Last week, Wizards dropped a huge piece of news during the Pro Tour. They have decided to make Standard last three years instead of two. This is in direct contrast to what they did the last time they meddled with Standard, as detailed in their 2014 article Metamorphosis. Back then, the idea was to make Standard just 18 months, and in addition, Standard would rotate with every new set.

That idea didn’t last too long. Player outcry over the whole thing led to changing that plan. They’ve left it alone until now, and three years means that things which were due to rotate are now being given an extra year.

So let’s look at some of the big winners, and where the prices might end up going.

Before I get into this list, James and I talked on MTG Fast Finance about the very real possibility of there being a new round of Challenger decks, stuffed full of reprints and value. Three years is a long time, and having access to a potential reprint outlet like this is useful. We could also get Aftermath-style mini-sets, or more bonus sheets. Something is going to happen to allow Wizards to make money on this decision, and for all of these, there’s an implied risk of reprints.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker ($28 for the cheapest copies, $51 for the priciest ones) – Fable was all over the place in the PT, and it’s all over the Constructed scene. It was very cheap at first and is now impressively expensive for a rare that now has 16 months to get even more expensive. It’s a staple in several formats, casual and Professional alike, and the only thing stopping me from running out and buying every copy I can under $30 is the nagging fear of banning.

Fable isn’t overpowered for any one strategy, but it’s effective in almost all of them. Reanimator, control, midrange, even some aggro decks play a couple of copies. It’s glue that holds lots and lots of strategies together, and adds amazing consistency to the whole range. I can’t bet against its banning, given how it was a four-of for five of the top 8 decks at the Pro Tour. 

If you’re comfortable with the risk, Fable is going to go up over the next year unless more copies enter the market.

Reckoner Bankbuster ($4 to $9) – Fable is good, but an enormous number of decks want to run a Bankbuster too, mainly as a way to turn excess mana into extra cards. Bankbuster is worth it in a range of strategies and being an artifact, can go into any deck regardless of color. I’m not expecting huge gains here, but it’s in a whole lot of decks, is good early and late, and should be pushing $10 if not reprinted and the usage stays high.

Invoke Despair ($0.50 to $3) – The Invoke spells, with four colored mana pips, are meant to be a heavy tax, and they truly are. Unless, of course, you’re in an environment with cycling tri-lands, painlands, and slow-lands, plus Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to smooth out the rough edges…then it’s a lot easier to cast this spell.

Despair looked amazing on camera at the Pro Tour, and is one of the wonderful ways to even out a board where your opponent landed a Wedding Invitation, The Wandering Emperor, a Samurai token, and a Bankbuster. Alongside targeted removal, this does impressive work and if you can get a big brick of the promo versions for under a buck, I think you’ll have a chance to sell them to a buylist for $2 or $3 per copy. The regular copies are at $1.50, and I think there’s potential there too, but for a card like this, I’d much prefer a cheaper buy-in.

Unlicensed Hearse ($10 to $15) – This sees play in lots of formats, and is a great counter to assorted reanimation strategies while building up a late-game threat. Everything to love here, but the price might already be too high to allow big growth. 

Cut Down ($0.50 to $1.00) – On TCGPlayer, there’s several big walls of this near fifty cents, and given the efficient nature of the spell, and the super-wide range of things it kills, I can see this being another good buylist target. Keep in mind that there’s a promo version floating around for $1.50 or more for nonfoils, and that’s got the potential to stop the growth.

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire ($6 to $20) – Takenuma was less than half this price at one point, and with another year of growth to come, it’s got potential to hit $10 or $12. It’s rarely played as more than a one-of, but it’s a free way for black decks to add value to the lands. Commander decks do much the same thing, and the drain of 100-card formats is probably going to contribute to its growth.

