a price spike. With only 32 listings for the card across conditions available, there are very few copies of Naked Singularity available.
Over the past month, lightly played Naked Singularity copies have jumped from $2.30 to $9, more than tripling the price of this card. If you’re not attached to condition, however, cheaper copies are available. Heavily played copies, for example, start at about $3.80, but a vast majority of this card’s available listings are currently $7.50 and up. So, while some decent deals are available right now, they may not last long.
A Gimmick, But That’s It
Frankly, unless you want to make your opponent’s life difficult for the fun of it, I would steer clear of Naked Singularity. With a massive Cumulative Upkeep cost, this card generally isn’t worth running unless you have major synergies with it. Given how poor the card is, I think this sudden price increase is a flash in the pan, and it will eventually drop when people stop playing it.
That said, cards with insanely low supply, like Naked Singularity, are tough to predict. If the recent surge in copies bought doesn’t return to the market, an extreme supply squeeze could keep prices higher than players expect. Similarly, if demand stagnates, prices for the remaining copies could easily fall.
While Naked Singularity has no outlier sales, sudden demand spikes like this, especially without an extremely clear reason, could also result from market manipulation. This makes buying Naked Singularity at its higher price even riskier, since the demand that pushed the price up could be artificial.
Predicting the future in MTG remains impossible, but it’s even harder for cards like Naked Singularity. With no new gameplay piece seemingly causing this spike, anything could happen with this card. Personally, however, I wouldn’t pick this up since the card is kinda weak, unless you really want to make someone at your table mad.
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!