Any Commander, Modern, or Legacy players have likely faced off against and have had their faces beaten in by Eldrazi. These Eldritch spaghetti monsters from the Blind Eternities are one of the most iconic villains in all of Magic: The Gathering. Having their presence in older formats makes a lot of sense from a lore perspective, but their massive shot in the arm from Modern Horizons 3 is what allows Eldrazi to thrive in ever-evolving metagames.
While many cards from the main set continue to haunt Modern, one Modern Horizons 3 Eldrazi was banned from Legacy. Sowing Mycospawn, in combination with lands like Wasteland, proved to be too unfun to play against. Eldrazi remain in the format in different forms, like Mystic Forge combo, but it appears that Eldrazi have appeared under a new guise. A mono-blue Tron list is bringing popularity to fringe, but powerful, Eternal Legal Eldrazi cards, highlighting Eldrazi Confluence as a unique addition.
Eldrazi Confluence
Eldrazi Confluence offers an incredibly flexible instant that a wide variety of different decks can use. The card can kill three creatures, flicker three of your creatures, ramp your mana, or do any combination of the three different effects. This makes Eldrazi Confluence an extremely powerful card in any deck that can cast it, but it truly shines when you can flicker your creatures for value.
This has led Eldrazi Confluence to see a lot of Commander play, especially in color-restricted archetypes that don’t have efficient creature removal or blinking tools. Eldrazi Confluence commonly sees play in color-restricted cEDH Commander decks like Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, and Etali, Primal Conqueror. According to EDHREC, Eldrazi Confluence is a staple in every colorless Commander deck, and otherwise sees play in some other color-restricted decks like Deadpool, Trading Card.
While all of this is plenty of reason for Eldrazi Confluence to be expensive, its spike appears to be due to some Legacy attention. The card has always existed at the fringes of the format, but a mono-blue Cloudpost deck has broken onto the scene, utilizing Eldrazi Confluence as a core piece of the strategy.
Cloudpost is essentially the Legacy version of Modern Tron. String together a series of synergistic lands to tap for massive amounts of mana. Mono-Blue grants access to tons of card advantage, like Stock Up, and free countermagic like Force of Will and Force of Negation to give you enough time to ramp out game-ending threats like Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Karn, the Great Creator. You can ultimately lock your opponent out with Mycosynth Lattice, banned in Modern, to prevent your opponent from using any of their cards.
Eldrazi Confluence is consistently seeing play in this deck as a catch-all option that takes advantage of the fast mana that Cloudpost offers. More often than not, you’ll likely be removing spells, but a few creatures in the deck, like Thundertrap Trainer, are very powerful Blink targets, taking advantage of this card’s swiss-army knife potential.
The Spike
Unlike many spikes that we’ve seen recently, the demand for Eldrazi Confluence has been rather consistent over the past three months. Despite this, Near Mint variants of the card have spiked to a $5.51 market average, representing a 138% spike over the past month from $2.41, and a 227% spike from $1.68 over the past three months. Most of this card’s spike has occurred in the last month, increasing in price aggressively over the past week.
All of this said, according to current listings, you may be able to find Eldrazi Confluence for a bit cheaper. There are multiple listings that, with shipping added, total approximately $5. These listings are currently being purchased in bulk, judging by recent sales, which suggests they may not be available for long. That said, finding a copy of Eldrazi Confluence for $5 doesn’t seem too difficult at the time of writing, especially if you’re ok with Lightly Played copies.
Notably, Eldrazi Confluence only has one printing with two variants. The card appeared in the Modern Horizons 3 Eldrazi Incursion Commander deck, which had a Collector’s variant attached. The Ripple Foil variant of Eldrazi Confluence found there is worth about $22, but has significantly less supply and demand attached. That variant is also spiking in price, however. Scarcity may be partially the cause of this spike, but according to the card’s current situation, the supply is likely enough for those interested in the card to find it.
The Future
There are two conflicting signs found with Eldrazi Confluence that make assessing the card tricky. Cards being available for less than their market value suggests that Eldrazi Confluence will start to drop soon. At the same time, cards under the market average being bought aggressively also suggests that Eldrazi Confluence’s market value is where it should be.
If we had to give a guess, recent sales suggest that Eldrazi Confluence may start to fall in price soon. Yes, there are multiple $6 sales for the card, and cards cheaper than that are being bought in bulk, but there are too many sales under Confluence’s current market value, suggesting that the card might not really be worth its current price point.
Notably, TCGplayer Direct is asking $6 for Eldrazi Confluence, which could explain the sales at that price point. All of this suggests that Eldrazi Confluence’s current market average is inflated, but, as always, it’s just a guess at best. Mono-Blue Cloudpost does look like the real deal in Legacy, which suggests that Eldrazi Confluence could continue to increase in price in the future.
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