At this point, it’s far from a secret that Fire Lord Azula is one of the best Commanders from MTG Avatar. Her spell-doubling Firebending antics are well established by now, and she’s already caused all manner of price spikes. Unsurprisingly, since she’s the most popular MTG Avatar Commander, these price spikes don’t seem to be slowing down.
MTG Tidal Barracuda
With just one look at Tidal Barracuda, it’s easy to see why Fire Lord Azula wants this card. Since Fire Lord Azula can only double spells while she’s attacking, giving your spells Flash makes exploiting that effortless. With Tidal Barracuda in play, there’s nothing stopping you from doubling every creature, enchantment, artifact, sorcery, or anything really.
While this is obviously very powerful, Tidal Barracuda isn’t necessarily an auto-include within Fire Lord Azula decks. According to EDHREC, this Fish is only seeing play within around 18% of Azula lists right now. Potentially, this might have something to do with the card’s scarcity, but realistically, it’s far from faultless.
Beyond just giving your spells flash, Tidal Barracuda also gives it to each opponent, which is potentially very dangerous. In theory, you’re protected from this, as Barracuda also stops your opponents from casting spells on your turn. While this is a valuable safety net, it still lets each opponent cast anything they like before their upkeep.
Due to this, Tidal Barracuda can be equal parts blessing and curse, if not used correctly. Thankfully, there are ways to break parity here, such as Teferi Time Raveler, but that doesn’t fix the issue for Azula. That said, the upside of getting to double every spell, even for just one combat, is still obscene.
Thanks to this upside, it’s no wonder that there’s been a surge in demand for Tidal Barracuda recently. While Barracuda might not be an auto-include, it’s still found its way into over 2,100 Fire Lord Azula decks. Unsurprisingly, this has managed to cause a pretty significant bump in the card’s price.
The Spike
Over the past few months, the price of Tidal Barracuda has spiked by a smidgen over 431%. While this percentage is already impressive, Barracuda didn’t just jump from being worth a collar of cents to a dollar or so. Instead, Tidal Barracuda is now selling for around $21 on average, making it a relatively expensive MTG card.
Considering Barracuda used to be worth around $4 on average, it’s certainly been on quite the journey upstream. For the most part, this appears to be powered by the card’s scarcity in the face of increased demand. To date, Tidal Barracuda has only received one printing, and that was five years ago in Commander 2020.
While this set isn’t the most scarce, it’s certainly no stranger to having expensive cards. Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship, for instance, are $48 and $38 MTG cards, respectively. This set is also home to Twinning Staff, which recently spiked in price. Now, Tidal Barracuda is the fifth most expensive card from this set, although its price has been inflated somewhat.
Currently, on TCGplayer, near-mint non-foil copies of Tidal Barracuda can be picked up for just under $19. Even TCGplayer Direct copies are only at $19.99 at the moment, which is still under the $20.95 market price. Instead, it seems that some past sale outliers, including a whopping $39.88, caused prices to increase faster than expected, though the market is now adjusting. While this does sound like good news, it’s worth noting that Tidal Barracuda isn’t the only MTG card with this effect.
Barracuda But Better
Essentially, High Fae Trickster is just Tidal Barracuda, but better. While this Faerie does have less toughness, it doesn’t have the same symmetrical downside that Barracuda struggles with. In theory, this does make it difficult as a long-term prospect, especially since High Fae was printed in MTG Foundations.
That said, since MTG Commander is a singleton format, Tidal Barracuda does have a home in it. After all, if you really want to maximize Azula’s copying ability with Flash, having two engines is better than one. Potentially, this might keep the demand and price for Tidal Barracuda fairly high, although that might not last forever.
Unlike other cards from Commander 2020, Tidal Barracuda is by no means a true staple in the format. In total, this card is only seeing play in around 28,000 decks right now, which might seem reasonable, but it’s basically nothing. In comparison, for instance, Deflecting Swat sees play in over 600,000 Commander decks, according to EDHREC.
While Deflecting Swat has been reprinted, allowing it to see more play, its price also wasn’t decimated by that reprint. Should the same happen to Tidal Barracuda at some point, there’s a good chance its price will plummet. This isn’t guaranteed, of course, nor is the reprint itself, but it’s definitely a long-term concern.
Ultimately, as much as we’d like to, we can’t predict the future here at MTG Rocks. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to this price spike in the coming weeks and months. Since Avatar should mostly have the spotlight until January, Azula’s current demand-boosting reign could easily continue.
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