I’ve been making a lot of posts lately, mainly in the ProTrader Discord, that come down to one thing: Final Fantasy was the harbinger of change. There is a before and there is an after, and just as we needed to adapt in COVID times, and adapt post-pandemic, now we need to look at what is happening with an impartial eye.

We’re not here to talk about the morality of the new reign, or the unfairness, or anything else that is as useful as an ‘old man shakes fist at cloud’ meme. We’re being clear and concise about what’s happening now in Magic and what it means going forward. 

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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.

We’re six months past the release of Aetherdrift, and that set is commonly given the side-eye as being one of the weakest sets in recent memory, both in terms of impact and finances.

So that means there’s a lot of potential value, as folks don’t bother to open or use the cards. 

Today, I want to look at the set, its chase treatments, evaluate use-cases, and see what I want to pick up in anticipation of future gains.

Fracture Foils are a treatment that has proven to be very popular, depending on the card and art. They’ve shown up in three sets so far: Foundations, Aetherdrift, and Duskmourn: House of Horror. Outlaws of Thunder Junction went for raised foils as part of the OTP bonus sheet, and we’ll come back to that. Each of the Fracture Foil sets have had cards show up in English and in Japanese-language, even if you’re opening English packs. In order to get a specific English Fracture Foil in DSK, you’d need roughly 1,428 Collector Booster packs. That number is 1,515 for Foundations, and the same 1,515 packs for Aetherdrift. These are tough to open on their own. 

However, the rarity is not the only factor at play here. The card needs demand, either from being amazing art, amazing card, mega-staple, or some combination thereof. Here’s the prices for all the Fracture Foils, TCG Low as of this weekend:

Foundations		Duskmourn: House of Horrors		Aetherdrift
Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator	$76.71	Overlord of the Boilerbilges	$56.94	Explosive Getaway	$19.89
Day of Judgment	$89.82	Overlord of the Floodpits	$67.53	Salvation Engine	$32.71
Think Twice	$99.92	Overlord of the Mistmoors	$83.55	Spectacular Pileup	$36.29
Progenitus	$144.89	Enduring Innocence	$94.17	Mimeoplasm, Revered One	$51.29
Herald of Eternal Dawn	$172.28	Enduring Courage	$95.25	March of the World Ooze	$58.79
Muldrotha, the Gravetide	$259.06	Enduring Tenacity	$100.22	Mu Yanling, Wind Rider	$67.95
Bloodthirsty Conqueror	$312.83	Enduring Curiosity	$154.83	Cursecloth Wrappings	$70.60
Twinflame Tyrant	$498.45	Overlord of the Hauntwoods	$172.31	Chandra, Spark Hunter	$116.77
Doubling Season	$515.09	Overlord of the Balemurk	$173.04	Loot, the Pathfinder	$163.07
Llanowar Elves	$663.78	Enduring Vitality	$240.79	Radiant Lotus	$170.73

Foundations is the only one of these three that has reprints, but this isn’t just about the reprints. Twinflame Tyrant is in about 73k decks on EDHREC, but it’s a Dragon and we know how much people love our scaly overlords. (I run the meetings on Wednesdays!) Enduring Vitality is in 50k more decks and it is about half the price. All five of the Enduring creatures, being value engines, are in at least 68,000 decks each, but four of the five have lower prices than Progenitus, a card who sees play with Cubes and only 15,000 Commander decks total. 

I’m looking at these price lists and I’m thinking that we are seeing opportunity. Nothing on the agenda right now is making these cards spike, but there’s a whole lot that could go off. Cursecloth is waiting for a Zombie deck, as an example. These cards are underpriced considering how difficult it is to pull one. These Aetherdrift Fracture Foils are not even falling victim to the yellow problem, this is just reflective of a belief that nothing in the set is worth money…so nothing in the set is worth money.

