As has been happening with some regularity, the collectibility factor continues to drive the demand for many cards, especially for serialized versions and the rarest products.
However, there was no shortage of price increases related to gameplay, with numerous cards rising thanks to Commander and several key players in Modern, Standard, Legacy, and Pauper, both in the paper market and on Magic Online.
Let's look in detail at the most interesting increases of the last few days.
Note: the prices indicated do not correspond to the last recorded sale. For cards above 20 €, I took as reference the average of the first available offers on Cardmarket, while for those below 20 €, I used CardTrader. All prices refer to English-language versions.
Collectibility drives the market
Among the most impressive increases, we find the Aeons from Final Fantasy X, the bonus cards from the Secret Lair, which have recorded truly sensational spikes.
• Anima (Grief): from 500 € to 2,000 €
• Yojimbo (Solitude): from 600 € to 2,000 €
• Magus Sisters (Endurance): from 400 € to 800 €
• Ifrit (Fury): from 500 € to 700 €
• Shiva (Subtlety): from 600 € to 1,200 €
All serialized cards have recorded significant increases; they are too numerous to list one by one, but here is the Scryfall link with the complete list.
Also on the rise is the entire series of Jurassic World Collection with the logo; these are much rarer versions compared to those without the logo and can be found exclusively in the Collector Boosters of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. In total, there are these 19 cards.
Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists
Legendary Creature — Human Scientist
Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists
Legendary Creature — Human Scientist
, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Discover X, where X is the mana value of the exiled card. Activate only as a sorcery. (Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with that mana value or less. Cast it without paying its mana cost or put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom in a random order.)
Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists has also risen in the version without the logo, going from about 2 € to 15 €, following the passing of actor Sam Neill, who played Alan Grant in the famous movie saga.
Abyssal Persecutor
Creature — Demon
Flying, trample
You can't win the game and your opponents can't lose the game.
An impressive leap also for Abyssal Persecutor from the Holiday Release of The Lord of the Rings; the card was illustrated by the Hildebrandt Brothers and has gone from about 40 € to 350 €.
Furthermore, several Stellar Sights versions of Plaza of Heroes from Edge of Eternities have risen:
• V4 Galaxy Foil: 80 € → 280 €
• V2: 30 € → 50 €
• V2 Foil: 40 € → 110 €
• V3 Galaxy Foil: 30 € → 130 €.
Cards rising due to gameplay
The absolute protagonists have been many cards from the Marvel Super Heroes Commander and Jumpstart products. The strong demand from Commander players, combined with product distribution delays, has caused very sharp price increases.
• Impossible Man: 0.30 € → 8 €
• Karolina Dean, Runaway: 0.40 € → 7 €
• Black Widow, Agile Avenger: 4 € → 10 €
• Nico Minoru, Runaway: 10 € → 20 €
• Ultron the Annihilator: 20 € → 30 €
Among the protagonist cards in competitive formats, we find:
• The Ten Rings: 5 € → 15 €, thanks to its use in the sideboard of Tron in Modern.
• Namor, the Sub-Mariner: 6 € → 12 €. It is finding space in Mono Blue Control in Modern, in some Belcher sideboards, and occasionally appears in Standard Izzet Prowess and Spellementals lists.
• Disrupting Shoal: 4 € → 10 €, rising precisely due to the spread in Modern of Mono Blue Control with Namor.
• Hex Magic: 0.30 € → over 2 €, after entering as a 3-4x in several Modern Storm lists.
• Thor, God of Thunder: 6 € → 10 €, present in some versions of Jeskai/Izzet Lessons and Four-Color Control in Standard.
• Dwarven Recruiter: 1 € → 5 €, driven especially by the hype of Commander players ahead of the release of The Hobbit.
The Pro Tour drives up prices, but on MTGO
Curiously, the Pro Tour Amsterdam had a much more noticeable impact on Magic Online than on the paper market. The main cards on the rise are:
• Emrakul, the Promised End: 8 → 20 tix. A whopping 14 copies in the top 8, spread across 4 decks.
• Kozilek's Command: 9 → 32 tix. After Malevolent Rumble, it is the most played spell of the Pro Tour, with 16 copies in the top 8 distributed across 4 decks.
• Slumbering Trudge: 0.05 → 3 tix and Fight Rigging: 0.3 → 0.6 tix. Both as a 4-of in the Eldrazi Ramp Rigging deck that made the top 8.
(For reference, 1 tix is equivalent to about 0.80 €.)
Other movements on MTGO
Two other Magic Online spikes, not related to the Pro Tour.
Aphetto Alchemist went from 0.01 to 0.6 tix thanks to a new combo in Legacy with Hawkeye's Bow from Marvel Super Heroes. The Engineer Welder deck indeed secured a Top 8 in the Challenge on July 15 and subsequently a 5-0 in a League on July 19.
Finally, Maelstrom Colossus has doubled: from 15 to 30 tix. The card is now a fixed playset in Pauper in both Urza Tron and Monster Tron, archetypes that seem to have benefited from the unbanning of Bonder's Ornament.
Thank you for your attention, and see you in the next Magic market update!
