Following its introduction to Magic Online and a recent ban, the Premodern format has been on a tear recently. Picking up more players than ever before, there’s been a huge rush of demand to pick up format staples. This, in turn, has led to a wide range of price spikes recently, with many cards skyrocketing thanks to insane scarcity.
Most recently, following the ban, Premodern’s best deck, Stiflenought, has been on the up and up. This, in turn, has caused the deck’s titular card, Phyrexian Dreadnought, to spike by over $100. While this card was never cheap to begin with, playing Premodern’s best deck is now a whole lot more expensive.
MTG Phyrexian Dreadnought
On the surface, Phyrexian Dreadnought is a terrible MTG card. Essentially functioning as a way to exchange a bunch of smaller creatures into a big beater, Phyrexian Dreadnought requires too much of an investment to work properly. While players can cash in a bunch of creatures with death triggers for a 12/12, you can break this card remarkably easily. All you have to do is counter Phyrexian Dreadnought’s enters ability with a Stifle effect, and you essentially get a win condition for just two mana.
This synergy has made Phyrexian Dreadnought a presence in multiple formats, but it’s the undisputed king of Premodern. Partnering the one mana win condition with tons of free countermagic like Daze and Foil, Stiflenought can get on board quickly and buy enough time to close the game. Add Vision Charm to the mix, and Stiflenought includes eight one-mana cards to cheat the Dreadnought into play.
All of that said, Stiflenought being the best deck in Premodern isn’t a new thing. This was also the case before the banning of Parallax Tide, with Stiflenought itself among the biggest users of the enchantment. That said, unlike other Parallax Tide decks, Stiflenought didn’t depend on the enchantment to function. With one of Premodern’s pillars removed, and Stiflenought largely unaffected, it easily filled the power gap.
Outside of Premodern, Stiflenought is also a classic Legacy archetype, but it’s not too popular right now. Thanks to having access to a wider card pool, Legacy Stiflenought has access to cards like Dress Down and Doorkeeper Thrull, cheating the Dreadnought in while messing with your opponents.
Sadly, outside of Premodern and Legacy, Phyrexian Dreadnought sees little to no play. Beatsticks with no other abilities aren’t too impressive in Commander, after all. Despite the lack of Commander interest, a spike in Premodern interest was more than enough to send Phyrexian Dreadnought’s price soaring.
The Spike
Thanks to its appearance on the Reserved List, Phyrexian Dreadnought has always been an expensive card. Even before the recent ban, near-mint copies of this card were selling for around $129 on TCGplayer. While this already made it one of the top ten most expensive cards in the format, its price has exploded recently, despite seeing remarkably few sales.
Today, the cheapest near-mint copy of the card available is $325, representing a $196 price spike over the last three months. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that card conditions have a much larger effect on price for expensive cards like this.
If you don’t mind buying damaged copies, the cheapest copy of Phyrexian Dreadnought on TCGplayer is available for $231, but there is a chance that the card could be unplayable in a tournament setting. If you want to lean on the safer side, moderately and heavily played copies of the card typically sell for $240-$250.
The Future
While Phyrexian Dreadnought’s continued price increase looks like a foregone conclusion, things might not be quite that straightforward. Unlike most cards spiking in Premodern, Phyrexian Dreadnought might actually be too good. According to MTGO results, Stiflenought is currently the most popular deck in Premodern by a decent margin, ahead of the rest of the field by 4%. It might not seem like much, but Stiflenought is almost twice as popular as any other Premodern deck, making it a noticeable outlier.
If something from Premodern does get banned, it could very likely be something from Stiflenought. Should this happen, Phyrexian Dreadnought could lose its only consistent home. With nowhere to play the creature outside of pet decks, Phyrexian Dreadnought’s price could easily go back to its pre-spike level.
That said, there’s no indication that a Premodern ban is coming anytime soon, or if one is truly even needed. While this likely means that Phyrexian Dreadnought will remain expensive, as always, truly predicting the future is impossible.
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