After a new MTG set releases, it’s natural for Commander players to gravitate towards one or two particular legends that are extra exciting. This will almost always cause a range of price spikes, as MTG players rush to purchase upgrades. In the case of Edge of Eternities, Ragost, Deft Gastronaut is the Commander that everyone is hyped about.
We’ve already seen cards like Astrid Peth rise in value due to their synergies with the Lobster Citizen. Now, we have another funky piece of filler to share that more than pulls its weight in a Ragost deck. This 26-year-old engine feels like an auto-include in the deck, so it’s no wonder that demand has increased.
Scrapheap
Printed all the way back in Urza’s Legacy, Scrapheap is an artifact with a very simple ability. Whenever an artifact or enchantment goes to your graveyard, you gain a life.
By itself, this is an extremely narrow effect that most decks won’t want. Not only do you need to be consistently sacrificing artifacts or enchantments, but you also have to care about the life gain portion of the card to run it in the first place.
Fortunately, Ragost meets both criteria. The goal with Ragost at the helm is to produce a ton of Food that you can sacrifice to deal damage to each opponent at little cost. Scrapheap triggers even when a Food token is sacrificed, making it the perfect complementary piece.
Because Scrapheap gains you life each time you sacrifice a Food, you’ll consistently get to untap Ragost at will. As long as you have enough artifacts lying around and mana to spare, in a four-player setting, you’ll be able to deal upwards of 12 damage per turn cycle to each opponent thanks to Scrapheap.
Scrapheap does fit into a few other Commander decks. In a Mastermind Plum deck, for example, Scrapheap is bound to gain you a lot of life over a game as you continue to sacrifice Treasures. This life gain helps counteract the life loss from Mastermind Plum’s final ability.
According to EDHREC, Scrapheap sees the most play in Ragost decks, showing up in over 35% of decklists. Ragost is also the most popular Edge of Eternities main set Commander by a wide margin, so it makes sense why Scrapheap is garnering a lot of attention.
The Spike
For most of the last month, Scrapheap hovered between 50 cents and $1. It wasn’t until late July that the card’s price started to increase dramatically.
The graph above showcases the rise in market price for near-mint copies of Scrapheap. This doesn’t quite tell the full story, though, as near-mint supply has plummeted. There are currently only three listings for near mint, non-foil copies, with the lowest being $9, including shipping fees.
This isn’t a huge surprise considering how old the card is, since finding old cards in pristine condition isn’t easy. That being said, demand for all conditions of Scrapheap has seen a major rise.
During the week of July 18th to July 24th, only 47 copies were purchased in any condition. By contrast, 42 copies sold on July 29th alone, which is around when Scrapheap started its significant price spike. Notably, this was just a couple of days after Prerelease weekend for Edge of Eternities. As players likely were starting to gather cards for their Ragost Commander decks, Scrapheap’s price began to soar.
Sales have since tapered off a bit, with 19 copies selling yesterday. Still, even this reflects an inflated level of demand compared to where things were earlier in July. Multiple sales of Scrapheap went for $4.99 or higher apiece yesterday, representing a 732% price spike from the card’s lowest market price in the last month.
The Future
Despite the fact that Scrapheap hasn’t really shown any signs of slowing down, there’s a good chance the card’s price will fall given enough time. We can’t predict the future, but what we do know is that the benefit Scrapheap provides is extremely specific.
Ragost is the new hotness, but when other sets like Spider-Man get released, the potent Lobster will almost assuredly receive less attention. While some other decks can still make use of Scrapheap, it’s just safe to assume demand will drop.
The one thing that may keep Scrapheap’s price tag up is its lack of printings. Due to a lack of reprints, there simply aren’t many copies to go around right now. This has caused the card’s price to be especially volatile; however, a future reprint could cause it to plummet.
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