Another week where Playstation cards are making prices move and Fire Lord Azula remains a popular commander.
Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.
Articles
Check out our other great content from this week.
The Five Most Valuable Hybrid Mana Spells in Magic by Harvey McGuinness
Is Erayo the Next Hot Card in Modern? by Corey Williams
Hidden Gems for Fire Lord Azula by Adam Berg
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Onto the Weekly Winners!
This God from Journey into Nyx has spiked this week. And the reason for the spike has been discussed multiple times now in this series the past few weeks: the aggressive Playstation Drop combo Kratos, Stoic Father and Atreus, Impulsive Son. Keranos is indestructible and becomes a 6/5 creature when your devotion to blue and red is seven or greater. More importantly, it reveals the first card you draw on your turn, letting you draw an additional card if it's a land or it will deal three damage to any target otherwise.
Since Kratos cares about Gods, Keranos is an obvious inclusion. Both last week and three weeks ago we've seen Kratos spike cards. A few weeks ago it was another God: Surtr, Fiery Jotun. Atreus can let you draw cards and dealing damage, which is not totally unsimilar to what Keranos does. Keranos also shows up in big stuff strategies like Esika, God of the Tree. Since Keranos is Legandary itself, it can also be played as commander where you see cards like Solphim, Mayhem Dominus and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell that like to churn out damage.
| Keranos, God of Storms | | |
| Atreus, Impulsive Son | | |
| Kratos, Stoic Father | | |
#2 Snap $6.77 (+90%)
This blue instant originally printed in Urza's Legacy has been moving up, and it's thanks to Fire Lord Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Snap returns a target creature to its owner's hand and untaps up to two lands, which makes it a "free" spell as long as you have the mana to cast it. While bouncing a creature generally isn't game changing on its own, untapping two lands creates a ton of potential, especially if you have lands that tap for more than one mana.
The spike comes from Azula's spell-copying abilities enabling powerful combo lines. You can simply copy Snap to get additional mana-positive value, but the real prize is the combo with Dualcaster Mage. Thanks to Azula doubling both Snap and Dualcaster Mage, this creates a mana-positive loop that generates infinite 2/2 Dualcaster Mage tokens for an easy win. Both cards are incredibly popular in Azula decks as a result, causing market movement. However, this isn't the only combo with Azula and Dualcaster Mage. When combined with Saw in Half you can also generate infinite mages and other instants that you can cast during the combo.
Snap already saw consistent play in Pauper as a staple in Mono Blue Faeries, but is now getting some additional love from Commander players. If you want to build a Fire Lord Azula deck, I recommend reading Adam's article Hidden Gems for Fire Lord Azula.
#3 Piracy $100 (+67%)
This blue sorcery originally printed in Portal Second Age has been spiking recently, and honestly, it doesn't make much sense. Piracy lets you tap lands your opponents control for mana until end of turn, but you can only spend that mana to cast spells. At first glance, it looks like an incredible card in Commander with three opponents to steal from, but in practice the card just doesn't work that way. Your opponents can simply tap their lands in response to you casting it, completely denying you the intended advantage since Piracy doesn't let you access their mana pools like Drain Power does.
The weird part about this spike is that Piracy isn't particularly powerful in the modern game. If you cast it during your first main phase, it does force opponents to tap out or give you access to their mana. What makes Piracy interesting from a historical perspective is that it used to be much better when Mana Burn existed. Back in 1999 when the card was printed, any unspent mana at the end of a phase caused you to lose one life per mana. That created a dilemma for opponents: either give you access to their mana or take burn damage for tapping out. Today, without Mana Burn, Piracy is really just a clunky combo protector at best.
The card has only been printed twice, once in Portal Second Age and once in the Starter 1999 decks. That scarcity is driving the price, but it still doesn't explain why this card would be spiking right now. Online discussions have brought renewed attention to it, but given how poorly it functions in modern Magic, this spike feels more like speculation or misplaced nostalgia than genuine demand.
But let's look at the card in a positive way. You could potentially make it work alongside Price of Glory. With that in play your opponents have a choice: give you access to their mana or having their lands destroyed. Piracy already sees play in Sen Triplets. This commander will get you access to your opponent's cards, but not their mana. Piracy will also get you their mana and because of Sen Triplet's ability, they can't quickly tap their lands. You could also put Piracy under a Panoptic Mirror. This way you can make sure your opponents tap out during all of your turns.
| Piracy | | |
| Piracy | | |
| Price of Glory | | |
| Sen Triplets | | |
| Panoptic Mirror | | |
Cheap Pickups
Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.
Silverclad Ferocidons has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.
| Silverclad Ferocidons | | |
| Ketramose, the New Dawn | | |
| The Scarab God | | |
