As the themes of Lorwyn Eclipsed seem to become more clear, cards are moving up. But Avatar is also still moving prices.
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 Most Important Cards in Modern in 2025 by Corey Williams
Unwrapping the Chocobo Bundle by Harvey McGuinness
The Best Cheap Commander Cards of 2025 by Steve Heisler
If you want to receive an e-mail in your inbox when a new article is published, you can enable it in your e-mail preferences and/or join the Discord.
Onto the Weekly Winners!
This Gruul legend from Universes Within has shot up this week. Hansk gives an opponent three 2/2 Zombie tokens at the beginning of your upkeep, which sounds awful until you realize he lets you ping those tokens for two damage and draw a card whenever they die. But giving your opponents creatures is still not very good, and kept him from seeing much play, but The Last of Us Secret Lair drops changed this.
Joel, Resolute Survivor pairs beautifully with Hansk since Joel also rewards you for killing creature tokens with card advantage. When you also add Ellie, Brick Master through the partner ability, you've got a token-killing value engine. Cards like Aether Flash turn Hansk's downside into pure upside, letting you clear boards while drawing through your deck. Players started scooping up copies as soon as the PlayStation Secret Lair cards were spoiled, and demand hasn't let up since the drops actually shipped.
Worth noting that Hansk is literally the same card as Daryl, Hunter of Walkers from The Walking Dead Secret Lair. Daryl is not just functionally identical, but treated as the exact same card by the rules. You can't run both in the same Commander deck, and the small "=SLD 144" notation on Hansk's border confirms this relationship. The identical Universes Beyond version has followed the same price trajectory. The market price jumped to around twenty dollars. That version is foil-only with even less supply available, making it the pricier option despite being functionally identical.
Harvey recently covered these Universes Within cards in his article "Checking in With Universes Within," if you're interested in more cards from this set.
| Hansk, Slayer Zealot | | |
| Daryl, Hunter of Walkers | | |
| Joel, Resolute Survivor | | |
| Ellie, Brick Master | | |
This enchantment has been going up, and once again, another spike thanks to Fire Lord Azula. The Leyline lets you cast all your spells at instant speed if it starts in your opening hand, though paying four mana for the effect later in the game isn't unreasonable either. Commander players have always appreciated the ability to hold up mana and react to their opponents before their turn comes back around, but Fire Lord Azula turned has really spiked people's interest.
Azula rewards you for casting spells during combat, copying them when you do. Flash enablers like Fire Lord Azula let you cast creatures and sorceries during combat to trigger Azula's ability. Being able to flash in creatures mid-combat can really take over the game and makes flash effects some of the most important pieces in Azula decks, which explains why demand spiked hard. High Fae Trickster and other similar effects have followed the same trajectory which we also talked about two weeks ago.
As we've seen the past few weeks, cards that enable Fire Lord Azula have been very popular. People really seem eager to build a deck around her. Whether this price will last is, as always, up for debate. When the hype dies down, so may the price. On the other hand, being able to flash anything in will always be popular one way or another. While it has seen two real reprints since Magic 2011 (M11) any real reprint may really impact the price.
| Leyline of Anticipation | | |
| Leyline of Anticipation | | |
| Leyline of Anticipation | | |
| Fire Lord Azula | | |
| High Fae Trickster | | |
Reserved List cards tied to upcoming set mechanics tend to move fast, and Harbinger of Night is no exception. This Spirit from Mirage puts a -1/-1 counter on every creature at the beginning of your upkeep, including itself. In the right deck, I feel like this card has found a home already in decks like The Scorpion God. But as it's a Reserved List card, it doesn't take much to move the needle, and in this case the trigger comes from High Perfect Morcant, which has been previewed for the upcoming set Lorwyn Eclipsed, which I'm absolutely hyped for. The set introduces blight as a new mechanic along with a dedicated Commander precon called Blight Curse, both centered around -1/-1 counters. Suddenly a card that distributes those counters to everything looks pretty good.
The card has potential in -1/-1 counter strategies. Pair it with Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons or Nest of Scarabs and you're generating massive token armies. Those tokens die the following turn, but enters and dies triggers make them worthwhile. Proliferate effects can turn Harbinger into a one-sided board wipe by stacking counters on opponents' creatures while keeping yours safe.
Whether Harbinger of Night becomes a staple in Blight Curse depends entirely on what synergies the full deck reveals. We haven't seen any cards that truly break it yet, but there's potential for meaningful upgrades once all the pieces are on the table. Being on the Reserved List means no reprints are coming, which adds extra fuel to speculative buying.
Spoiler season kicks off in earnest come January, so expect another potential spike if the revealed cards play nicely with this old Spirit.
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.
Slickshot Show-Off has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.
| Slickshot Show-Off | | |
| Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer | | |
| Ketramose, the New Dawn | | |
