The Wandering Emperor is the first planeswalker to ever be printed with the flash. She has an overall strong toolkit of abilities, but the unprecedented potential to be played at instant speed really pushes her over the edge.
Consequently, The Wandering Emperor has become popular in multiple Magic formats. Now she’s rising in price!
The Wandering Emperor
The regular art printing of The Wandering Emperor reached as low as $11.00 after the release of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. But as you can see in the graph below, the card is on the rise. This week it reached $15.00-$16.00.
The other versions of The Wandering Emperor followed similar price trajectories. The borderless copy rose to about $16.00. The showcase Emperor is up from $34.00 on Neon Dynasty‘s release weekend to about $60.00 today. And the foil-etched printing is currently one of the most expensive cards from the set, coming in at about $180.00 at the time of writing.
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What Caused The Wandering Emperor’s Price Increase?
The Wandering Emperor is rising in price because of its rising prevalence in multiple Magic: the Gathering formats. The card is good. It sees extensive play in Standard. And its powerful enough to see Pioneer play.
Standard
My favorite strategy that incorporates The Wandering Emperor is Azorius or Esper Control. I just love the idea of holding up four mana on your opponent’s turn and leaving them guessing as to whether you’ll play Memory Deluge, a counterspell, or a planeswalker at flash speed.
There are many decks adopting The Wandering Emperor. Aggressive decks like Mono-White and Boros can leverage The Wandering Emperor’s +1 ability to apply pressure better than control decks can.
Lastly, there are midrange decks like Orzhov that play The Wandering Emperor alongside other planeswalkers like Lolth, Spider Queen and occasionally Sorin, the Mirthless.
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Pioneer
The Wandering Emperor fills the same unpredictable role in Pioneer’s version of Azorius Control as it does in Standard. You’ll leave your opponents whether you have Absorb, Memory Deluge, or March of Otherworldly Light at the ready.
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