As is commonly the case, the recent Modern MTG Pro Tour has thrown the metagame into turmoil. Reacting to a format dominated by fair decks, fast combo decks have risen up to counter them. As a result, high-risk, high-reward cards like Plunge into Darkness have suddenly become popular, causing a major price spike.
MTG Plunge into Darkness
Despite offering an Entwine effect, only Plunge into Darkness‘s unique second ability is really used in Modern. Offering an unrivaled way to find your combo pieces, this instant’s extreme efficiency comes at an extreme cost. Not only do you need to pay life to dig deeper into your deck, but all the other cards you see get dumped into exile.
While this generally makes Plunge into Darkness too risky to use, for Cosmogoyf combo decks, the exile clause has become an extreme upside. Working with other exiling tools like Serum Powder and Spoils of the Vault, getting a 20-power Cosmogoyf down on turn two is surprisingly easy. With Gemstone Caverns speeding things up, setting up a lethal Thud combo on turn two is annoyingly consistent.
After a flashy and successful Pro Tour appearance in the hands of player Yuya Hasokawa, the Cosmogoyf combo has now officially become a part of the Modern metagame. Outside of Modern, however, Plunge into Darkness sees basically no play anywhere. Despite this, the new Modern combo has still caused a significant surge in demand, causing Plunge into Darkness to absolutely skyrocket in price.
The Spike
If suddenly becoming a Modern pillar weren’t enough, Plunge into Darkness is also an extremely scarce MTG card. With only one printing available from 2004’s Fifth Dawn, even a small amount of demand can cause this card to spike. This is exactly what we’ve seen following the Pro Tour, with 110 copies changing hands in the past few days.
Thanks to this sudden surge, prices have absolutely exploded, with recent sales for lightly played variants reaching $40. This represents a 489% price spike from the past lightly played lows of $6.78, just before the Pro Tour. For near-mint copies, sales of Plunge of Darkness have surpassed $47 and show no signs of stopping there.
Sadly, with only 14 listings for Plunge of Darkness starting at $40, there are no cheap copies of this card available anymore. Like every card from an old set, foils for Plunge into Darkness will cost a great deal more, with $69 being the cheapest available copy.
A Fragile Spike for a Fragile Card
With Plunge into Darkness seeing virtually no play outside of Modern’s Cosmogoyf decks, the card’s price is ride or die on the archetype’s success. Frankly, because of how fragile current Cosmogoyf lists are, its status as a fad almost seems predetermined. That being said, we are already seeing this deck innovate with a spicy new Necrodominance variant.
Offering a reinforced game plan, this new variant could prove to have untapped potential, keeping the deck in the meta. Whether or not this happens, however, currently remains to be seen. Fortunately, with plenty of big Modern events on the horizon over the next few months, it won’t take long for us to find out.
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