There’s another subset of hard-to-get cards in Aetherdrift: The first-place foils and the borderless first-place foils. These were only found in the Box Topper packs, and you get exactly one per Play Booster Box, Collector Booster Box, and the Finish Line Bundle. Let’s go over how tough those are to pull from Box Topper packs:

Category (# of cards)	Percent chance to get any card of that type	Percent chance to get a specific card of that type	Number of Box Topper packs needed (approx.)
DFT First-Place Foil Main Set Rare (60)	69.40%	1.16%	86.46
DFT First-Place Foil Main Set Mythic Rare (20)	11.60%	0.58%	172.41
DFT First-Place Foil Borderless Rude Rider Rare(13)	7.50%	0.58%	173.33
DFT First-Place Foil Borderless Revved Up Rider Rare(11)	6.40%	0.58%	171.88
DFT First-Place Foil Borderless Graffiti Giants Mythic Rare (8)	2.30%	0.29%	347.83
DFT First-Place Foil Borderless Revved Up Rider Mythic Rare (4)	1.10%	0.28%	363.64
DFT First-Place Foil Borderless Rude Rider Mythic Rare (1)	0.30%	0.30%	333.33
DFT First-Place Foil Special Guest (10)	1.40%	0.14%	714.29

We don’t know the ratio of bundles sold vs. CB boxes and Play boxes, so we can’t estimate the relative costs for each copy of a card, but it’s surely not cheap. The Special Guests especially are incredibly difficult to snag, but only Chrome Mox at $450 is above a price tag of $100 for any of these rarities or treatments. That’s way out there, and not the prices I would have expected. We’re in an era where Final Fantasy has brought in a ton of new collectors, with lots of Collector Booster boxes rising in price but Aetherdrift staying stubbornly cheap. 

The big issue here is the same thing haunting the textured foils from the OTP set: The cards don’t look terribly appealing. 

To be clear, the pictures on Gatherer and TCGPlayer are mustard-yellow, and being borderless, that makes for a LOT of the yellow color:

This is a difficult thing to want to spend money on, if it looks this much like a hot dog topping. If they’d gone for some other color, they might have had better luck, but making everything yellow also makes the color identity of the card much more difficult, something that is hard to grasp until you play with these cards and see how they look in person:

There’s no other word for it: These cards are ugly. Doesn’t mean they can’t get expensive, just means that they aren’t right now. 

With that in mind, though, there’s a couple of cards from DFT’s rarest pulls that are worth considering:

Bloodghast ($9, 84k on EDHREC) – The Secret Lair version of this card, from one of the very first Lairs six years ago and only in nonfoil, is at $11, or you can get this for $9. It’s a card that has an infinite combo with Perilous Forays and if you’re willing to go to three-card combos there’s plenty of those around. It’s in plenty of decks, and is incredibly a Vampire if you want those synergies. 

Lord of the Undead (34k decks) – The only thing that does this justice is a comparison of the regular SPG and the First-Place SPG:

The yellow one is $55. The regular foil is $9. Both are worth it for the next time Zombies get popular, as this is just cool art. 

Salvation Engine is the most popular Fracture Foil from DFT on EDHREC, and I think it’s worth picking up. It’s a plus-two anthem for artifact creatures, and if you have six power of creatures (a 4/4 or two 1/1 artifacts can do it) then you can get an attack and return something to play. That’s a pretty great set of abilities in a single card.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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.

We’ve got a lot of Secret Lairs in our rearview mirror, and yet, the site itself is a pretty fascinating picture of what has gone before. 

Wizards has chosen to make lairs available on the site until they sell out, and in some cases, that’s taking quite a while. 

So today, I want to review the Lairs that are still available, and give some thinking to what lessons we can take away from those Lairs. 

We’re going to start with the oldest Lairs, and I’ll link anything I wrote about that drop. For each drop, I’ll also list if foil, nonfoil, or both are still available.