Innistrad and New Capenna lands (wide range) – Both the tri-lands and the slowlands were due to rotate this fall. These are efficient, effective, and perfect for what they do. These lands are the harbinger for telling us if Standard is really back for paper play. These were due to rotate in the fall, and now are good till late 2024. That’s a long time for people to buy playsets of Haunted Ridge or Ziatora’s Proving Ground, or some other color combination. Mana is about to be very good for Standard, and these lands should all show a minor-to-major bump.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse ($70 to $130) – Let’s end this list with two cards that are going to rotate in late 2025. This version of Sheoldred is enormously popular, as it takes a thing we all love doing, a thing that we’ve been trained to recognize as pretty much the best thing we could be doing, and making it into a liability for our opponents. That’s a pretty amazing thing to accomplish, and for only four mana!

Dominaria United came out in September of 2022, and in that time, this card has rocketed up and shows little sign of slowing down. Standard plus Commander demand is a great formula, and even the extra copies of concept art didn’t make a dent in prices. 

It’s been a long time since we had a $100 card in Standard, but it looks like we’re about to get there, considering that there’s still two whole years before rotation! Sheoldred needs a reprint, else it’ll be the poster child for a problematic Standard.

Chandra, Hope’s Beacon ($7 to $14) – Normally, I’m an advocate for waiting longer on cards before buying in, but this newest Chandra is already available pretty cheap for a mythic. It’s possible that the price dips down a buck or two in the next few months, but any Standard format where this card can kill two big threats and then next turn copy an Invoke Despair is going to make me take notice.

It’s hard for this card to be bad, and very very easy for it to be outstanding. Every instant or sorcery they print makes this card that much better, and it’s another card that has more than two years till it’s banned! Definitely one to watch and likely one to buy.

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.

You might not think a new set was out already, but here it is, an ‘epilogue’ set with no commons and full-priced boosters.

Let’s start with the big change: This is a very small set, not meant for drafting or Sealed or anything like that. There’s no commons! In other times, this might have been a bonus sheet, just like the Multiverse Legends sheet for March of the Machine.

So let’s get into what is what, and how rare is rare. Surprises ahead!

We’re given 15 uncommons, 25 rares, and 10 mythic rares. 

Each of those cards will have an Etched Foil version and a special frame. Most of the special frames reflect the planes involved, as they did with the Multiverse Legends set. The land of the set, Drannith Ruins, and the six cards that have a retro frame do not have Halo foil versions.

Three rarities, two frames, three foil treatments. They don’t always overlap, either. Etched foil has the matte frame we’re used to, plus we have Extended Art versions of all the rares and mythics in this set.

Plus, there’s two different boosters. Epilogue Boosters and Collector Boosters.

Epilogue Boosters are the more basic, and the cheaper ones.

We can calculate this pretty quickly, especially because Etched Foil and Halo Foil aren’t options for this booster.

One of the things we’re told in the Collecting article is that 1 in 6 Epilogue Boosters will have a rare or mythic rare. That’s outside what I’d expect, but a useful tidbit because now we know the relative proportions of rarities to each other in this set.

Hearken back to Algebra with me. We’re told that 5/6 boosters will have an uncommon in the slot. We also know that Wizards likes to distribute twice as many rares as mythic rares. Breaking that down, and with a little fractions, we can say that out of 18 random boosters, 15 will have an uncommon, 2 will have a rare, and one will contain a mythic rare.  With this in mind, here is the table for the distribution for the next to last slot, a regular frame, traditional foil of any rarity:

	Percent chance of opening any card of that rarity	How many of these will you get in a booster box of 24?	How many packs to open to get a specific card of that rarity?
Uncommon	83.1%	19.94 uncommons	18 packs
Rare	11.2%	2.68 rares	225 packs
Mythic Rare	5.6%	1.34 mythics	180 packs

Now you might be saying, “Wait a minute, rares are rarer than mythics?” and the answer appears to be yes. Rares are going to appear twice as often, but there’s only ten mythics to choose from. 

The final slot in this booster is a mix of everything in the Booster Fun frame. Which in this case is everything, both foil and nonfoil. With that many options, you can imagine your odds get more and more terrible. We know that they give us the 1 in 6 for rares and mythics. It’s an additional 1 in 6 to get a foil in this slot!

