Recently, there has been a trio of big movers in the MTG financial markets. MTG Avatar, for one, continues to drive demand, as players build around new Commanders. Alongside this, Standard has steadily been causing its own spikes, while the metagame evolves. To top it all off, early Lorwyn Eclipsed spoilers have also been causing some major market movements.
As if these three forces somehow weren’t enough already, it seems even Premodern is getting in on the action now. While this is still a relatively new format, tickets to major events have been selling like hot cakes recently. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that some of the format’s rare competitive staples are spiking in price.
MTG Tangle Wire
It only really takes one quick look to see that Tangle Wire is a mean MTG card. While this problem does eventually solve itself, thanks to Fading, it delivers tons of value in the meantime. Without any extra support, Tangle Wire can tap 10 artifacts, creatures, or lands your opponents control, across four turns.
Admittedly, while this is a steady source of constant value, Tangle Wire’s effect is symmetrical. While this does mean you have to deal with tapping your own creatures, you’ll always be better off. For starters, you won’t be affected by Tangle Wire after playing it on your own turn. After this, when it is your turn, you can remove a Fade Counter from Tangle Wire first. Tapping Tangle Wire itself to its own ability also keeps you slightly ahead.
Thanks to this, you barely even need to try to break parity on Tangle Wire, as it’s great at slowing games down. This is perfect for decks like Devourer Combo in Premodern. Utilizing the titular Phyrexian Devourer and Alter of Dementia or Fling, this deck can easily exile its own library. While Tinker can cheat Devourer into play, having Tangle Wire as a defense mechanism against aggressive and control decks is a godsend.
Alongside Devourer Combo, some Elves decks in Premodern are also choosing to run Tangle Wire. Thanks to the litany of mana dorks in this deck, having to potentially tap down your lands isn’t nearly as damning as you might think. This gives the deck more time to snowball into more than enough mana for an Anger and Deranged Hermit-based win.
Outside of Premodern, Tangle Wire is also a fairly popular card in MTG Commander. Appearing in around 15,600 decks, according to EDHREC, the value this card provides is amplified with more players around the table. Curiously, while Tangle Wire does see somewhat healthy play, Magda, Brazen Outlaw is the only Commander to use this card frequently, thanks to unlocking Magda’s upside without sending your Dwarves into battle.
The Spike
Curiously, at the moment, only one variant of Tangle Wire has spiked in price. To date, the card has received three legal printings, in Nemesis, From the Vault, and in a Secret Lair drop. Out of these, it’s only the original Nemesis printing that has been climbing, and that’s not due to rarity.
Instead of players clamoring for this 25-year-old variant as a chase card, players want it because it’s non-foil. As nice as the art may look, Secret Lair cards, and From the Vault foils, have a notorious pringling problem. This can make these cards ineligible for competitive play, with some players even being disqualified in the past.
Due to this, it makes sense that eager Premodern players are picking up the Nemesis copies where possible. Admittedly, this audience hasn’t bought a ton of copies, with only 24 near-mint copies sold in the past three months. Despite this low sales volume, the innate rarity of 25-year-old near-mint condition copies has pushed prices up.
A few months ago, near-mint non-foil copies of Tangle Wire were selling for around $13.64 on average. Now, a Nemesis copy in this condition will set you back upwards of $42, not including shipping. So far, recent sales have only topped out at $40, but with only two listings available, players don’t have much choice.
Saying that, if you don’t mind dealing with potential pringling issues, From the Vault and Secret Lair copies are significantly cheaper. Currently, these variants are selling for $11 and $23, respectively. While these foil copies might not be suitable for high-level competitive play, they’ll do just fine in Commander.
On the Up?
Since Tangle Wire isn’t really a powerhouse MTG card in Commander, its price currently seems dependent on Premodern. Considering competitive formats are rarely set in stone, this isn’t the best news for the card’s financial future. That said, the format’s popularity has definitely been growing steadily.
Should this steadily increasing popularity continue, then demand for Tangle Wire and other Premodern staples could climb higher. Now that the format is on Magic Online, this happening feels almost inevitable, but it’s hardly guaranteed. While it is proving successful at the moment, this format’s future isn’t set in stone.
Ultimately, as always, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks and months. Potentially, the price of Tangle Wire could drop and equalize once the current rush of demand is over. Alternatively, continued demand from the format could keep non-foil prices high for some time.
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