Foundations is out, has been out, and the prices are starting to sort out what’s good and what’s still trending downwards. We’ve got the luxury of seeing what’s headed down and what’s jumped up, as well as some of the top adopted cards on EDHREC.
We’re coming into one of the doldrums for Magic finance, as people are buying presents for others and not so much for themselves, but keep in mind that Innistrad Remastered is on the horizon and that’ll have some good buying too.
So let’s talk about Foundations, and see what we can see.
There’s three cards that have had big big movement early, and for all three, I want to focus on the nonfoil, regular frame versions for now.
Bloodthirsty Conqueror – Currently at $29, from preorder high of $48 – It’s half of an infinite combo, it’s a backup version of Exquisite Blood, and it promises to be a big player in a lot of Commander decks. There are a lot of ways to take this card and do busted things with it, and yet it was overpriced early on. The chase mythics from a set should settle in the $20-$30 range, and so I think this has a little farther to fall, unless everyone and their cousin starts building infinite trigger decks in Standard.
Doubling Season – $29, from $35 – It’s an article of faith that Doubling Season always recovers. It’s been printed in seven different full sets, plus a Judge foil way back when. And yet as recently as April of 2023, it was up over $85 for a regular nonfoil version. However, we’ve had three printings in the last 18 months: Commander Masters, Wilds of Eldraine, and now Foundations.
Mythic every time, at least, but that’s a boatload of copies. As a result, the price for regulars is at $40-$45 for the other versions, and the Foundations copies can be had for under $30, and still falling. At the very very least, you should consider picking up your personal copies soon. This doesn’t have the mega-numbers you might expect on EDHREC, but this is the quintessential casual staple, something that lots of players need and when they see it they want to build around it.
I’m not buying in at $29, not from a set whose packs are available for the next few years. I want to be more patient here, and not get caught early.
Sire of Seven Deaths – $29 from $20 – Eldrazi are popular, and this damn thing is ridiculous. You can’t attack into it, point removal is truly going to carry an iron price, and being seven mana instead of six mana is a good thing, considering the wide array of Eldrazi cards who bonus at seven mana, like Ugin’s Labyrinth or Kozilek’s Unsealing.
This might well be the high point for the card, because the early adopters have taken the card for their decks and from here, it ought to settle back down. It doesn’t look like it’s got enough appeal in other formats to help keep the price up, but when the next Eldrazi spike comes, this will likely get up again too.
Now let’s look at some of the top cards for the set on EDHREC. Remember, the inclusion rate isn’t a guarantee of anything, and only a small portion of players will upload their decks, but it’s a site that eager adopters check, so it’s worth being aware of.
Blasphemous Edict – 6200 decks – There are a lot of Commander games where this is a board wipe for one black mana. Sure, there’s token decks that end up with huge numbers in play, but I really like this card long-term. I’ve got two Mana Foil versions for decks and that same card was a pick of mine on MTG Fast Finance this week. It’s a regular rare, so there are a lot of copies out there, but I would be quite surprised if this ever fell out of the top 5 inclusions for the set.
Banner of Kinship – 4500 decks – Being colorless is such a big part of this card’s appeal. Every Kindred deck should consider including this deck, and the biggest bonus is that it’s decent at two counters, good at three, and disgusting past that. The closest equivalent is Vanquisher’s Banner, which has a similar price in foil but has no special versions besides a retro frame in TSR. They aren’t the same card, but if you’re playing one then you ought to consider the other and the Vanquisher’s is closing in on 200,000 decks total. Worthy company to be keeping.
Twinflame Tyrant – 4400 decks – I am the first in line when there’s a sweet Dragon, but I wasn’t expecting everyone else to come along too. Twinflame takes what you’re doing and speeds it up, and this doesn’t ask you for lots of mana like most of these other effects. I will be buying a fracture foil at some point for my deck, but the regular versions are another example of casual players’ catnip. Whatever you do, this does double! The only decks who don’t want this are things like Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin, who wants people to lose precisely one life.
Scrawling Crawler – 3800 decks – Speaking of Ob Nixilis, this card fits into a bunch of strategies in addition to just being a very efficient damage dealer. Nekusar, the Mindrazer is the #15 commander all time on EDHREC, and the Crawler doubles up his effect. Great with Ob, great with the cheap Valgavoth, and also wonderful against decks who want to draw fifty cards per turn. Psychosis Crawler, which is two mana more and doesn’t give the bonus card, is in 133k decks. That’s a really good sign for its future use, and I expect the special versions to be solid gainers once they hit bottom.
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.