Booster Fun frame (planar, retro, borderless)	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of boosters to open one specific card from that category
Nonfoil Uncommon	69.3%	4.62%	21.6
Nonfoil Rare	9.26%	0.37%	269.97
Nonfoil Mythic Rare	4.63%	0.46%	215.98
Traditional Foil Uncommon	13.8%	0.92%	108.7
Traditional Foil Rare	1.85%	0.074%	1,351
Traditional Foil Mythic	0.925%	0.0925%	1,081

Again, for the Epilogue Boosters, the rarest rares are rarer than the rarest mythic rares. Wild, but normally there’s a higher proportion of rares to mythics. 

Let’s talk about Collector Boosters. 

The Traditional foil/regular frame slot is easy to figure out. There’s 25 rares and 10 mythics, and therefore the pool of potential pulls is 60 cards (2 of each rare, 1 of each mythic.) You’re at 1/30 to get the rare you want and 1/60 for the mythic you want.

Extended-Art is one more step. There’s an EA version for each rare and mythic. Then 1/3 of these boosters will have a foil in the slot. 

	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of boosters to open one specific card from that category
Nonfoil EA Rare	55.56%	2.22%	45
Nonfoil EA Mythic Rare	11.11%	1.11%	90
Foil EA Rare	27.7%	1.11%	45
Foil EA Mythic Rare	5.56%	0.56%	180

The Etched Foils are precisely the same as the Traditional Foil.  There’s 25 rares and 10 mythics, and therefore the pool of potential pulls is 60 cards (2 of each rare, 1 of each mythic.) You’re at 1/30 to get the rare you want and 1/60 for the mythic you want.

Then the last slot, where special Planar frames come into play, as well as Halo foil printings. They did a tricky thing here, as retro foils aren’t available in Halo. So while we have 25 rares and ten mythics in traditional foil, we also have 21 rares and 8 mythics in Halo foil. It’s a little odd, but here’s 

	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of boosters to open one specific card from that category
Traditional Foil Planar Frame Rare	69.4%	2.7%	36
Traditional Foil Planar Frame Mythic Rare	13.9%	1.39%	72
Halo Foil Planar Frame Rare	11.67%	0.55%	180
Halo Foil Planar Frame Mythic Rare	2.2%	0.27%	360

With all this said, let’s summarize with examples of each rarity and version.

Card/treatment/set	Approx. number of Epilogue Boosters needed to find one copy
Nonfoil Planar Frame Feast of the Restless Dead (Uncommon)	21.6
Nonfoil Planar Frame The Kenriths’ Royal Funeral (Rare)	269.97
Nonfoil Planar Frame Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep (Mythic Rare)	215.98
Card/treatment/set	Approx. number of Collector Boosters needed to find one copy
Nonfoil Extended Art Spark Rupture (Rare)	45
Nonfoil Extended Art Calix, Guided by Fate (Mythic Rare)	90
Foil EA Tranquil Frillback (Rare)	45
Foil EA Nahiri, Forged in Fury (Mythic Rare)	180
Etched Foil Rebuild the City (Rare)	30
Etched Foil Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin (Mythic Rare)	60
Traditional Foil Planar Frame Rocco, Street Chef (Rare)	36
Traditional Foil Planar Frame Mythic Rare	72
Halo Foil Planar Frame Sigarda, Font of Blessings (Rare)	180
Halo Foil Planar Frame Sarkhan, Soul Aflame (Mythic Rare)	360

I hope that these numbers help you figure out what purchases to make, and for how much. Stay tuned for more math with every set of packs.

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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.

The first week or so of actual sales are in the books, and we’ve got some prices that have risen impressively. Some of these we sort of saw coming, others arrived from the clear blue sky.

Let’s get into what is what, and where they might go from here.

See Double (Low of fifty cents, now $4) 

See Double is a good card. It’s already strong at 2UU for an instant-speed clone of a creature in play. It’s also 2UU: Copy target spell, which will never ever feel bad, especially if you’re getting a sweet permanent into play. Go ahead and copy someone’s Commander! Having the flexibility to do either of these things is a big game in modern Commander games, and feels pretty great.

