The Enigma Jewel has a ton of potential, but the card has gone forgotten for the most part. Any card resembling Sol Ring, Commander’s most powerful card, can warp formats. Unfortunately, only being able to use that mana for abilities makes The Enigma Jewel a bit of an enigma to use effectively, at least, until now.
A new Standard deck that revolves around an instant death combo with MTG Aetherdrift’s Radiant Lotus has overtaken the format. Many activated abilities are used to make the deck work, and The Enigma Jewel is the glue that keeps this deck together.
The Enigma Jewel
The Enigma Jewel is a restrictive Sol Ring at first glance, but this MTG card does much more than it appears. Adding two colorless mana can speed up the effects of cards like Repurposing Bay and Legion Extruder, but The Enigma Jewel’s Craft ability is a huge part of the new Radiant Lotus combo deck.
Crafting The Enigma Jewel creates Locus of Enlightenment – a Legendary Artifact that gains all the activated abilities of the cards that you use to Craft it. More importantly, this artifact also copies any activated abilities you use, maximizing your combo potential.
Locus of Enlightenment has a particularly powerful synergy with Repurposing Bay. Now, instead of searching for one artifact using your activated ability, Locus of Enlightenment allows you to search for two. Since Locus of Enlightenment can Craft with cards from your grave, you can also use this to pick up activated abilities from cards that have already eaten removal, or have been sacrificed by Repurposing Bay.
All of this means that The Enigma Jewel is the most critical piece of a new combo deck that has seen success in the Standard format. Demand for the Mythic Rare is rising as players collect pieces for the deck. This is reflected in the price of The Enigma Jewel.
The Spike
The Enigma Jewel has seen a steep spike over the last three weeks. Only 86 listings between every variant of The Enigma Jewel currently exist on TCGplayer, suggesting that this price spike is nowhere near over. For reference, this is a rather low number of cards.
The market average for The Enigma Jewel has spiked from $1.20 to $3.60 over the past month. That said, recent sales for The Enigma Jewel are higher, commonly hanging out around the $4 range. Recent outliers have sold for as much as $8.
Listings for The Enigma Jewel on TCGplayer start at about $4 and increase drastically. Average listings for the card are $6 and up. TCGdirect, a service that delivers cards at quicker speeds for a premium, is asking for $14.75 for the card, which will likely cause a further spike in the secondary market. All of this indicates that the current value for The Enigma Jewel is expected to be closer to $5 (316%) than its market average.
If you want to save money, beat-up copies of The Enigma Jewel are coming to market, typically selling for much less than the average copy. However, as of the writing of this article, these copies do not exist on the secondary market, but could reappear at any time.
Currently, there is no difference in price between the foil, nonfoil, and extended art variants of The Enigma Jewel.
This Spike Probably Isn’t Over
The Enigma Jewel is an incredibly powerful MTG card in any deck that can use it. Fast mana routinely breaks formats, and even though this has some restrictions on it, this is still an incredibly efficient card.
The Enigma Jewel even offers a massive upside over other fast mana: it can repurpose itself into a value engine once you have excess mana. This ensures that The Enigma Jewel is a powerhouse in the early and the late game.
In other words, despite the card’s narrow usage, The Enigma Jewel has everything it needs to become an expensive powerhouse. The card’s Mythic Rarity means a lower supply already exists for the card.
I expect that The Enigma Jewel’s price will continue to rise. The Radiant Lotus combo deck is continually putting up impressive results, and competitive Standard’s paper relevance isn’t going anywhere. For reference, the next two Regional Championship series, and the next Pro Tour, will be Standard.
While The Enigma Jewel will likely keep spiking, it has a limit. The limitations on the legendary artifact are severe, which means that only so many strategies can use a card like this. If none of those strategies are viable, The Enigma Jewel will lose its appeal. However, as the card pool for MTG continues to grow, this card only gets more opportunities to find a home.