Now that the full list of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth cards have been revealed, the secondary market is starting to make movements. Sure, this set doesn’t appear to be third coming of the Modern Horizons series, but there is some real potential for Commander players in this set. This has already begun to reflect in some initial spikes that occured throughout the week, but not all of these are Commander based. Some competitive movements, especially in the Pioneer format, has also caught the market offguard. Let’s take a look!
Arachnogenesis
Thanks to Shelbob’s existence ushering in some much-needed Spider tribal love, players have gone nuts for one of the strongest Spider Tribal payoffs that Commander has to offer. Arachnogenesis is an absolutely fantastic card for go-wide decks to have access to, capable of creating a board and picking off opponent’s creatures for just three mana.
Basically, for every creature attacking you, Arachnogenesis creates that many 1/2 Spider creature tokens with Reach. Additionally, Arachnogenesis will prevent all non-Spider creature damage, allowing your tokens to act as removal – as long as you’re not in a Spider tribal mirror, that is.
While Arachnogenesis’s abilities definitely suit a Spider tribal deck best, any deck that sees value in creating wide boards can benefit from an effect like this. The only added bonus that a Spider tribal deck has over others, besides synergistic potential with the tokens, is that other creatures in play can also act as removal.
Thanks to all the new Spider support appearing in Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, Arachnogenesis has seen a massive price increase. Over the course of a few days, we saw this card rise from a little under $30 to a peak of $75! That price is no longer a good deal, as the average has come down a bit to hover around the $50-$60 mark.
Notably, Arachnogenesis currently only has one printing, and its a relatively scarce one. Should this be reprinted in something like the upcoming Commander Masters set, you could see the price point of this card drop immensely.
Metamorphic Alteration
This is a price spike we already looked at, so we’re not going to spend too much time covering it. Long story short, this is a part of a new two-card combo present in Pioneer and MTG Arena. If you want to read more about it, take a look here.
What we can talk about, however, is how these price spikes have shaken out since the initial spike has passed. It looks like the card’s price is set for around $5 at the time-being, with the potential to get a good deal for a bit less than that. If you purchased yours for less than $4, you probably got a good deal. If you purchased it for more than $5, you may have lost a bit of money. Regardless, this is still a massive price spike for a card that was only worth 20 cents a few weeks ago.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
This week truly appears to be the week of the Spiders. Alongside Arachnogenesis, Ishkanah, Grafwidow is also seeing an uptick of interest. Notably, this price increase is nowhere near as much as Arachnogenesis. Still, Ishkanah is an interesting resource for those looking to make Shelbob their next Commander.
Combined with Arachnogenesis and some other Spider token creators, Ishkanah’s static ability starts to look really scary. Combine this with her ability to create a mini-army of her own, and you have a very synergistic Spider tribal payoff.
That said, Ishkanah as a card won’t be turning the tide of games. As such, despite the interest, this card’s price has appeared to increase from a bit under a dollar. What the card is worth now, however, is a bit difficult to interpret. There are some outlier prices featuring this card at a bit under $10, but a majority of these are selling for anywhere between just over a dollar and $3. Finding a copy of the card for around $2 or less is probably a decent deal at the time of writing this.
The Kami War
It appears that Tom Bombadil’s influence is starting to raise its head once again. The Kami War’s sudden market spike on TCGplayer is likely to be influence by this Five-color Commander’s existance.
For those unaware, Tom Bombadil cares about Sagas. Able to continue telling stories after one has ended, Tom Bombadil will search your library Cascade-style to find another Saga the first time one that you control reaches its final chapter per turn. You can use tricks to keep your Saga from dying while triggering Bombadil as well. All of this is to say that this Commander is extremely interesting.
The Kami War seems like a natural fit in a Tom Bombadil deck. The card offers a powerful five-color payoff that removes the scariest thing on the board, delays another threat, causes all of your opponents to discard a card, and finally transforms into a massive Dragon that threatens to start recurring your other Sagas from your grave. Notably, upon transformation, Tom Bombadil will also be triggered.
Thanks to the massive synergy seen, The Kami War appears to be increasing somewhat thanks to interest. Like Ishkanah, this increase isn’t completely stable, with sales ranging between a dollar and $6. TCGplayer’s market price seems to pin the card at about $2.25 currently, but a majority of sales suggest that finding the card for between a dollar and $2 shouldn’t be too difficult. This isn’t a massive increase in price from the 80 cents that the card was valued at a few months ago, but the increase has been slow and steady. To reiterate, there are multiple sales for this card above the $3 mark, so the higher prices seen are somewhat consistent.
Read More: Most Expensive Lord of the Rings Commander Deck Reprints!
Orcish Bowmasters
Talking about a card during its prerelease stages is definitely a bizarre affair. A caveat with this discussion is that prerelease prices tend to be heavily inflated before the official release date of a set. This has been mitigated somewhat thanks to Prerelease changes, but it does hold somewhat true. As a result, these prices could crash. Keep that in mind.
That said, there is a lot of hype surrounding this two-mana creature. Heralded by many as the most powerful thing going in the LOTR set, Orcish Bowmasters has potential in Modern and Legacy, but all of that is dwarfed by how massive of an impact the card could have on cEDH.
As a result of this card’s potential, the Prerelease pricing for the card has doubled. Those who locked in some copies at $12 may be feeling pretty good about themselves, as the card is now going for $26. Once again, do keep in mind that this price does have a strong chance of dropping upon release but, considering how much potential the card appears to have, Orcish Bowmasters, even after release, is likely to be one of the most expensive cards in the entire set.
Demilich?
Trying Demilich in Arclight Phoenix builds isn’t a new idea, especially with the card’s buffs on MTG Arena. That said, the card has seen some success over the weekend in some Last Chance Qualifiers. As a result, some players and finance outlets are starting to put this card on their perspective radars.
Whether this card will end up seeing a relevant spike is kind of an unknown at the moment, but TCGplayer’s market price has seen a massive spike the past few days. Showcasing a slow but steady increase from 50 cents since April, Demilich is beginning to sell for over a dollar. Interest for the card has absolutely exploded as of June 11, which does indicate a price spike could be coming. Whether it does or not is yet to be seen but, since others are keeping an eye on this, we wanted to give it a shout. Just know that the price spike here isn’t necessarily relevant, but it could be.
Read More: MTG Metabreaker Sees 5900% Price Increase Over a Week!
