Commander Masters Cycles

Commander Masters is a reprint set based on Commander. I don’t know if you know much about your boy, but I have prepared a diagram of the things I've been writing about for a decade. 

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the implications of this set. I’d be even more remisser if I didn’t actually add some value to the conversation. Fine, good, I can do that. I want to take advantage of something that the set gives us that can help us figure out where relative values will shake out if anyone ever buys packs of this set. Let's talk about the cycles in this set, their relative playability, where I think the price trends will go, and the impact of first-time foil printings. Let’s get into it, shall we?

Medallions

The Medallion cycle is getting printed again, and for the first time in foil to boot. I think it’s instructive to rank them by EDH inclusions for two reasons. Firstly, ranking by price tells you what they are now, but hopefully ranking by inclusion tells you what order they should be in if the answer is different. Secondly, because ranking by raw % obfuscates the fact that they are artifacts that have a color identity in that they won’t be played in decks where they can’t make the spells cheaper very often. 

Jet Medallion - 55,017

Ruby Medallion - 51,354

Sapphire Medallion - 45,531

Pearl Medallion - 34,604

Emerald Medallion - 32,021 

Was that the order you expected? Is the price order the same? Let’s look at the prices for the Tempest copies.

Jet - $35 market

Ruby - $34 market

Sapphire - $28 market

Pearl - $30 market

Emerald - $15 market

Emerald is the least necessary because green doesn’t need it and Jet will be the most because mono-black has like zero tools besides rituals. (I saw a guy use a Demonic Tutor as a Farseek one time.) 

$8.21$9.49

$5.93$6.49

Pearl is played less than Sapphire but costs more because Sapphire Medallion was on The List and Pearl, Emerald, and Ruby weren’t. Ruby got a Commander Anthology printing, as did Emerald. With the least supply, but among the least demand, Pearl is hanging in there with the others. In fact, we can learn a bit about the impact of a List printing if we look at the price difference between Sapphire and Pearl. Sapphire is used almost 25% more than Pearl but the price is 7% cheaper for Sapphire. The List did something non-trivial for the price.

All of that is fine, but since these are first-time foils, I want to look at those prices as of right now. 

Jet - $17 foil

Ruby - $15 foil

Sapphire - $15 foil

Pearl - $13 foil

Emerald - $12 foil 

If Emerald is still on its way down, I’d wait. If Emerald’s price is already rebounding, though, expect these prices to diverge a lot. 

Just the TCGPlayer sales graph isn’t exactly a TON of info, but it still tells us that we could have seen the floor already thanks to $300 booster boxes. Unless Emerald has a long way to go down, and I don’t know that it does, $17 for a foil Jet Medallion and $15 for a foil Ruby Medallion seems super low. Unlike with the other Medallions that have all been printed in different quantities across the years, the only foil copies are all printed the same amount and their prices being this close together won’t hold due to Jet’s demand being nearly double what Emerald’s is. 

I’m going to do the next cycle with way less explanation to make it quicker to read, so if you get lost, refer to the Medallion paragraphs. I’m making it sound like it’ll be confusing, it won’t. You’re on a finance site, I trust you to know more than me, not less. 

Free Spells

Fierce Guardianship - 235,605 decks

Deflecting Swat - 197,109 decks 

Deadly Rollick - 125,928 decks  

Flawless Maneuver - 99,745 decks 

You don’t even know the name of the Green one - 16,940 decks 

Fierce Guardianship - $40 market

Deflecting Swat - $33 market

Deadly Rollick - $20 market 

Flawless Maneuver - $8 market

Obscuring Haze - $3 market

Unreal putting Force of Will and Thwart the Enemy in the same cycle. Still, green gets everything and green players didn’t even notice they got hosed in this cycle because they were too busy posting memes about Slippery Bogbonder. Remember, this was during our Tiger King period and we don’t like to talk about those days.

$16.59$21.99

$1.23$2.29

Deadly Rollick can’t stay 250% as expensive as Flawless Maneuver when it’s only played 25% more. I don’t know if Maneuver corrects up or Rollick corrects down, but I think we need to look at the foils. 

Fierce Guardianship - $45 market

Deflecting Swat - $38 market

Deadly Rollick - $20 market 

Flawless Maneuver - $5 market

Obscuring Haze - $1.50

Flawless Maneuver was printed more than some of the others due to its inclusion in Commander: Phyrexia: All Will Be One. I think its former price dictated its new price for foils and I wouldn’t be surprised if it has the most room to grow. The foil copies aren’t seeing the price that should be commanded by the demand and if I were buying, I’d buy Maneuver. That said, look at the numbers yourself, see if you see something I didn’t. 

Confluences 

Mystic Confluence - 50,092

Fiery Confluence - 22,542

Wretched Confluence - 5,504

Verdant Confluence - 2,671

Righteous Confluence - 1,825

Mystic is used 25 times more than Righteous. Sheesh, nice cycle you’ve got there, would be a shame if only two of them were playable. 

Mystic Confluence has way more printings than the others, including a Time Spiral: Remastered old border for $20 that looks way better than the ones from Commander Masters. Fiery is in the same boat - five printings including a foil in the Signature Spellbook: Chandra product that commands a whopping $3. 

$0.50$0.79

$0.25$0.49

Do you want me to go into this at all? My advice is going to be to avoid this cycle. 

Planeswalker Commanders 

Daretti, Scrap Savant - 46,939 decks 

Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - 24,431 decks 

Teferi, Temporal Archmage - 18,620 decks 

Nahiri, the Lithomancer - 5,499

Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath - 4,708

$1.18$1.99

$0.62$0.59

Daretti - 2,626 as commander 

Freyalise - 1,355 as commander 

Teferi - 784 as commander 

Nahiri - 654 as commander 

Ob Nixilis - 364 as commander 

It’s interesting that the order for decks “as commander” is in the same order as inclusions, considering Teferi was the go-to spikey deck for a bit. That said, today’s demand matters for today’s repricing. These are all about $1, except for Nahiri which is $3. You know, for now. 

 

This is Nahiri’s graph for Commander Masters on TCGPlayer. It’s gone down in price very sharply since it was printed and even Daretti’s very palpable demand doesn’t seem to be helping it go above $1 as a foil. Daretti’s etched foil version looks different than the others and is under $3 now - if any of this cycle is going to do anything, it will be Daretti. He’s in as many decks as Sapphire Medallion, yet the foil Medallion costs 30 times more than Daretti does. Whether or not any of these get built as commanders again, Daretti is the only one in enough decks and likely to get enough future support, and if you don’t think it should cost less than Nahiri which is in fewer decks than Wretched Confluence, I think these new prices are wrong and they should feel bad.

Was that all of the cycles in the set? No! Will I be talking about the Loyal Unicorn cycle? No! They’re uncommons. Is Loyal Guardian played a lot? 26,238 decks, not enough to move the needle on an uncommon. I think that is all the news that’s fit to print, but if you think I’m a dummy for not saying to buy a billion Loyal Drake foils for $0.50 or whatever, you can always buy a bunch and take a pic when you make a few bucks after fees on your brick. I like when people do something I didn’t recommend and win big, it means my audience thinks for itself. Even though you’re capable of independent thought, I’m still going to tell you that you should follow me on social media and get ready for this article to end with no 

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