We’re still weeks away from the first MTG release of 2025, but the game’s financial markets are already moving. Following parallel high-profile tournaments last weekend, the Standard MTG format is very much in vogue. Thanks to this, we’ve already seen some majorly impressive price spikes to kickstart this year.
Unsurprisingly, the best Standard decks are the ones seeing the most attention right now. While this is nothing out of the ordinary, the two decks currently leading the format certainly are. Despite the rise of Esper Pixie and Dimir Midrange, the recent major events were won by unexpected archetypes.
Currently, Gruul Aggro and Selesnya Cage are on top form, putting up consistent results. Due to this, we’ve seen components of these decks spike in price over the past few days. With this in mind, it’s little wonder that a card shared by both decks is getting so much fresh attention.
Pawpatch Recruit
- Mana Value: G
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 2/1
- Creature Type: Creature – Rabbit Warrior
- Card Text: Offspring 2
Trample
Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control other than that creature.
Upon first being spoiled in Bloomburrow, Pawpatch Recruit looked like a very exciting MTG card. Alongside other potential green bombs like Keen-Eyed Curator, it looked like mono-green might finally be back on the menu. Following the set’s release, however, it seemed this card didn’t live up to expectations.
Pawpatch Recruit was quickly relegated to sideboard play within Gruul Aggro and struggled to find a home anywhere else. In this archetype, Pawpatch Recruit could provide some extra resilience especially when paying the moderately priced Offspring cost. Despite this strength, Pawpatch Recruit rarely made it into the main deck since explosive aggro starts won out.
Thanks to this role, Pawpatch Recruit has been on players’ radars somewhat, but it’s never made it into the big leagues. That’s all changed recently, however, thanks to the rise of Selesnya Cage decks. After winning the latest Standard RCQ, there’s no doubt this archetype is the real deal worth paying attention to.
In Selesnya Cage, Pawpatch Recruit is finally able to live up to its once-envisioned potential. By dishing out +1/+1 counters, Pawpatch can help enable the conditions that Collector’s Cage needs. Since this card cares about power values, Pawpatch can even be two relevant bodies in one, when paying the Offspring cost.
Ultimately, Pawpatch Recruit is sadly held back by the fact it only triggers off an opponent’s spells, not your own. While this makes Pawpatch a great answer to spell-heavy decks you can’t make them pop on your own. With this in mind, there’s a non-zero chance that Pawpatch Recruit never lives up to the initial hype the oh-so-briefly surrounded this card.
The Spike
Even if Pawpatch Recruit isn’t a multi-format all-star that’s destined to rule Standard for months, the card is still popular now. Selesnya Cage is a powerful emerging archetype so it’s little wonder that players are looking to pick up its component pieces. As usual, this extra attention has caused an impressive price spike, with prices climbing nearly 550%.
At their lowest point, on December 23rd, 2024, Pawpatch Recruit was selling for just $0.55 on average. This marked the lowest price for the card in months, as it had only ever been cheaper shortly after release. After reaching this low point, Pawpatch quickly began to spike hard, with its price climbing rapidly over the next few days.
By January 6th, Pawpatch’s price had soared to $3.90 following a consistently high volume of sales. Following this peak, as you can see above, the price would waver for a few days before settling at $3.57. Looking at listings for Pawpatch, it seems this current market price aptly reflects the market quite appropriately.
When factoring in shipping costs, you’ll currently struggle to pay less than $3.50 for a near-mint copy of this card. The only saving you can find right now comes from the card’s Extended Art variant which is surprisingly quite a bit cheaper. Currently, on TCGplayer, this arguably more visually interesting variant is available for around $2.60, including shipping.
Expect to See More
As always, the future of Pawpatch Recruit’s price is up in the air and will depend on multiple factors. Should the deck continue to perform at a high level, demand for the card will maintain and push up prices. If this deck is just a flash in the pan, however, then its price may slump to the $1 range before too long.
While Patpatch’s price may be up in the air somewhat, it’s practically guaranteed that we’ll see this happen again. We don’t just mean that another MTG card is going to spike in price soon, as that’s hardly new news at this point. Instead, we’re specifically talking about Standard-legal cards seeing substantial price explosions.
In a stark change from previous years, Standard is now at the forefront of competitive magic. Throughout 2025, there are tons of competitive events scheduled, not to mention six Standard-legal sets being released. Thanks to this, there’s a great deal of interest in the format from both casual players and competitive veterans.
Ultimately, it’s safe to say there are going to be a lot of Standard-based price spikes throughout 2025. Whenever a new deck shows potential, a lot of players are going to jump on it. Previously, this would only affect the MTG Arena ladder for a while, but now it has real financial implications.