Camp Totally Safe Superdrop – This originally ended up on the site in late Sept 2024, and here’s what is still on the site: 

Chucky (nonfoil) – The IP was strong enough to support several films in the franchise, but as was pointed out to me, it was the same group of people who went to all of the movies. It didn’t have a wide outpouring of support and interest, but instead had a deep interest with a smaller group. Additionally, there’s a bunch of people who found this creepy and unfun. Also very relevant: The cards themselves were not terribly relevant to Commander players.

Tome of the Astral Sorceress (both) – We’ve seen a few drops in this visual style, with a lot of white space and text focus, and mostly, they have not done well. 

Ghostbusters (both) – Eladamri’s Call is holding this from being a total wash, but the nostalgia was not strong enough here to get this to sell out, even almost a year later.

Slimer (both) – It’s possible that these two cartoon drops were way overprinted (more on that in a sec) but as I said originally, Windfall was the best here and has stayed there. Interest just hasn’t kept pace.

Miku: Electric Entourage (JP foil) – The English foil is $36 just for the Elspeth/Miku card from this drop, but the JP foil of the same card is available for $8 on the same website. Miku collectors are driving this train, as Elspeth Tirel is not a super-popular Commander card. My theory here is that the first two Miku drops sold out ridiculously fast, and the second pair of Miku drops had a lot more printed. JP foils of Miku cards will eventually get there, given the collectors, but this being available a year later speaks volumes about how many were printed. 

Strange Sands: Swamp and Strange Sands: Mountain – The Islands sold out fast as a Rorschach meme, but I imagine this is all interest from people who liked the lands and bought enough for their commander deck. There’s less demand for these two lands, even when you’re getting this many copies.  

Winter Superdrop 2025 – Lorwyn Lightboxes (nonfoil) – This might stay on the site till we’re back at the Lorwyn plane, but the creature types just aren’t that popular to support the nonfoils.  

Featuring Mitsuhira Arita (nonfoil) – Interestingly, the foils are less expensive than the nonfoils for Murktide Regent, but it’s the other way round for the other three cards. The Murktide nonfoil goes for $21, and you can buy the drop for $29 (plus shipping and tax). If Murktide becomes popular in the Modern metagame, we might see this take off, but right now it’s not there.

Arcade Racers (both) – A polarizing frame, while neat, and an uninspired group of cards. One thing I need to look out for when evaluating EDHREC numbers is how many Commander decks a card has been in–every precon is worth a bunch of EDHREC decks. 

Miku: Winter Diva (JP foil/nonfoil) – As I said, I think the print run was juiced for the later Miku drops, but this is still really good value. Swan Song is the headliner, but the play might be to pick up singles in JP foil right now. As before, there’s a big gap in price on TCGPlayer between the English and Japanese foils. 

Our Boss is on Vacation 2025 – Garden Buds (both) – Given all the lands-theme stuff that’s been printed lately, this should do better, but it remains a source of value. I suspect this was overprinted. 

Class of ‘87 (both) – Just ugly and a bad set of cards. A combination we always need to avoid. 

Adventures of the Little Witch (foil) – Again, this is more about the cards in the drop than anything else. The nonfoils sold out, but there’s still a lot of foils left for some very mid cards. 

Ultimate Pencil Superdrop – We covered this on MTG Fast Finance pretty extensively, and our verdict was that this was an experiment. Clearly, one not to be repeated. Plus, a pencil was literally the bonus inclusion on this drop. Feels like this is where the shark got jumped, and they have corrected back. 

Vroooooooom (all 3) and Everything is on Fire (all 3) – I have no beef with the idea of a chase tier of Secret Lair cards. I just need them to have unique art and more obvious foiling, like everything we’ve seen with Fracture Foils as the chase cards. These sets were targeted at folks who need a playset of cards, but Commander is the big driver on these prices. The concept can work, just not with these cards. 

Featuring: Jay Howell (both) – Another set of mid cards with okay art, nothing jawdropping.

