Magic: The Gathering’s secondary market has been thrown into turmoil. Players are scrambling to adjust their strategies to the new metagame thanks to the ridiculous series of bans and unbans made to the Modern format. As new titans emerge to rule the format, prices of cards shift.
Out of the gate, Mox Opal seems to have the largest effect on the metagame of all the cards that appeared on the ban list changes. Rising to over $150 itself, Mox Opal has created new archetypes, empowered existing ones, and has completely revolutionized players’ sideboards to beat it.
One of the cards benefitting the most from the return of Mox Opal is a mainstay in many older MTG formats. Modern, Commander, Legacy, and Vintage frequently have Urza’s Saga in their metagame discussions. Now, the card is getting more expensive.
Urza’s Saga
Urza’s Saga has always been an expensive MTG card, and it’s not hard to tell why. Urza’s Saga is a land, a threat, and a tutor optioned all rolled up into one card. Thanks to its ability to create Constructs that scale in power off of Urza’s tutor ability, the card can easily create a secondary gameplan in any MTG deck that wants to run it for other reasons. Whether you’re trying to tutor up a Blade of the Bloodchief for Broodscale Combo, or trying to make Constructs for your Mox Opal-fuelled Affinity gameplan, Urza’s Saga does it all.
Thanks to Mox Opal amping up the power level of multiple MTG decks, Urza’s Saga is becoming more common in the Modern metagame. The rise of Affinity, Hammertime and Grinding Breach mean that Urza’s Saga is a common offender. Add in existing archetypes that already used the card, like Broodscale Combo and Amulet Titan, and Urza’s Saga has become a pillar in the Modern metagame.
Thanks to the power of Mox Opal, it’s relatively easy to open with Urza’s Saga on turn one and start producing Constructs as early as turn two. Since three mana is needed to do this, it wasn’t generally a thing that Modern could do. Now, thanks to Mox Opal, this is possible. Throw in a Lavaspur Boots off the Urza’s Saga tutor ability, and you’re swinging in for 13 damage on your third turn with a Mox Opal start.
The Spike
Urza’s Saga hasn’t actually spiked that much, but the card has surpassed $40, and looks to be spiking further. That means the card has jumped from slightly under $30 since the end of November. This is for The List variant of Urza’s Saga, which is one of the cheapeast versions of the card alongside the original variant from Modern Horizons 2.
Foils tell a more interesting story. Despite Urza’s Saga being printed in the Collector Booster era, the foil multiplier is surprisingly high. Expect to find the cheapest foils for Urza’s Saga at around $60, with occasional outliers popping up at $55. Foils and nonfoils are generally the same price nowadays because of how much easier it is to find the foil version of cards, but Urza’s Saga seems to be an exception.
The most expensive version of Urza’s Saga is, surprisingly, a non-foil one. The recent textless Store Championship promos are, by far, the most expensive versions of Urza’s Saga on the market, but the foil iterations of these cards are much easier to find. While every store that ran a Store Championship had a foil Urza’s Saga to award to the top finisher, only WPN premium stores had stamped nonfoil promos to give out, making them a much rarer card. These can go for $300 or more.
As Urza’s Saga continues to rise in popularity, the card is only going to get more expensive. Because Urza’s Saga sees play across a bunch of formats, including Commander, it’s unlikely the card will be cheap for some time. In a world where Urza’s Saga is a cheap MTG card, we’ll probably have crazier stuff to worry about.
