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 an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

The new set is fully released as of today, though the prerelease isn’t for another week yet. Still, we’ve got all the information we need to look at the breakdown Wizards gives us and figure out how hard it is to open certain cards.

There’s nothing serialized in this set, though there’s a mega-rare textless Sothera, the Supervoid that is in less than 1% of packs. 

So let’s look at the numbers, make some tables, and have some idea of how far someone will need to go to get the copies of the card they really, really want!

All of this information comes from the Collecting Edge of Eternities article, which tells us both how many of each card there are for each category, and what percentage of packs can open a card from that category. From there, it’s straightforward math. 

The last three slots in a Collector Booster are where we want to focus, as that’s likely to have all the value, but first, let’s address what Play Boosters add to the quantities in circulation for the more chase cards. We can’t open Galaxy foils in Play Boosters, but there is a tiny chance of opening special frame foils.

Play Boosters have a dedicated foil slot, which can have:

• A common (58%), uncommon (32%), rare (6.4%), or mythic rare (1.1%) from Edge of Eternities‘s main set
• A rare (1%) or mythic rare (less than 1%) Stellar Sights land
• A rare (less than 1%) or mythic rare (less than 1%) borderless viewport, triumphant, or surreal space card

That first bullet point adds up to 98.5%. That means the mythic stellar sights, rare or mythic rare borderless viewport, triumphant, or surreal space cards add up to 1.5%. 

Traditionally, mythic is twice as rare as regular rare. 58 non-main-set rares, and 27 mythics. So there’s two tiny numbers to multiply: first, you’ve got a 1.5% chance of drawing from this group, and then you’re rolling for a card from a pool of 143 cards (2 sets of rares, one of mythics). All told, that means to get a specific foil mythic rare from this group it is going to take you approximately 9,524 Play Boosters, and 4,767 packs to get a specific rare from this group of cards.

All told, it is substantially harder to get a rare foil of those types from a Play Booster than it is to get anything from Collector Boosters. This does add some extra copies into circulation, but it’s such a small number that I’m not going to stress it when thinking about the numbers of cards getting printed.

The first slot we care about in a EOE Collector Booster is the special frame nonfoil, which can have:

• A rare (47%) or mythic rare (5%) extended-art card from the Edge of Eternities main set
• A rare (7%) or mythic rare (4%) borderless viewport land
• A rare (17%) or mythic rare (3%) borderless triumphant card
• A rare (15%) or mythic rare (2%) borderless surreal space card

It’ll be tough to get those four nonfoil mythics in the Triumphant style, and that includes the new three-mana Tezzeret. Otherwise, this isn’t too bad, though a bit rarer than past sets with a nonfoil slot like this. We’ve had a couple sets in a row where nonfoil got two slots like this, which doubles your chances, but in EOE we’re using that for the Stellar Sights sheet.

Speaking of the Stellar Sights, that’s the next slot, with foils, nonfoils, and Galaxy Foils mixed together:

• A non-foil rare (36%) or mythic rare (9%) Stellar Sights land
• A non-foil rare (18%) or mythic rare (4%) poster Stellar Sights land
• A traditional foil rare (12%) or mythic rare (3%) Stellar Sights land
• A traditional foil rare (6%) or mythic rare (1.5%) poster Stellar Sights land
• A galaxy foil rare (6%) or mythic rare (1.5%) Stellar Sights land
• A galaxy foil rare (3%) or mythic rare (less than 1%) poster Stellar Sights land

To no one’s surprise, the Galaxy Foils are the hardest pulls, requiring an enormous number of packs to land on the mythics. This slot adds up to 80% rares, making for some mostly unimpressive pulls and some extremely pricey ones. Galaxy Foil versions of these creaturelands are going to lead to some feelsbad moments, but that’s the price we pay for these right now.

Finally, let’s look at the slot with all the other chase foils and frames. This last slot can have:

• A traditional foil rare (38%) or mythic rare (4%) extended-art card from the Edge of Eternities main set
• A traditional foil rare (6%) or mythic rare (3%) borderless viewport land
• A traditional foil rare (13%) or mythic rare (2%) borderless triumphant card
• A traditional foil rare (12%) or mythic rare (2%) borderless surreal space card
• A traditional foil Special Guests card (6%)
• A traditional foil (9%) or fracture foil (1%) Japan Showcase card
  • All Japan Showcase cards will always appear in Japanese in Japanese Collector Boosters. For all other Collector Boosters, these cards appear in English two thirds of the time and Japanese one third of the time.
• A galaxy foil rare (2%) or mythic rare (1%) borderless viewport land
• A textless singularity foil Sothera, the Supervoid appears in less than 1% of Collector Boosters

These add up to 99%, so there’s some rounding errors going on for that textless Sothera. My guess is it lands at about the same rate as the galaxy foil Stellar mythics, around 2000 packs, but they gave us percentages that add up to exactly 100%, so we have no way of knowing for sure. 

