Weekly Winners 2021 - 16

Three spikes and all because of commander. Really interesting to see how commander keeps being the largest driver of prices. Personally I'm wondering whether we will see tournaments becoming more important factors in prices as soon as paper Magic will pick up again.

Like every week, just in time for (digital) FNM, I'll now tell you about the cards that will be the talk of the (digital) town tonight!

 

#1 Lifegift $16.99 (+721%)

 

Rares from older sets like Betrayers of Kamigawa are not that uncommon to go up fast. The supply is, compared to current print runs and player base, small and with cards that mainly appeal to commander players the demand is rather large. That being said, I think the supply for this card is larger than most people think, and this is definitely not a sustainable price point. For you can put this Enchantment into play and whenever a land enters the battlefield, you may gain 1 life. Now to clarify, that means when any land enters the battlefield. Not just your own lands.

The card plays well in Witherbloom life gain decks, especially with the newly printed commander Dina, Soul Steeper. Now every lands that enters the battlefield will gain you 1 life, and each opponent will lose 1 life. Especially in a format where ramping is very common, that can easily amount up to a fair number of life gained and even more life lost. But it also is useful with other new commanders like Beledros Witherbloom and Valentin, Dean of the Vein. So you may wonder if that is enough for a card like this to go up by over 700%. Well, this card also fell victim to The Command Zone-effect. It was mentioned in the video below around the 18:22 mark.

 

 

Beledros Witherbloom	CardKingdom $24.99	TCGPlayer $18.06
Dina, Soul Steeper	CardKingdom $0.25	TCGPlayer $0.35
Valentin, Dean of the Vein	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $1.94
Lifegift	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $16.99

 

 

#2 Steely Resolve $25.99 (+41%)

 

Pretty sure I bought a playset of Steely Resolve years ago, because I felt I was going to play it somewhere down the line in a casual deck. Cards like this have a strong casual appeal, and who doesn't hate their creatures being destroyed by spot removal? Steely Resolve fits in a lot of tribal decks that can support green.

When we talk about tribal decks, there is one tribal that has impacted prices a lot recently, and those are Slivers again. They have gotten more popular since they were reprinted in Time Spiral: Remastered, and most of these decks play green anyway. But also elves have had quite some new cards added to the tribal that may have impacted the price of this card.

But not only that, Steely Resolve is even good enough to see fringe play in Legacy Turbo Depths sideboards to protect Marit Lage.

 

 

Steely Resolve
Onslaught	CardKingdom $17.99	TCGPlayer $25.99

 

 

#3 Phyrexian Devourer $30.99 (+25%)

 

I initially skipped over Phyrexian Devourer because it felt like "just another reserved list card going up". While that may certainly contribute to this price, there is actually some reason for it to go up now. It has something to do with new commanders being printed in Commander 2021. The artifact combos with both Laelia, the Blade Reforged and Felisa, Fang of Silverquill.

The sacrifice trigger of Phyrexian Devourer just goes on the stack, where in response you can activate its ability another number of times adding counters to it and making it huge. Eventually you can let the sacrifice trigger resolve and you'll end up with an army of 2/1 fliers when combined with Felisa, Fang of Silverquill.

The combo with Laelia, the Blade Reforged is also fairly obvious, since you can do the same trick as above, and for each card exiled you can put a +1/+1 counter on Laelia. Since she has haste it's a creature for that can potentially immediately swing for lethal.

This however isn't the first time we hear of Phyrexian Devourer, since it was already featured in a combo with Necrotic Ooze. When you have the Ooze in play and Phyrexian Devourer and Walking Ballista in your graveyard, you can ping everyone out of the game. Neat!

 

Necrotic Ooze	CardKingdom $2.79	TCGPlayer $3.04
Phyrexian Devourer	CardKingdom $27.99	TCGPlayer $30.99
Walking Ballista	CardKingdom $17.99	TCGPlayer $18.73
Laelia, the Blade Reforged	CardKingdom $0.99	TCGPlayer $9.99
Felisa, Fang of Silverquill	CardKingdom $1.99

 

 

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past 7 years. Many cards have been even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

 

Rings of Brighthearth $5.33

 

Remand $6.09

 

Teferi, Master of Time $10.00

 

Teferi, Master of Time	CardKingdom $14.99	TCGPlayer $10.00
Remand	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $6.09
Rings of Brighthearth	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $5.33