KEXP (all four) – Lands are something they just should stop doing in Secret Lair, even if they took a step in the right direction by giving us ten lands not five. The other KEXP is on theme for the Pencil drop–mid cards, uninspiring art. 

Secret Lair Commander deck: Everyone’s Invited – The theme is a little off, but every other Commander deck has sold out. This being $200 to start and not even getting there with the double rainbow foils and the reprints just doomed the deck. Even a $40 Sol Ring can’t tempt people in.

Artist Spotlight: Phil Foglio (both) – Yes, this is a reprint of Constant Mists, and PFogs is an iconic artist, but we need to get past artist spotlights that use the original Magic frame. We need borderless, at least, and we need cards that are higher demand than these four.

Featuring: Imiri Sakabashira (both) – Uninspired card choices, though the art is awesome. Used to be that great art would overcome mediocre cards for a Lair, but we’re getting so many so often that it’s no longer the case. 

Sonic: Friends and Foes (both) – This is probably overprinting. The Universes Beyond sets have been pure fire lately, and Wizards knows exactly how many Spongebobs and Marvels and Final Fantasy sets got sold. I expect they set the number available pretty high on the Friends and Foes, but then they throttled the number you could buy of each, so we ended up with an odd mix of leftovers. Now that the attention has moved on, we’ll see how these linger. 

Featuring Deathburger (galaxy and nonfoil, also with Commander deck for each) – I’ve made the analogy in more than one area that galaxy foil might be the new retro foil. The first time, it was outstanding and neat and unusual. But if they overdo it, and do it to too many mediocre cards, it loses something. The other galaxy foil drop was too much value to resist, but this one has nothing that grabs the buyer, especially at $60. If this had had Academy Manufactor, then we’d really be talking, but the card choices and higher price mean that this will linger on. 

So what can we take away? I think there’s some key points.

1. Not every UB product is gold-plated. Street Fighter is the best example here, as it’s taken more than three years to get to $90, but the above list has a lot of UB stuff that just didn’t excite the buyer. 
2. New foiling is nice, but not as nice as cards people want. Raised foils and galaxy foiling are not automatic.
3. Card choice matters above all else. Should be obvious, but if a drop has mediocre cards, you don’t need to buy it.

I’ll want to keep these things in mind as more drops happen and we have more demands for our money.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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.

Rotation happened a week ago, but the prices have been on the downturn. We know that the dip in prices for cards that are rotating starts about six months before the actual date, and the data bears that out.

So with rotation in the rearview mirror, let’s talk about a few cards with Commander appeal that are at their lowest point in a while, and if they are going to go lower or if we should be buying now. 

As always, two caveats: First, reprint risk is very real on these. We’re a couple years old, we’re out of Standard, and any/all of these on a Special Guest, Secret Lair, or other reprint avenue is ranging from ‘eventually, sure’ to a lock. I’ve chosen popular cards and those are the most likely to gather attention and wallets. So be aware. 

Second, keep in mind that EDHREC is not a perfect data source. It’s only the folks who have bothered to fill out their decks online. I don’t have any decks on there, as an example. It definitely misses a lot of the casual players, so while it’s useful data, it’s not ironclad nor infallible. 

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (pack nonfoil $60, 172k decks) – Let’s take a beat and look at the chart for Sheoldred in pack nonfoil over the last year:

Between incipient rotation and Standard being as aggressive as possible over the last nine months, Sheoldred has been left out of being four-ofs all over the place. Doesn’t stop her from being one of the best cards at a Commander game, since there are plenty of decks optimized to draw boatloads of cards at a moment’s notice. 

As much as I want to buy in on Sheoldred, I don’t think she’s done falling. I also can’t choose between the many premium versions available, though if you’re looking for a deal, the Phyrexian-language one is the cheapest of all. Reprints on this seem inevitable, but even so, this is a backbreaker of a card and if you need copies for decks, get them with my blessing. We might hit $50 or even $40 for this before the reprint. 

