History, Restapled - In Full Swing

Welcome back for another History, Restapled, a Commander-focused column that attempts to validate a newer card’s status as a staple by looking at how cards that are similar, synergistic, or competing have fared in the past financially.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth delivered a number of splashy cards with impressive prices, but like Lord of the Rings itself, strength can be drawn from even the least imposing and most unassuming of places. Here are a few potential staples worthy of Sauron’s unending gaze…and one card from Commander: Streets of New Capenna deserving of more attention.

Rising of the Day

Not much to say here other than Fervor is a $5+ card and this is a strictly better version of that card. Even with the slight bump to your legendary creatures’ power, as far as mono-red haste enablers go, I’m not convinced this is better than Anger - the graveyard is far more difficult to interact with than an onboard enchantment - but that card’s $2.50 even after its reprint in Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. Rising of the Day is probably the second best and offers a financially cheaper alternative with slight upside for your commander. It will likely see lots of play and start inching up in price as we get more distance from Tales of Middle Earth, when its already low supply dips even lower.

STATUS: A staple a day keeps the Fervor away

Taunt from the Rampart and Eowyn, Fearless Knight

Both of these cards are huge boons for Boros and hold the potential to quickly end the game. According to EDHREC, they’re slow to infiltrate the larger Commander card pool and can only be found in less than 7% of eligible decks. Anyone playing within a combat-heavy meta will want to snag these versatile cards before the prices catch up to the playability.

When cast pre-combat, Taunt From the Ramparts, priced at only $1, makes your entire army unblockable and prevents almost all crackback from turning your creatures sideways. No need to take out all players at once, either - take out the most threatening player, perhaps one close to completing a combo, and others’ Goaded armies will do the rest of your dirty work and leave the remaining players open for a second alpha strike next turn. It also plays nicely with popular Boros commanders that require attacking, including Winota, Joiner of Forces, Wyleth, Soul of Steel, and Alibou, Ancient Witness.

Eowyn, Fearless Knight is more situational than Taunt but holds both an equally high potential for a blowout and less than a $1 price tag. The card comes down as, essentially, Ravenous Chupacabra for any creature with power four or greater - safe to say a fair number of threats fall into this category - with an attached exile clause. The second part of the card is definitely more narrow but can be utilized by a hasty Eowyn and your commander, at minimum. Plus, nothing says you have to attack the player whose creature you exiled. An opposing Atraxa, Praetors' Voice makes a spicy target that includes healthy amounts of protection for the Adeline, Resplendent Cathars and the Krenko variants of the world. Start blinking Eowyn, with, say, Ephemerate, and the protection can become defensive.

STATUS: Swinging for the staples

Aerial Extortionist

Every word in this card’s text box is gas, yet despite having been released way back in Commander: Streets of New Capenna, it’s only found in 1% of eligible decks, according to EDHREC. This might be due to its mana value, which prices it out of more competitive metas, but the upside and value Aerial Extortionist can accrue is remarkable. At its floor, it resets one of your opponent’s best things - removing counters, subverting a dies trigger or straight-up slaughtering a massive token - and likely draws you a card from them recasting whatever they lost. Best case, you get a few more triggers (easy with flying and a respectable 4/3 body) and draw a few more cards off people casting their exiled goodies or their commanders. Or, even better than best case, someone’s running Rocco, Street Chef, Prosper, Tome-Bound, or any number of other commanders off an ever-growing list that enable cast-from-exile shenanigans, and you draw a bunch of cards in a single turn.

While not a perfect analogy, I see Extortionist’s trajectory and functionality as close to that of Mangara, the Diplomat. This lifelinking dignitary, printed in Core 2021, has fluctuated between roughly $6 and $14 in its lifespan and exists in a similarly narrow corner of white card draw in that it can potentially trigger multiple times a turn - unlike, say, Welcoming Vampire or Tocasia's Welcome. Also, like Extortionist, Mangara is generic enough and has decent enough stats to slot into decks even without much synergy.

Aerial Extortionist is sitting at $2.50 and has seen only a bit of fluctuation in its existence. What started as a price just north of $5 dipped to $0.50 before settling where it is now. The price of Mangara, the Diplomat is likely to start its descent due to an upcoming reprint in Commander Masters, so a month or two from now is the ideal time to grab both cards before the ascent kicks back into gear.

STATUS: That’s a nice staple you got there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it…

Rising of the Day	CardKingdom $0.35	TCGPlayer $0.31
Taunt from the Rampart	CardKingdom $6.49	TCGPlayer $5.23
Eowyn, Fearless Knight	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.62
Aerial Extortionist	CardKingdom $2.29	TCGPlayer $2.17

Legends of the Fall

Commander Masters is heading our way soon, and with it a handful of new legendary creatures around which to build decks. The set will surely shake up a few prices, so look for more analysis in a few weeks as we get closer to launch. Hope everyone’s enjoying the last few weeks of summer!

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