After a brief lull, the MTG finance world is back to spiking in full swing thanks to an unexpectedly major reveal. Dropped during New York Comic Con, Marvel revealed a full Secret Lair Superdrop themed around their iconic heroes. Featuring spicy reprints and new mechanically unique cards, these exciting drops have hugely excited MTG players and Marvel fans.
As usual, all this excitement has led to a lot of players going out and buying cards. This, in turn, has led to some rather impressive price spikes. Most recently, we’ve seen the prices of several exciting equipment pieces surging thanks to Captain America, First Avenger.
Offering a new take on the beloved Voltron archetype, it’s no wonder that Captain America is popular. They also get bonus points for being one of Marvel’s most popular and iconic characters. Thanks to these details combined, they’ve certainly got market-moving potential, as Pre-War Formalwear demonstrates.
Notably, Pre-War Formalwear also sees Legacy play, but that isn’t really the reason for this spike.
Pre-War Formalwear
- Mana Value: 2W
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Artifact — Equipment
- Card Text: When Pre-War Formalwear enters the battlefield, return target creature card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield and attach Pre-War Formalwear to it.
- Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has Vigilance.
- Equip 3
Released as part of the Fallout Commander decks, Pre-War Formalwear is a very dapper Universes Beyond MTG card. Found in the Scrappy Survivors deck, it’s a decent piece of equipment that can be a handy-dandy reanimation too. This is arguably the card’s best quality, since giving +2/+2 and Vigilance are hardly game-ending in Commander.
Admittedly, while it can be very useful, the reanimation effect isn’t game-ending in Commander either. While some equipment-focused creatures like Stoneforge Mystic have great enters effects, not everything has instant impact. Puresteel Paladin, for instance, is a great card, but Pre-War Formalwear is weirdly non-synergistic with them.
Thankfully, Captain America, First Avenger can provide some instant impact, provided you have mana to spare. Once resurrected, you can Throw Pre-War Formalwear to deal three damage before reequipping it at the end of your turn. For six mana, this is not terrible, but we’re deliberately glossed over the best feature.
If Captain America, First Avenger should die, Pre-War Formalwear can be used to get around paying Commander Tax. Rather than sending Cap back to the Command Zone, you can simply cast Pre-War Formalwear and bring them back from the bin. This will be invaluable late game if Cap has been paid for a few times already.
Thanks to this extra use case, Pre-War Formalwear has seen a great deal of demand recently. While it’s a decent card in equipment decks anyway, this really takes it to another level. As a result, lots of MTG players have been picking up copies, causing the price to boom.
The Spike
The price of Pre-War Formalwear has been on the up and up for almost exactly one month now. This all started when most of the new MTG Marvel cards were first leaked with traditionally blurry photos. Unsurprisingly, this started to get a lot of players excited, but there was some doubt in the air.
Last week, this uncertainty was finally cleared up as the new Secret Lair Marvel Superdrop was revealed in earnest. Now that Captain America, First Avenger was the real deal, players could properly start brewing their decks. Thanks to the aforementioned synergy, this brought a lot of players toward Pre-War Formalwear.
Since the end of September, regular copies of Pre-War Formalwear have gone from $0.65 to at least $3.69. That’s a rather impressive spike of over 460%! Technically, recent sales have pushed even higher, hitting the $5 mark, although this appears to be an outlier. Still, Pre-War Formalwear has seen a very substantial price spike!
Unsurprisingly, the normal variant of Pre-War Formalwear isn’t the only version that’s climbed in price. The Surge Foil copies, in particular, have seen significant price jumps. The standard Surge Foil has gone from $4.47 all the way up to $17.99! The borderless Surge Foil variant, meanwhile, has only gone from $4.96 to $13.
A Second Spike?
So far, the price of Pre-War Formalwear has already been on quite an impressive journey, but it may not stop there. While many MTG players do tend to pre-buy what they need for their decks, not everyone follows this mindset. As a result, there’s a non-zero chance that Pre-War Formalwear will spike again once the Marvel Superdrop actually releases.
Beyond this, there’s also the chance that Pre-War Formalwear will spike again again before too long. This would happen once copies of Secret Lair x Marvel’s Captain America start getting physically delivered to players. Keep in mind, however, that this is all speculation, as players may be getting their fill right now.
Ultimately, the price of Pre-War Formalwear will, as always, come down to supply and demand. Since it can be found in both the Scrappy Survivors deck and Collector Boosters, there are a fair few copies going around. There’s also a guaranteed way to get a copy, which should cap the price somewhat.
