Even though MTG Thunder Junction spoilers continue this week, something very different is happening in the world of MTG finance. Don’t get me wrong, Outlaws of Thunder Junction has caused some spikes to occur on the secondary market, but the biggest spike, by far, this week came from somewhere that seems completely unrelated to Magic’s newest set. We’ll tell you what we know about Carnage Interpreter, and move on to some cards that are seeing spikes thanks to Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
Carnage Interpreter
Carnage Interpreter came out of nowhere and absolutely skyrocketed in price this week.
This card comes from the MTG Clue expansion. The release of Magic’s newest flavor of Jumpstart was overshadowed by the spoiler panel that occurred at MTG Con Chicago. By the time many realized that the Clue crossover was on shelves, many of the exclusive rares in the set had already spiked in price. Cards like Lonis, Genetics Expert skyrocketed in price quickly because of the absurd infinite combo potential in Commander.
Carnage Interpreter’s spike was even more sudden and mysterious. MTG Clue cards already spiked and found their price point, yet this card is now the most expensive mechanically unique one in the product. The card suddenly jumped from $1.50 a few weeks back and is now consistently selling for $25.
Why is Carnage Interpreter spiking in price? After being highlighted as a new inclusion in Magic Online’s somewhat controversial changes to the Vintage Cube, people appear to have started realizing that this card has been majorly slept on. Playing Carnage Interpreter with an empty hand provides an absurd amount of value. It doesn’t matter how many cards you discard. This Interpreter will always Investigate four times, and will be a 5/5 Menace creature for three most of the time. This is incredibly efficient for two player formats.
As a result of this inspiration, some players are beginning to toy around with the card in Legacy. Carnage Interpreter is starting to see some niche appearances across the format. Most of these, however, do not appear to be online yet.
Otherwise, Carnage Interpreter is seeing some cEDH play across different Commanders. Flamewar, Brash Veteran seems to particularly favor this card.
The biggest cause for Carnage Interpreter’s spike really does seem to be its overperformance in Vintage Cube. This is inspiring many to try it in other places.
Cateran Summons
Players who have a serious collection of Mercadian Masques cards may want to dust off whatever box they ended up in. Cateran Summons, an uncommon from the set, is seeing a major price spike thanks to Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
For those unaware, Mercenaries are coming back in Magic’s newest set. We haven’t seen this creature type in some time. As a result, Mercenary support wasn’t worth a ton before new cards started hitting the internet. Now that players know that Mercenaries are coming back to Magic, anyone interested in putting together a Typal deck for Commander is going to want some of the old support cards.
Cateran Summons is an incredible support card for Mercenary Typal strategies. Able to find any Mercenary of your choosing for just one mana, this is as efficient as it gets. This rate is an incredible one even decades after Cateran Summons’ printing. The price spike this card is experiencing is rather self explanatory in this sense.
Worth 75ish cents just a week ago, players are now paying as much as $6.45 for a copy of this card. Notably, Cateran Summons only has one printing from a set released years ago. This means that even a slight increase in demand is going to have a big effect on this card’s price spike.
Since we’re only a week into Cateran Summons’ new spotlight, there is a very real chance that this card could continue to spike. At the same time, now that players know that this card is worth something, maybe we’ll see a bunch of them enter the marketplace.
Read More: Dice-Rolling MTG Cards See Major Price Spikes!
Valki, God of Lies
It was only a matter of time. Valki, God of Lies has a major stain on its legacy. Thanks to absolutely ruining a Modern format and causing an entire mechanic to see an errata, whenever this card looks good, people get worried.
As Outlaws of Thunder Junction cards have been hitting the internet, many players notice that Valki plays a little too well with the new Plot mechanic.
Plot essentially allows you to pay a Plot cost to throw a card into exile. That card can then be played from exile for free on a future turn. All of this happens at sorcery speed, and the Plot card must be exiled face up.
While Valki itself does not have Plot, there are some other cards that can Plot it. Both Kellan Joins Up and Jace, Reawakened can Plot this card rather early on. The catch? Thanks to the rulings of Plot, instead of casting a free Valki the next turn, you can instead get a free Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter. This is exactly what went wrong with Cascade all those years ago.
This essentially allows you to cast a free Tibalt as early as turn three. If you can accelerate Kellan Joins up with something like Elvish Mystic, getting Valki Plotted on turn two, and Valki out on turn three is trivial in formats like Pioneer.
Since Valki threatens to break the meta once again, the card is quickly spiking in price. The card has a ton of different variants, and prices are rising in different amounts across them. For the basic Kaldheim variant, Valki seems to have spiked from $5 to about $9 since mid March. The List’s variant from the From Cute to Brute Secret Lair deck still seems to be worth around $5, but is showing signs of spiking with outlier sales. The Showcase art for Valki from Kaldheim has spiked from $4.50 to $8, but is seeing higher sales. Borderless artwork for Valki is showing rather inconsistent sales at the moment. This card may need some time to find a new price point.
Read More: MTG Fallout Commander Causes 957% Price Spike!
