Magic: the Gathering has had a lot of stuff happen over the past week. Between crowning a new most expensive card (and selling it to a famous rapper), looking three years into the game’s future, and a new banlist announcement that dropped just this morning, there is a lot to talk about.
Among these changes are some updates to Magic’s digital clients which are having a very real effect on the paper secondary market. Thanks to the Commander Masters update on Magic Online, it got some other cards that were missing on the client that impact the Legacy format. The archetype in question immediately dominated tournament play, causing in a real-life price spike.
Creative Technique
Creative Technique is a bizarre spell that has only ever been released in Commander 2021, making it a relatively scarce MTG card. In Legacy, players use this card to (quite literally) cast a majority of their deck, including copies of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as early as turn three. That said, the deck will generally combo off a turn or two later.
How does this happen? Well, Creative Technique simply allows its owner to reveal cards until they reveal a nonland card, exile it and cast it for free. Sure, this can just directly hit an Emrakul and end the game but, considering that most decks of cards have more than just Emrakuls they can cast, a heavy amount of luck would be involved. As you may imagine, this isn’t exactly what the card is accomplishing in Legacy.
In the archetype named Mississippi River, Creative Technique is the sole engine to a deck focused around various Cascade effects that, essentially, aims to cast a majority of your deck if a Creative Technique resolves. Creative Technique is the smallest mana value spell in the deck, which means any Cascade effect in your deck is, essentially, another copy of Creative Technique (or another Cascade effect). Through this, the goal is to cast as many spells as possible and, potentially, win the game on the spot by giving a ton of Cascade creatures Haste with Maelstrom Wanderer, or taking an extra turn with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Notably, the Demonstrate keyword is a big reason why this deck works. Otherwise, all your opponent would need to do is put a Force of Will in front of Creative Technique to stop the spell from resolving. Demonstrate, which triggers on cast, gives you and your opponent a copy of Creative Technique. There is some rare instances where you do not want to Demonstrate (I would assume the mirror, and matchups that have cards that turn Cascade off like Teferi, Time Raveler), but Demonstrate, more often than not, demands your opponent to counter two instances of Creative Technique. If you want to read more about Mississippi River, we covered it extensively when it first showed up in the format. Otherwise, if you want a more detailed explanation on how to play the deck, the Legacy challenge winner uploaded a deck guide.
For now, thanks to an absolutely dominant weekend on Magic Online, Creative Technique has jumped from just 50 cents to $5 over the course of a week! Notably, some other cards in the deck like Apex Devastator are also appearing to see major increases in interest.
Read More: Top 10 MTG Most Expensive Mythic Rares
Splinter Twin
Banlist season came and went and, as such, one of the most popular unban speculations for the Modern format has once again risen in price. Spoiler alert: the card was not unbanned… again.
Long story short, Splinter Twin was, once upon a time, part of a powerful two-card combo deck. The overall strategy played out a lot like Izzet Control with a combo finish. Combined with cards like Deciever Exarch and Pestermite, Splinter Twin is capable of creating infinite creature tokens that can swing for infinity.
Thanks to massive speculation that this card would be unbanned in Modern, Splinter Twin’s original variant rose from just $5 to $20 (at its highest points) this week. NM copies of the card increased from about $8 to $20 appropriately.
Notably, many copies of Splinter Twin stayed selling for around the $7 mark, and foils generally sold for around $30. Expect this price spike to disappear now that Splinter Twin was not unbanned for the umpteenth time.
Read More: Controversial MTG Set Card Suddenly Triples in Price!
Soldevi Digger
We highlighted Soldevi Digger last week, but the card has spiked in price so much that we would be remiss not to give an update.
To quickly recap, Soldevi Digger is a Reserved List card that has started to appear on player’s radar thanks to a new Commander spoiler revealed during MTG Con Barcelona. River Song is an MTG card that is to appear as a part of the Doctor Who crossover. This card, most notably, forces its owner to draw from the bottom of their deck.
This is where Soldevi Digger comes in. Able to put the top card of your graveyard back to the bottom of your deck, you can recur and reuse cards in your graveyard. As soon as you take a draw with River Song in play, you can use the cards that the digger put back on top of your deck. This could create a number of infinite combo scenarios.
While gameplay interest started Soldevi Digger’s price spike, scarcity is likely to have been the biggest contribution to the Digger’s continuous spike thanks to its Reserved List status. The card is starting to retail for around the $16 mark in near-mint condition. When we wrote about this card last week, it was only starting to push $5.
Read More: Commander Masters Release Causes $100 Price Drop!
Unban Spikes?
This week’s spikes really highlighted both what ban speculations and what online results can do to the secondary market. Now that we know that both Preordain has been unbanned in Modern and Mind’s Desire has been unbanned in Legacy, there could be a series of market adjustments thanks to those cards. Preordain seems like a snug fit into the Murktide archetype in Modern, so that deck could see a slight resurgence.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens thanks to what some players are already calling the most unexciting ban list announcement in Magic’s history.
Read More: MTG Finally Returns to the Most Requested Plane Ever in 2025!
