Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commanders - Which Versions Should You Buy?
Welcome back to another edition of Variant Vault, where I organize Magic: the Gathering card variants by price from most to least expensive to determine which variant is best for you.
Today I’ll be focusing on the face cards of the
How do these new variants fare in the market? Are they the go-to bling for these commanders or are these just another speck of salt in the sea of variants?
The Lists
Each LCC face commander has six tournament-legal variants: standard, extended art, and showcase, each with a foil and non-foil version. If you include the non-tournament legal thick stock cards, which I’ll be including in the lists for the sake of being all-inclusive, then it’s seven variants. All prices used were gathered from the MTGStocks price database as of 11/27/2023. The full list of all these variants by price can be found below, in order from most to least expensive.
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored Variant Prices:
| Foil |
Non-Foil |
Thick Stock |
|
Borderless (101451): $30.76 |
Borderless (101451): $7.21 |
(101517): $1.10 |
|
Extended Art (101449): $5.52 |
Standard (101447): $2.87 |
N/A |
|
Standard (101447): $3.71 |
Extended Art (101449): $2.23 |
N/A |
| Pantlaza, Sun-Favored (Borderless) | ||
| Pantlaza, Sun-Favored (Extended Art) | ||
| Pantlaza, Sun-Favored |
Hakbal of the Surging Soul Variant Prices:
|
Foil |
Non-Foil |
Thick Stock |
|
Showcase (101452): $5.09 |
Showcase (101452): $1.15 |
(101519): $1.03 |
|
Extended Art (101448): $3.44 |
Extended Art (101448): $1.12 |
N/A |
|
Standard (101443): $0.74 |
Standard (101443): $1.12 |
N/A |
| Hakbal of the Surging Soul | ||
| Hakbal of the Surging Soul (Showcase) | ||
| Hakbal of the Surging Soul (Extended Art) |
Clavileno, First of the Blessed Variant Prices:
|
Foil |
Non-Foil |
Thick Stock |
|
Showcase (101521): $5.00 |
Showcase (101521): $1.71 |
(101520): $1.25 |
|
Extended Art (101522): $2.75 |
Extended Art (101522): $1.69 |
N/A |
|
Standard (101518): $0.64 |
Standard (101518): $0.58 |
N/A |
| Clavileno, First of the Blessed | ||
| Clavileno, First of the Blessed (Showcase) | ||
| Clavileno, First of the Blessed (Extended Art) |
Admiral Brass, Unsinkable Variant Prices:
|
Foil |
Non-Foil |
Thick Stock |
|
Showcase (101453): $2.88 |
Extended Art (101450): $1.40 |
(101516): $1.07 |
|
Extended Art (101450): $2.46 |
Standard (101445): $0.57 |
N/A |
|
Standard (101445): $0.50 |
Showcase (101453): $0.41 |
N/A |
| Admiral Brass, Unsinkable | ||
| Admiral Brass, Unsinkable (Showcase) | ||
| Admiral Brass, Unsinkable (Extended Art) |
Most Collectible Variants
Showcases and borderless reign supreme. The most collectible variants of each of these commanders based on price are their showcase or borderless foil with prices as follows: Pantalaza’s borderless foil at $30.76, Hakbal’s showcase foil at $5.09, Clavileño’s showcase foil at $5.00, and Admiral Brass’s showcase foil at $2.88. These prices make sense, as the exciting and new flashy variants are the ones players are excited about. However, I did want to discuss Pantlaza’s borderless foil price compared to the price of the others’ showcase foils. I think the fact that Pantlaza is the only commander with a borderless art style, due to the Dinosaurs in Lost Caverns of Ixalan receiving gorgeous borderless variants by Sidharth Chaturvedi in lieu of showcase versions, is a contributing factor to its higher price ceiling. But that alone doesn’t tell the full story.
The week before Black Friday, the price for Pantlaza’s borderless foil was around $10-12. My theory is that a lot of players took advantage of the plethora of Black Friday kickback sales across the market to pick up borderless foil copies of Pantlaza, cleaning out storefronts of copies available at that price. Another piece of market evidence supporting this theory is that none of the showcase foils for the other three face commanders experienced similar holiday rush spikes, as they remained stable at their current prices. The titanic premium Pantlaza’s borderless foil has in comparison to the other commanders presents a fun market finding: Magic: the Gathering players love Dinosaurs and that popularity is reflected in their prices.
If you’re looking to build a Dinosaur Commander deck, it might be best to wait for the excitement around the new Dinosaur cards to cool off if you’re looking to build the deck on a budget. But due to all this attention surrounding Dinosaurs, if you’ve had your eyes on Merfolk, Vampires, or Pirates, now is a good time to pick up and upgrade one of those Commander preconstructed decks for the holidays.
Although I’ve focused on Pantlaza’s borderless foil for the sake of discussion, its higher price is an exception to the rule in this case. Outside of Pantlaza’s borderless foil, you can get the most exciting variants of these face commanders for around $5 or less, which is a deal if you want to bling out your commander.
Most Affordable Variants
I expected the most affordable variants of these face commanders to be their standard foil or non-foil versions, as a foil copy of each of these face commanders comes bundled in their respective preconstructed deck, ready to play. But to my surprise, that is only the case for Hakbal and Clavileño. The most affordable variants of these four commanders are as follows: Pantalaza’s extended art non-foil at $2.23, Hakbal’s standard foil at $0.74, Clavileño’s standard non-foil at $0.58, and Admiral Brass’s showcase non-foil at $0.41. If you’re someone who prefers to buy singles over breaking down preconstructed decks, then you can acquire any of these cards, some of them in fun variants, for less than the price of a booster pack.
I briefly wanted to cover the outliers, which are Admiral Brass’s showcase non-foil and Pantlaza’s extended art non-foil. My theory as to why these variants are cheaper than their standard counterparts is redundancy. Due to the general affordability of these commander variants, if a player isn’t blinging out their commander, they probably just want the card to play with and don’t care about what variant they have. As such, the mid-level variants are being left by the wayside by players and the market.
Returning to the Command Zone
Thank you so much for reading! If you haven’t already, make sure to give MTGStocks Premium a look for more cool Magic finance stuff. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and next time I’m going to be covering the almighty
Further Reading:
Top Picks for Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander Singles
How the Lost Caverns of Ixalan Delays Have Affected the Market
Max Kennel started playing Magic with the release of Shadows Over Innistrad. His primary formats of play are EDH and Limited. Outside of Magic, Max can be found writing all sorts of stuff from prose, to film, to plays such as The Story of Jimmy Kaplingus. His favorite commander deck at the moment is his Mono-Black Artifact/Aristocrats deck with Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist at the helm.
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