Silverback Elder (nonfoil $5, 57k decks) – Triple green is hard to do but this is a card that gets out of hand quickly. All you have to do is cast creatures, and you either gain lands or you’re Disenchanting all over the place. Both are good, and worth doing. This is just one of the mose useful cards to have around, and if you can cast it, this is a card they don’t bother reprinting and it’s $10 by next summer.

Leaf-Crowned Elder (nonfoil $2.50, 51k decks) – A little bit of a flier here, but with us heading back to Lorwyn soon these might be one of the elves that dodge reprints in SPG or Commander decks. Wizards generally prefers to give new toys, rather than use reprints lots of the old ones, because new cards means more boosters sold. It will happen that Elf decks get popular again, and when it does, you’ll want to have a whole stack of these ready to sell to the eager pointy-eared players. 

Loran of the Third Path (FIC foils $19, 196k decks) – This is so much fun to use in Commander, it shouldn’t be legal. First, you get value just on the cast, blowing up something annoying. But then the politics come into play, and you get to decide who is worthy of getting a card with you. My personal favorite move is ‘attack this person, and I’ll give you a card’ which just feels right.

We’ve got the Final Fantasy reprint foil to chase here, and even if you don’t like PSOne-level CGI, we’ve learned to never underestimate FF collectors or those who like a waifu. 

Haywire Mite (foil $1.50, 111k decks) – We get more and more ways to search up 1-drops, and while Urza’s Saga is among the most busted of these, what really puts it over the top is that this exiles instead of destroys. Can’t hit creatures, but get that The One Ring out of here! This will be a Secret Lair inclusion, but until then, this feels like a card that ends up as a $5 foil. Get yours now.

Tocasia’s Welcome (FEA $5, 102k decks) – There’s a lot of variations on this theme in Magic, but as an enchantment, you can get this into play and have it stay easier, furthering the snowball. Keep in mind tokens count, and you can do this for other players’ turns too. Don’t restrict yourself when there’s no real reason to do so.

Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea (FEA $7, 79k) – The push for five-color goodness means that this sort of enabler gets better and better. I don’t see this as a big Elf piece, as most Elf decks don’t have high-power cards that would untap Gwenna, but more of a standout in decks with lots of colors and a desire to jump ahead in mana. The FEA is the most special version out there, so enjoy.

Conduit of Worlds (FEA $7, 170k) – We’re seeing Crucible decks all over the place, and this goes right into those. We’ve gotten several cards that want to play lands from the yard, and this allows you to do more from the yard if you don’t do anything from the hand. 

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus (Oil-Slick Foil $38 ,115k as commander and card) – Every pinger, every bit of incidental damage, all of it adds up fast when this is around, and given the different versions, I like the unique art here best. It didn’t fall much in special versions at rotation, but it’s still a good pickup.

Faerie Mastermind (pack nonfoil $10, 195k) – Another card with the sort of graph we’re looking for, plus the already-present Commander appeal. 

No need to explain how good this is, but it’s up to you if you want to go after the regular nonfoils at $10 or the FEAs at $17. I think the regulars will hit $20 way before the FEA gets as high as $40, but if some combo pops up, it won’t matter at all. Pack foils are just about the same price as nonfoils, so that might be the right play. No wrong answers here! Remember that at its peak this year, pack nonfoils were going for $25+, so we’re getting in at the right time regardless. 

Breach the Multiverse (FEA $7, 125k) – The less special versions aren’t that much cheaper, and so I’d say go for the FEA ones. This is a combo and a half, and I know there were decks using this in Standard, though not always to strong effect. This goes wild in Commander, just watch out for the Etali decks.

Ozolith, the Shattered Spire (FEA $11, 146k) – We’ve gotten several sweet versions of the original Ozolith, and this should get some too. Until then, though, since the FEA is close in price to the regulars, get a little special and stock up. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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.