Considering it was half-scrapped and forced into another set, The Big Score has been rather successful. While not every card is a winner, many of the set’s 30 mythics have seen extensive competitive and casual play. For the longest time, Vaultborn Tyrant was the cream of the crop, being a true Commander all-star.
More recently, however, a new contender has emerged. This week, Simulacrum Synthesizer finally overtook the competition to become the most expensive The Big Score card. While a 95% price increase may not seem impressive compared to recent spikes, this card is now selling for almost $50.
Simulacrum Synthesizer
We’ve long known that Simulacrum Synthesizer is a powerful MTG card. Since its release last year, this card has seen a surprisingly large amount of play in Vintage, and no end of experimentation. No matter the format, Simulacrum Synthesizer is capable of generating insane amounts of value in any artifact-focused deck.
Given its love for artifacts, it’s little surprise that Simulacrum Synthesizer has been spiking in price recently. The recent release of Aetherdrift has given us a whole bunch of new artifacts to build and brew around. When doing this, Simulacrum Synthesizer is often an auto include thanks to just how easily it can pop off.
Thanks to Aetherdrift’s Repurposing Bay, Simulacrum Synthesizer has been seeing an increased amount of play in Standard recently. Occasionally, this card also pops up in Modern affinity decks, but this is a surprisingly niche inclusion. Thankfully, while new competitive brews with Simulacrum Synthesizer aren’t always viable, it’s not going anywhere in Commander.
If anything, demand for this card has only increased following the reveal of the upcoming Final Fantasy Commanders. In particular, some players are brewing Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed with artifacts in mind, rather than the more obvious spell-slinging strategy. Given how popular the Final Fantasy set, and precons, are expected to be, this strategy could cause this card’s price to truly explode.
The Spike
As mentioned, the price of Simulacrum Synthesizer hasn’t seen a colossal spike compared to other cards we’ve observed recently. That being said, it is an awful lot more expensive than the likes of Electrosiphon. Currently, the market price for Simulacrum Synthesizer has reached an all-time high of $49.13.
Considering that Simulacrum Synthesizer was selling for just $25.15 this time last month, it has had quite the journey. As you can see in the graph above, the price has been climbing fairly steadily, with a constant volume of sales. For better or worse, TCGplayer Direct appears to have powered a decent chunk of this price spike.
As we’ve noted a few times now, TCGplayer direct offers players more convenience for typically higher prices. Right now, a Direct by TCGplayer copy will set you back $67.93. To date, players have paid upwards of $74.48 for a copy, which certainly affects the market average.
While TCGplayer Direct copies are going for a premium, near-mint copies of Simulacrum Synthesizer now start at $53.58. Unsurprisingly, given its popularity in Commander, foil copies sell for around the same price. Currently, the Extended Art and Showcase variants of this card are also going for a decent premium.
Having seen a similar almost doubling in price, the Extended Art variant is now selling for $61. Meanwhile, the Showcase variant is all the way up at $70, so there are sadly no sneaky deals to be had.
The Future
Looking ahead, it seems there’s a fairly decent chance that Simulacrum Synthesizer will remain the most expensive Big Score card. Even if the current competitive experimentation turns out to be a bust, Commander will continue to drive demand. Should this demand continue, then Simulacrum Synthesizer is going to be in very short supply.
While it does have a few variants, The Big Score is hardly the most widely available MTG set in existence. This makes it fairly volatile to surges in demand and more volatile to price spikes overall. While it’s typical for low supply to result in increased prices, the supply of cards like Simulacrum Synthesizer drains a lot faster than usual.
Thankfully, while its original printing was somewhat atypical, this card doesn’t have the Universes Beyond problem about being reprinted. Admittedly, Masters sets are expected to be less common nowadays, but the potential is still there. Hopefully, it won’t be too too long before a reprint manifests itself, as Simulacrum Synthesizer will certainly need one.
Right now, there are only 66 near-mint copies of Simulacrum Synthesizer left available across all its variants. Should this supply continue to drain, prices are likely to spike even more. While any major spikes should settle after a while, it seems clear that this card will always be expensive.