A lot is happening this week in the world of Magic: the Gathering. Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is soon to release, with prerelease events happening this weekend. The Standard format is rotating. And we had a banned and restricted announcement. For all these reasons, the MTG secondary market has seen some massive price fluctuations and sweeping trends.
Weekly Winners
Worldfire
If you missed the news, there was a ban list announcement this week which unbanned Worldfire in the Commander format. A nine mana sorcery spell isn’t exactly going to see much play in most constructed formats, so Worldfire has never been too pricy of a card. But Commander is the perfect home for this card. Consequently, its unbanning caused a massive spike in demand by Commander players.
At the start of the week, Worldfire was about $1.50. On the day of the ban list announcement, it spiked to almost $30.00. Since then the hype and price have settled, and Worldfire is now about $18.00-$20.00. It may dip a little bit further but not by much, as it only ever had one printing back in 2012. If you want to try casting this epic spell in Commander, now is as good as a time as ever to buy Worldfire, unless it receives a reprinting in the future.
Savage Beating & Spellbinder
Here’s a two-card combo that’s perhaps a bit lesser known in Commander. Together they have the ability to create infinite combat phases. They’ve both only ever had one printing from the set Darksteel in 2004.
This week, Savage Beating rose from $16.00 to about $38.00. As for Spellbinder, at the start of the week, it was about $2.00. Now it is almost $14.00.
While this combo has existed for more than a decade, their price spikes this week are likely due to receiving a special mention in a video by acclaimed MTG Youtuber, The Professor, from Tolarian Academy.
Mikaeus, the Unhollowed & Relentless Dead
The decklist for the Undead Unleashed preconstructed Commander deck was revealed this week. While we knew it was practically guaranteed that we would receive zombie support through the two Innistrad sets this year, it was uncertain which older zombie cards to buy because they could be reprinted in the Commander deck. Now that we know the contents of the Commander deck, zombie cards that were not lucky enough to receive reprints are starting to go up in price.
Both Mikaeus, the Unhollowed and Relentless dead are trending upwards in price as we predicted this week in our article, Must Buy Upgrades for MTG’s Undead Unleashed Precon Commander Deck.
Here are some additional zombie cards to consider picking up now, before they raise in price:
If you want to speculate on other zombie support cards, make sure to cross-reference the Undead Unleashed Commander decklist before you make any purchases, as it is possible that what you’re about to buy just got reprinted. If you want more suggestions from MTG Rocks on this topic, you can read Must Buy Upgrades for MTG’s Undead Unleashed Precon Commander Deck and Best Budget Upgrades for MTG’s Undead Unleashed Commander Deck.
More Innistrad Tribes
Last week there were massive spikes for werewolf support. Cards like Huntmaster of the Fells and Mayor of Avabruck more than doubled in price, and are seeing all-time highs. There is, however, more werewolf support that has room to grow. Cards like Geier Reach Bandit and Duskwatch Recruiter which are under $4.00 and $2.00 respectively, are likely to see a surge in demand when players get their hands on Tovolar, Dire Overloard, a new werewolf commander from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt.
But Innistrad is known for more than just zombies. The gothic horror plane is home to vampires, werewolves, spirits, and its brave, resilient humans (aka vampire snacks).
Leading into the release of Innistrad: Crimson Vow, expect to see more upwards price trends for the above-mentioned creature tribes. In some cases, particularly in the case of Vampires as they are the key tribe of the next set, these prices are already starting to rise. This makes now one of the best times to pick up some of these cards, either to capitalize on these trends or to save yourself money if you foresee yourself wanting to play vampire decks with all the new support they will be getting from Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Do keep in mind, though, that we know we will be getting a new vampire-themed commander deck that could receive some reprints.
Weekly Losers
Golos, Tireless Pilgram
On the flip side of the Commander ban list announcement, while Worldfire was freed from its shackles, Golos got hit by the ban hammer. Consequently, the Tireless Pilgrim’s price has already started to fall.
Golos was an $8.00 card at the start of the week. It is now seeing prices around $5.00 or less, and we can likely expect it to drop lower. Other than its time in Standard, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim has mostly been a Commander card. It just doesn’t see much play in other formats like Pioneer or Modern. This ban update hit Golos hard, and could eventually see prices in the $3.00 range.
Innistrad Prerelease Prices
Prerelease prices are notorious for being overpriced. Just as an example, let’s look at Alrund, God of the Cosmos from Kaldheim. Alrund was preordering for prices around the $20.00 mark. When Kaldheim was officially released on February 5, 2021, Alrund sunk to about $4.00. Today, he is a little more than a dollar.
Over the next several weeks, we can expect similar trends with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards. In fact, they’ve already begun. Wrenn and Seven were close to $30.00 at the start of the week and they are sitting at about $22.00 at the time of this article.
Of course, there will be standouts and exceptions to this pattern. If there’s a new breakout deck in the format utilizing a new Midnight Hunt mythic, then naturally that individual card will rise in value. But for the most part, preordering singles is not a wise investment, and we should see their prices drop across the board over the next several weeks.