With
Jace, Multiverse Architect
Jace, Multiverse Architect
At the beginning of combat on each opponent's turn, they may pay {2}. If they don't, creatures they control can't attack Jaces you control this turn.
+1: Draw two cards, then put a card from your hand on the bottom of your library.
−3: Exile another target planeswalker or creature you control. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature or planeswalker card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Jace, Multiverse Architect can be your commander.
bringing Polymorph strategies to the center of MTG Commander, all kinds of cards have been spiking in price. Whether it’s cards that can copy Jace to chain abilities or a bunch of forgotten Polymorph variants, the archetype has certainly surged in popularity.
Considering this, it should come as no surprise that the original MTG Polymorph cards is now spiking in price. Frankly, it’s surprising it took this long.
MTG Polymorph
The namesake for an entire subset of MTG cards, Polymorph destroys one of your creatures and turns it into another from your library. While you can use topdeck-manipulation cards like
Brainstorm
Brainstorm
Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.
to set this up, the most common way to take advantage of it is to run just a few creatures in your deck, plus cards that create creature tokens. That way, you’re guaranteed to hit something massive with Polymorph, cheating creatures like
Hullbreaker Horror
Hullbreaker Horror
Flash
This spell can't be countered.
Whenever you cast a spell, choose up to one —
• Return target spell you don't control to its owner's hand.
• Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
into play early.
This has long been a niche strategy in Commander, but Reality Fracture’s Multiverse Reforged precon has brought it to the forefront. Focusing on Jace, Multiverse Architect, the entire precon is a mass Polymorph deck, turning small tokens into haymakers like
Avacyn, Angel of Horror
Avacyn, Angel of Horror
Flying, deathtouch
Whenever Avacyn or another nontoken creature you control dies, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step.
.
While Polymorph is a natural fit for the precon, Multiverse Reforged’s threat suite is a bit odd, resulting in a lot of players taking it apart. With that in mind, most players are building custom decks around Jace, and that’s where Polymorph mostly appears.
According to EDHREC, Polymorph currently appears in over 2,380 Jace decks, and also sees some more limited play with other Reality Fracture Commanders.
Vraska, Soul of Stone
Vraska, Soul of Stone
Artifact creatures you control have vigilance.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Sculpture Treasure artifact creature token with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color."
, for example, can turn its Treasure creatures into haymakers with ease.
With Reality Fracture putting the Polymorph archetype back on the map, it’s no wonder the archetype’s namesake card has seen a demand increase. With so many new homes to fill, Polymorph has gotten much more expensive.
The Spike
While Polymorph has seen a surge of demand, there aren’t exactly a ton of copies moving hands. Still, as this spike shows, even a small demand surge can send older cards jumping in price.
Demand for Polymorph started climbing with the reveal of Multiverse Reforged’s decklist on September 16th. Despite this, Polymorph’s price seems to have started increasing only recently.
Among Polymorph’s variants, the smallest spike was 319% for near-mint copies. The List reprint, Polymorph’s newest variant, is currently the cheapest near-mint listing, now $6.04 after shipping, up from $1.44 a month ago. Older near-mint variants, however, cost far more. For example, 9th Edition and Mirage variants are worth about $9.50 each.
So long as you don’t mind cards in worse condition, you can save some money picking up a copy of Polymorph. Damaged variants of Polymorph’s Mirage variant seem to be the cheapest copies on the market, going for $4.50. Sadly, this means the old $1 price points for this card are long gone, except for a few outlier listings.
If you’d rather splurge on Polymorph, foil variants of this card are quite expensive. Tenth Edition foils, for example, start at $15 in moderately played condition, while Ninth Edition starts at $23. None of Polymorph’s other printings have a foil variant available.
A Temporary Fad
Unless you’re dead set on including Polymorph in your Jace, Multiverse Architect Commander deck, I wouldn’t buy this card at its inflated price. As the Multiverse Reforged precon shows, many newer Polymorph cards are, frankly, better than the original. Unless you’ve got Indestructible creatures to target with Polymorph, cards like
Divergent Transformations
Divergent Transformations
Undaunted (This spell costs {1} less to cast for each opponent.)
Exile two target creatures. For each of those creatures, its controller reveals cards from the top of their library until they reveal a creature card, puts that card onto the battlefield, then shuffles the rest into their library.
and
Mass Polymorph
Mass Polymorph
Exile all creatures you control, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal that many creature cards. Put all creature cards revealed this way onto the battlefield, then shuffle the rest of the revealed cards into your library.
just do the job better.
Outside of Jace, Multiverse Architect, Polymorph isn’t a very popular archetype, either. While it does appear rarely in cEDH and Dual Commander, the archetype is hardly a mainstay in any format. As a result, interest in Polymorph may not last long.
As we’ve mentioned multiple times in these finance articles, trends caused by recent Commander products tend to be temporary. Once MTG Star Trek Commander precons come out, or even get previewed, interest will shift away from the Multiverse Reforged precon and the Polymorph shenanigans it causes.
That said, while Polymorph’s price increase is most likely a temporary fad, the future remains impossible to predict, especially in MTG. For all we know, Jace, Multiverse Architect could keep driving demand after MTG Star Trek comes out, or Polymorph strategies could stay popular for a while. With that in mind, we’ll have to wait and see what happens with MTG Polymorph, but I’d personally stay away.
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