To put it lightly, there’s a lot of interest in Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy crossover. Even before spoiler season started, this set was already the fastest-selling set of all time. Once released, there’s little doubt that this set will become the most successful MTG set of all time. With this in mind, it’s little wonder that MTG’s financial markets are rather interested in this set.
From the moment that the spoiler season for Final Fantasy started, we’ve seen movement in the markets. Thanks to the recently revealed Commander precons, these waves are likely going to continue for some time. That said, Commander cards aren’t the only ones causing price spikes at the moment. A recent main set spoiler has just caused a 2000% price spike thanks to a new infinite combo.
Quicksilver Elemental
Hailing from 2003’s Mirrodin, Quicksilver Elemental has not been a very popular card for quite some time. This card sees literally no competitive play according to MTGDecks, and it’s a similar story for Commander. While it can allow you to double up on activated abilities, it’s by no means a staple.
Until recently, Quicksilver Elemental was mostly played within Mairsil, the Pretender decks, thanks to a few infinite combos. Using Mairsil, Gilded Lotus, and Staff of Domination, you can get infinite mana, life, and card draw. While this combo was rather flashy, there’s now a much more compelling Commander playable combo.
Unlike Mairsil combos, which required the setup of putting things into exile, Quicksilver Elemental just works with Vivi Ornitier. For one blue mana, you can copy Vivi’s ability, granting it to Quicksilver, allowing you to add some amount of mana depending on how many instants and sorceries you cast this turn. From here, you can copy Vivi’s ability again, which bypasses the once-per-turn clause on Vivi. This allows you to easily generate infinite red or blue mana with just these two cards.
Once you have infinite mana, winning a game of Commander should be trivial. Fireball or Walking Ballista, for instance, allows you to easily kill each of your opponents that turn. Alternatively, you could use the aforementioned Staff of Domination to draw your entire deck for any wincon you could dream of.
While Quicksilver Elemental isn’t the cheapest MTG card in existence, this combo definitely has some potential. With a dash of ramp, it’s very possible to get this combo out on turn three. While you will need to get around counterspells and removal, a deck built around this combo could easily fit into Bracket 4.
The Spike
Unsurprisingly, once MTG players realized this combo, there was quite a rush to get hold of Quicksilver Elemental. In the past couple of days, over 150 near-mint copies of this card have been sold. While this might not seem like a lot, especially compared to recent spikes, Quicksilver is fairly rare.
To date, Quicksilver Elemental only has its original Mirrodin printing, which comes from a time when print runs were significantly lower. Thanks to this, there are not a lot of copies of Quicksilver to go around at the best of times. Unsurprisingly, this supply issue has been worsened following the demand surge, as now only four near-mint copies are left on TCGplayer.
As always, this rapidly draining supply quickly caused a major price spike as sellers capitalized on the demand. Prior to the spike, copies of Quicksilver Elemental were valued at $0.40. As you can see from the graph above, demand was so low that near-mint copies weren’t even being sold at this price. Once Vivi was revealed, however, the price quickly shot up.
Currently, the TCGplayer Market Price for Quicksilver Elemental sits at $8.83. That’s a massive price spike of over 2107%. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, MTG players have been paying upwards of $14.99 for copies recently. While the average market price may match this current peak, Quicksilver has nonetheless seen a 3647.5% price increase.
The Future
If you ask us, this price spike to Quicksilver Elemental does seem a bit much. While this combo is new, interesting, and does have potential, it’s hardly perfect. I’d be surprised to see this combo constantly, or dominating cEDH tables, for instance. Due to this, the current hype may be a little overzealous.
That being said, Quicksilver Elemental does make a good inclusion to any Vivi Ornitier deck. Since it’s just one card, there’s little reason not to throw Quicksilver into the 99 if you’re building around Vivi. Depending on how popular this Commander is, that could lead to a fairly large amount of consistent demand.
If there is any real demand for Quicksilver Elemental going forward, then some of this price spike may stick. Near-mint copies of Quicksilver are rare, after all, and without a reprint, it’s going to stay that way. That said, a price closer to $5 or $10 seems more likely than $15 and beyond.
Ultimately, as always, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens. There are still a few weeks until the Final Fantasy set is released, and the price of Quicksilver Elemental can easily fluctuate during that time. We’ll just have to see where it ends up on June 13th.
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