The set has been on Arena for a couple of weeks, live on TCGPlayer for a week, and Duskmourn:House of Horror has a lot going on. The Fractured Foils are as rare as expected, the Leylines are caught between useless and broken, and the rest of us are just trying to keep up with the world-encompassing demon.
We’ve had some cards take an early loss and then recover, so let’s talk about the price movements that are happening, and the ones that haven’t happened yet. Remember, most cards are on the fall right now, but depending on the demand, we’re going to get lots of them going crazy eventually.
Abhorrent Oculus (low price of $8, current price of $28) – There’s two things that should have been a sign for this card. First, we know that there’s a whole deck based around making Murktide Regent cost UU to cast, which lines up nicely with the Oculus. Second, being three mana means that Unearth is in play, and that’s a peanut-butter-plus-chocolate combination if ever there was one. We have other ways to cheat with this card, but it creates its own army quickly, replaces itself, and fuels more graveyard silliness.
I expect this to settle down some from the current price, but the factors are there to make this card seriously expensive for some time to come.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater (low of $19, current $24) – A lot of attention is on the group slug version of Valgavoth, but this is an impressively irritating card for reanimation or even semi-fair Cabal Coffers decks. You make them pay a steep cost to get rid of it, and if they don’t you’re swinging life totals by 18 every attack. On top of that, your newly gained life allows you to replay the things that died!
Razorkin Needlehead (low of $2.50, up to $14, currently $10) – We’ve been pretty bullish on this card both for Standard and for Commander, as it’s really easy to have this one card deal 15-20 points of damage in a single game. We’re programmed to draw as many cards as possible, for good reason, and this demands removal, which is a good thing. If you bought in early, as we pointed out in the Discord, then you should be looking to exit soon.
Overlord of the Hauntwoods (low of $15, up to $25, now $20) – This is making a splash in the Domain decks for Standard, as well as being a popular Commander card. I’d like it more if the land token had hexproof, but there’s not a lot of drawbacks to the bonus land. I think this will fall back down to $15 or lower unless it starts getting adopted in a lot more decks.
Duskmourn has also given us some cards that I want to pay attention to in the longer-term, both for bannings and for future use:
Leyline of Resonance (started $15, now $4) – The Leyline is responsible for some truly ridiculous wins in Standard right now. We’ve got two one-mana spells that give +3/+0 and have a bonus beyond that, to go with multiple creatures that benefit from being targeted, and more than one ‘when this dies, deal damage equal to its power’ creature. Plus the entire deck is cheap in wildcards and cash price, which means it’s infesting all of the BO1 queues right now. The deck also runs Witch’s Mark, which is a fantastic way to discard two, draw four when Leyline is out.
A lot of people online are calling for the Leyline to be banned, especially because it’s hideously busted in multiples. The next B/R announcement is December 16, and if Leyline stays unbanned, I expect it to start to grow in price. I also think Turn Inside Out has real potential to be a $3 common eventually, given the things it does for the decks that run it.
The Verge Lands (started $10, now in $4-$7 range) – Untapped dual lands are the business, and since this is the first printing, all five of these are on my radar as long-term specs. I’m hoping the BR and the UW lands especially get cheap, but alongside the Surveil lands, these represent an easy way to have two of two colors open on turn two, which is not true in lots of formats.
Fear of Missing Out (Started $12, now $3) – Extra-combat cards are never to be sneezed at, and this one comes with several things that make the card desirable. It’s cheap, it can work quickly, and it can put a game away. The only thing holding it back is that it needs to be attacking, and something like Enduring Courage can make this a terrifying topdeck. It’s been a long time since we had such an easy second combat, though, so when this gets super cheap I’ll be wanting a brick.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.