Over and Under - Crackling Season

Commander Masters has come and gone; now it’s time for confetti foils to shine!

Yes, you heard that right – the chase for Jeweled Lotus has come to a close (or at least died down), but that doesn’t mean Smothering Tithe or Doubling Season are off the menu just yet. Instead, just like March of the Machine before it, we have the bonus slot to thank for a bevy of fantastic reprints and exceptional treatments.

Reprints aren’t the only thing kicking around, however – we’ve still got plenty to talk about in the rest of the big wide world of card markets. So, let’s get into it!

Review: The One Ring

In last month’s edition of Over and Under, I highlighted a couple of reasons that The One Ring appeared to be a prime candidate for price erosion. Between the likely reprint in the upcoming holiday special release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth and the new room for sealed product to breath now that Commander Masters has begun to exit shelves, The One Ring has all the indicators of a card that – in the long run – should start to trend downwards. Fortunately, we are seeing just that.

First, let’s take a look at the Bundle promo for The One Ring. Why start with a promotional version, as opposed to the base set? Well, thanks to the mass-availability of Bundles, The One Ring actually has much more consistent sales data associated with the promotional version, as opposed to the base printing. This has had the effect of creating an inverse price relation across printings – the base printing is more expensive and less frequently traded (across the open market, that is) than the Bundle printing. Thus, turning to the Bundle provides us with the most accurate picture of what The One Ring is going to be up to overall. And well, it looks like it’s starting to plummet.

Now, The One Ring isn’t going to be a five-dollar card any time soon. The base printing is still fluctuating and entering a consolidatory phase, but given that the more available promotional printing is starting to decline, I wouldn’t be too shocked if we eventually see a sub-$30 The One Ring. The only question is, how long?

Review: Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (Borderless)

Alright, with our longer-than-average review for The One Ring out of the way, let’s get into something a bit stranger but also a bit simpler. Time to talk Kozilek.

Kozilek (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the Borderless Eldrazi from Double Masters 2022) are particularly interesting examples of trends in real time. Each of their base-printing counterparts has seen an uptick in price, but not one evenly matched across their specialty printings. While this is an interesting phenomenon regardless, it’s even more important to take note of because these are Commander icons (well, not Emrakul, but I still think they should unban you). Bling and expression is the name of the game in that format, so undervalued specialty treatments of iconic cards are always worth a double-take.

Since last visiting Kozilek and friends, the Borderless foil has made a healthy 10% uptick in price, bringing the non-foil printings up with it. Whether this trend will outlast the excitement surrounding the Eldrazi Unbound preconstructed deck is another question, but what does appear clearer now is that the Eldrazi are back on the Interests list.

Review out of the way, it’s time for our overvalued pick.

Crackle with Power

Crackle with Power is an interesting card to think about, especially in our overvalued bunch, because it isn’t a particularly expensive Magic card. Normally, when we think of expensive Magic cards, our minds wander into the $10, $20, or higher dollar range. Not Crackle with Power. This overvalued card is barely $8 at the moment. So, why the intrigue?

While I wouldn’t say it has spiked, Crackle with Power has seen a sustained period of growth thanks in no small part to the recent printing of Rowan, Scion of War. The game plan for that Commander deck often looks something like this:

Start with Rowan, Scion of War in play. Then cast Ad Nauseam, losing a ton of life in the process as you draw a massive chunk of your deck. Next, tap Rowan, causing your red and/or black spells to cost somewhere around 30 mana less to cast. Finally, cast Crackle with Power, doing enough damage to kill off each opponent.

Seems good, right? Well, while this certainly has proven to be a viable Commander at the cEDH tables, Rowan and her crackling counterparts have started to fall in price as the “new card” allure begins to fade. Powerful, certainly. Expensive? Probably not.

This is where Crackle with Power comes in. It may not be expensive in terms of absolute cost, but it hasn’t faced the same erosion in value that other Rowan, Scion of War staples have. As such, seeing that the run up in value was due to Rowan’s release, it appears all the more likely that Crackle with Power will be falling back down a few dollars soon. $8 down to $4 might not appear to be a huge swing, but that’s a 50% price reduction.

Crackle with Power	CardKingdom $11.99	TCGPlayer $10.75
Crackle with Power (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $14.99	TCGPlayer $18.68
Rowan, Scion of War	CardKingdom $2.79	TCGPlayer $1.86
Ad Nauseam	CardKingdom $19.99	TCGPlayer $15.34

Next up, here comes our undervalued pick.

Doubling Season

Prepare for trouble and make it double (please don’t copyright strike me, Pokémon), here comes Doubling Season.

Yes, you heard that right, a card reprinted twice in the past month and a half (or reprinted five times, if you want to count each separate specialty treatment, discounting traditional foils) is undervalued. Here’s why.

Like I mentioned earlier when discussing Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Doubling Season is the pinnacle of Commander icons, even though it’s no longer the most powerful Commander staple (although it is most definitely still best in class when it comes to token and counter manipulation).

What this means is that it is what I like to term a “demand-side” reprint. Yes, it’s historically been a limited-print card (relegated to Masters products and other specialty products), but each time the trend has been the same – prices fell less than other reprints in the same set, then rebounded quicker. Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales may be the first time we’ve seen Doubling Season in a Standard set in a long time, but I have little reason to doubt that its price trajectory will follow the trend from ages before. 

A noticeable drop, followed by a noticeable bounce back. We’ve seen the drop, how soon for the bounce?

Doubling Season	CardKingdom $44.99	TCGPlayer $40.00
Doubling Season (Anime Borderless)	CardKingdom $42.99	TCGPlayer $46.86
Doubling Season	CardKingdom $42.99	TCGPlayer $39.99
Doubling Season (Showcase)	CardKingdom $89.99	TCGPlayer $94.00

Wrap Up

Alright, that concludes this month’s edition of Over and Under. We’ve got a decent mix of long-term and short-term interests on the horizon, so if anything here piqued your interest then chances are the next few weeks will prove to be an exciting time to watch the markets. Tune in again next month where we’ll ask what’s over, and what’s under.

Check out these other articles:

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