Now that the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Prerelease is upon us and players are ready to engage with MTG’s biggest crossover ever, spoilers and leaks have moved to future sets. While Lord of the Rings is the highlight for many MTG players, Commander players have another set to look forward to. With extremely lucrative reprints like Jeweled Lotus and The Ur-Dragon promised, Commander Masters promises the potential for some immense value.
Things are kicking off pretty interestingly, as we already appear to have a Commander Masters Promo card leaked! Unfortunately, for everyone hoping that this is yet another fantastic financial reprint, prepare to be disappointed. On the other hand, it is a strong Commander card.
Of course, with any leaks like this one, there is a real chance that they could be fake. This is especially true following the AI-generated Standard ban list that, frankly, some players consider better than the real thing. So, remember that this may not be an actual card.
In the scenario that this is a real card, we still need to give an obligatory spoiler warning. Without further ado, let’s take a look.
Goad Your Enemies
Reddit user Tephra93 showcased the above Commander Masters promo. A reprint from a card originally released in Commander 2017, Disrupt Decorum offers a pretty powerful ability – Goading all creatures you don’t control.
For reference, Goad is a pretty powerful and annoying Commander-centric mechanic. In not too many words, a Goaded creature has to attack but, if possible, cannot attack the player who Goaded it. If the creature has no choice but to attack that player, then that player is attacked.
The issue with a card like Disrupt Decorum is that it’s only powerful on large boards. Forcing all your opponents to full swing at one-another, or forcing opponents to swing with value-based Commanders that clearly aren’t supposed to do that, is big game. The problem is that a card like Disrupt Decorum is dependent on your opponents and can absolutely flop.
In the situation where you’re playing against decks that do not deploy a ton of threats or have ways to evade the effects of Goad (tapping all your mana dorks, for example), Disrupt Decorum a bit of a miss. If you know you’re stepping up to a table that deploys a lot of creatures, Disrupt Decorum could provide value far above its price tag. However, the in-game value of this card being completely dependent on your opponents is an issue.
Disrupt Decorum’s Financial Value
For those hoping for another massively valuable Commander Masters reprint, like Jeweled Lotus or The Ur-Dragon, Disrupt Decorum is going to disappoint. Once upon a time, Disrupt Decorum did have a pretty lucrative secondary market value. According to MTGGoldfish.com, back during Strixhaven’s release, Disrupt Decorum went for as much as $20. An effect like this, depending on demand, could mirror the power level associated with this price tag at the right table. That said, Disrupt Decorum, nowadays, isn’t even worth a dollar, so what changed?
The answer is pretty simple: Disrupt Decorum saw a series of reprints. The first was in the Adventures of the Forgotten Realms, and the second was in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. After two D&D-themed reprints, the card had enough supply to meet demand, and the card’s value crashed. Better Goad effects were also printed, which some players argue made this effect less desirable, but reprints are definitely more to blame for the drop of Disrupt Decorum’s price (which is a good thing for accessibility. Not so much for value).
Read More: Nostalgic Graveyard Combo Deck Reemerges in Massive Event!
This may be a more common theme than players expect with the upcoming Commander Masters set, and this is a great thing. Commander 2017 was an incredibly overtuned set of Commander decks, introducing the infamous Eminence keyword to the game. The Ur-Dragon, in its current state, for example, has no easily accessible printings. The demand for this particular Dragon is also very high, meaning that the card may not decline in value as much as some expect.
Either way, scarcity is a major contributor to The Ur-Dragon’s current $57ish value. Both Commander 2017 and Secret Lair reprints are somewhat difficult to come by, and this is one of the most popular Commanders MTG currently offers. Just look at what happened to Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, after it got a decent reprint. Admittedly, this won’t be nearly as good of a reprint as Atraxa’s was, but it’s still a step in the right direction.
Is This Leak Real?
While there’s no way for us to truly know whether this Disrupt Decorum is the real deal or not, there are a lot of Redditors saying that they’ve seen this promotional card in the wild themselves. According to the user who posted this leak, this “Showed up in a retailers promo shipment in APAC.” Other Redditors also attest to similar claims:
HeyApples
“I got these in my WPN promo shipment this week. A pleasant surprise, not often we see Ron Spencer. Hopefully portends more of his work in the set.”
Aside from whether this card is real or not, there has been a lot of commentary in regards to the bizarre, yet flavorful, flavor text on this card:
“Strixhaven Star is the name of the paper.
Normally, flavor text is all in italics. The title of the paper would also be in italics. The proper way to display something that should have been italicized twice is to display it without italics at all.”
Topazdragon5676
Should this be real, it has been identified as the release Promo for the Commander Masters set releasing this August. If you want to acquire one of these for yourself, assuming they are real, you may need to, as quoted by Redditor Frosty-Extension-259, attend “Commander Masters release events in August.”
Read More: Everything you Need to Know About Commander Masters