In the later turns, being able to do BOTH is nigh ridiculous. Cleary you’re getting a 2-for-1 on pure cards, but it’s not hard to imagine you getting a lot more. Did you copy a Time Stretch and then clone someone’s Etali, Primal Storm? Perhaps you liked that Crackle with Power enough to kill the original caster AND give yourself someone else’s Avacyn, Angel of Hope?

This is a clear case where the people have spoken and the people speaking don’t use EDHREC. See Double is only listed in 1500 decks so far, and that’s good for #40 on the list. For perspective, Hoarding Broodlord is in about 150 more decks, is the same rarity, and is half as much. Give the people their best clone spell ever!

I think See Double can hold its current price nicely. TCG will backfill copies in, seeking the low points, but this has been popular enough early enough that it’ll stay above two dollars. You might see a copy here and there for $1.99 plus shipping, feel free to believe that’s a steal.

Ancient Imperiosaur (fifty cents to $2.50) 

There are ways to make this redundantly huge. If you can tap four creatures, making this cost 1GG, then it’ll come in as a 14/14. If you get to turn four, and have five creatures, you can spend GG casting this as a 16/16 with enough mana left over to Surge-cast Reckless Bushwhacker and smash some real face. 

Ward 2 is really underestimated for Constructed play. Decks in the modern day are optimized to the millimeter, and adding a big tax like this is probably going to take a whole turn. Doesn’t matter if they have a Plains and Swamp untapped, your dino is going to live and do a lot of work, at least this turn. 

The really good news here is that Ancient Imperiosaur will sell by the playset, not by the singleton. This is another card that I think will hold its price, even as an in-print rare. There’s a lot going for it and if the deck places high in results for a week or two, it could easily be a $5 card. Keep an eye on where the price is in a few months, because this might end up being a very attractive brick target.

Faerie Mastermind ($4.50 to $11) –

If you’ve listened to MTG Fast Finance, you’ve heard James talk about this card and he’s been right. It’s a standout in Commander, easily drawing you a lot more cards than it does for other people. Right away, it was expensive and like most cards, it dropped pretty far. However, it’s rebounded up from a $5 floor and come back up to $10, which is about the limit for in-print rares unless they are mega-staples like Ledger Shredder or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. 

The deterrent factor is real here too. People don’t like giving cards away, and Flash gives you the chance to get the card back quickly. After that, people won’t want to do things that end up giving you cards, so you get to have that hanging over their heads. I can also see this in group hug strategies, where you give something to everyone, but you get more!

There’s also a Rogues deck running around in Pioneer that’s playing this as a four-of, and when you add that to the #1 ranking from March of the Machine on EDHREC, you have a recipe for staying in the $8-$10 range. There’s a lot of copies being opened, but there’s also a lot of copies being bought. Keep in mind that this is a delightful target for stocking up on if it’s nearly to $6 in a couple months.

Invasion of Ikoria ($6 to $18 to $15)

We know tutors are good, so good that Green Sun’s Zenith is banned in Modern. Finale of Devastation is so good that it’s a $40 card, though it’s avoided reprints since its original printing in 2019. This battle is showing up in Pioneer’s Mono-Green decks in dribs and drabs, less as a combo piece and more as something to do with all the mana Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is making for you.

Invasion of Ikoria is also very good, though its restriction of non-Humans rules out a big section of potential targets, including a target that would probably play this in Devoted Druid combo decks. This is the #3 card from MOM currently, being in just over 5000 decks. It’s pretty awesome to have a tutor put the creature into play, and then for the low price of getting six combat damage in, you get a free 8/8 with reach and sort-of-unblockable-ness. 

All that said, it’s a rare and it’s very difficult to have a rare keep a price this high in a Standard set, especially one being opened at the rate MOM is going. I think that this price is reflective of the number of people who open one and don’t sell it, putting it in a Commander deck instead. Even with the invisible hands at work, though, I expect this to come down to the $10 range over time.

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.

My favorite leak of all time has got to be the New Phyrexia Godbook being shared on IRC chat way back in the day. A new favorite of mine, though, is the YouTuber who filmed a couple of box openings for March of the Machine: Aftermath and decided to release those a couple months early.

As a result, we know a lot of the cards in the set ahead of schedule, and if you don’t like unofficial spoilers, you can read what I think and avoid specifics card images. I’m not going to post any of those, but I am going to talk about potential gainers based on the cards.

Krakens, Leviathans, Serpents, and Octopus cards – There’s a new blue-green legend that cares about these creature types, giving you a free card off the top based on the creature’s mana cost. You have to cast it from hand, but then you get a peek at some number of cards, then cast the spell for free. A pretty great deal for any circumstance, but what if there was a huge Kraken that reduced its cost for playing special lands, and could even return itself to your hand?

Step right up, Icebreaker Kraken, this might be your time to shine:

(disclaimer: I bought 101 of these at forty cents each when Runo Stromkirk was previewed. It’s up to sixty cents now!)

Really, this is everything the new Kraken commander might want, letting you look at a ton of cards, but not costing full price because of the built-in reduction. Then once you get the cast and ETB triggers, you can bounce it to your hand to be replayed when you want to do it all again.

There’s a lot of sweet Kraken, Leviathan, Octopus, or Serpent (hereafter known as KLOS) cards that could rise. Breaching Leviathan hasn’t had a reprint since its debut in C14 and if it dodges a reprint in Commander Masters, it might shoot to the moon. Quest for Ula’s Temple has already spiked hard once and could hit $10 again. Whelming Wave is probably the best card in your deck but it’s had so many printings that I don’t think it’ll rise to a good value. Spawning Kraken used to be a lot cheaper than it is, but making 9/9 tokens is an experience every player should have.

Special notice for Hullbreaker Horror, though. 

The Double Feature foil is over fifty bucks, so there’s unlikely to be huge gains made there. The FEA versions can still be had under $20, especially because this is going to rotate out of Standard in a few months. It still sees a sprinkle of Standard play, most often as a control finisher, but blue decks of any type, even KLOS, love to leave mana up for shenanigans then resolve something bonkers like this.

Moving on from KLOS cards, there’s a new Ob Nixilis who is an immediate game-ending combo with All Will Be One, with the catch that every damage dealt exiles the top card of your library. This doesn’t immediately lose you the game, as it never says ‘draw a card’ but it’s something to be aware of. We’re also going to see a certain number of pingers spike, things like Pestilence and Pyrohemia as well. Repeatable ways to deal one damage, like Shivan Gorge, the unloved child of Urza’s Saga’s five rare lands. Gaea’s Cradle, Tolarian Academy, Serra’s Sanctum, Phyrexian Tower, and then poor ol’ Gorge. Tough times.

Since it triggers off of opponents losing exactly one life, there’s a range of cards that might go haywire. Ayara, First of Locthwain or Bastion of Remembrance are good, Bontu’s Monument is already a $10 foil in uncommon. Cryptolith Fragment is possibly going to jump too, but the deeper cut is Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant, from the AFR Commander subset. Lots of fun for everyone! Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath, one of the original planeswalker-as-commanders who will also work very well in the deck.

There’s a new Karn, who cares both about having a high mana value artifact in play as well as having lots of artifacts in play. Gotta go big and wide. Myr Battlesphere comes to mind, and while that’s had twelve printings, there’s foils only from Double Masters and Scars of Mirrodin, reasonable targets both. 

Snake Basket also comes to mind as a way to take a lot of mana and make tokens, as does Hangarback Walker. Thopter Assembly is slow, but can be a fun way to do the thing you want to do. The big thing I’m thinking of, though, is a card that I can’t advocate speculating on because it cries out to be in Commander Masters: Mycosynth Golem.

It was in Fifth Dawn and it had a presence on The List for a short while, but the card is pushing $40 on the idea that there’s almost no copies in circulation somehow. This will get reprinted, and remind players all over again how busted a mechanic this truly is. I can’t say if it’ll be in a Secret Lair or Commander Masters, or when the reprint will arrive, but it’s a matter of when, not if.

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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.