The Japan Showcase cards are subdivided further in non-Japanese-language CBs, where you have a 2/3 chance of opening one in the booster’s language and a 1/3 chance of Japanese. So in an English pack, it’ll take roughly 1515 packs to get a specific Showcase in Fracture Foil, or 3000 packs to get a Japanese-language version in Fracture Foil.

This slot is also very heavily pushed towards rares. In Collector Boosters, 71% of packs will open a rare in this slot, including the 2% that have Galaxy Foils. There’s an additional 16% for the Japan Showcases and the Special Guests, leaving just 13% of packs for mythics from any grouping. In a box of 12 packs, you’re looking at 1.5 mythics total, on average, coming from this slot. Packs are swingy by nature, but this is a very pronounced example of such wide potential values. 

I hope this helps you make clear decisions about what to buy and what to open. If you want to talk about my math or methods, please reach out on social media or stop by the ProTrader Discord. Good luck in your pack cracking!

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 an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Let me tell you a quick story about my June 1995 experience, as a sophomore/junior who’d been playing for a few months. My local store (Last Grenadier in Burbank, forever next to the mall, RIP) had a box that they put five-cent uncommons into, and when Ice Age came out, I didn’t know it was going to come out.

I just knew that one day, that box had a label added: Ice Age in here! So I eagerly riffled through the cards, exclaiming, and then I saw it. Counterspell. An $8 rare from Revised, was sitting in the nickel bin! And there was another behind it!

I didn’t look at the rest of the cards, I just went to the register and gave over a buck for the 18 other cards and my $16 pair of counterspells, feeling like I was committing a felony. Then I went to my friend and said, “Look what was in the nickel box!”

He looked at me and said, “Yup, that’s a common now.” I felt the world shift, and then I looked at my stack of commons with new and disgusted eyes. 

That’s the feeling I think a lot of people are going to get as this game deals with the aftereffects of Final Fantasy. 

There’s been a lot of markers for transitions regarding this game over the years: damage on the stack, the new frame, Arena, COVID, etc. We’ve adapted to these changes, and learned new ways to manage the ways we can make money off of these changes. 

Final Fantasy is one of those changes. Never before have we activated so many people or added such a rabid set of collectors as we did for this set. As a result, the money involved is through the roof, and we’ve attracted more attention than ever. 

This means some changes, some *big* changes, and since we’re in uncharted territory here, we need to talk about what could be happening next. 

We’ve never had people stalking Target for restocks on Magic cards, but here we are. If you can buy the single Collector Boosters (often referred to as an ‘Omega’ pack) for the MSRP of $40, you can resell it for $100+ on eBay or TCGPlayer. That’s uncharted territory for sealed Magic product, unheard of for the current set. There’s a few sets where saving sealed product pays off well, Lord of the Rings’ Holiday Edition is the biggest one in recent memory, but never before has the buy/sell been so dramatic and so immediate.

People are stalking the restock at Target or Best Buy like they do for Pokemon. We’re getting called scalpers and such, but keep in mind this is all hype around Collector Boosters. The base version of the game is still going at a reasonable price, the hype and big money is chasing the premium versions. 

What we need to keep in mind is that these are folks who don’t know Magic trends, and they might cause Edge of Eternities to have some weird pricing. If you don’t know, then you might think that all the sets are this way. We’ll see what happens to the price of sealed product for EOE, and then, heaven help us, we’re hitting another enormous IP with the release of Spider-Man.

Spider-Man will be the second product in five months which capitalizes on a very well-known property. We don’t have details yet, but we know it’ll include the Spider-verse, the most recent animated movies, and I would be surprised if the Marvel live-action movies didn’t play a part. This is going to be recognizably Spider-Man, and that means we need to buckle up for a whole different group of whales to enter the game and chase singles.

There won’t be a Pro Tour: Spider-Man though, not like there was for Final Fantasy. The Pro Tour in September will be Pro Tour: Edge of Eternities even though the PT date is literally that Friday, September 26. I don’t know what sort of scheduling is happening, but it’s clearly something Wizards fumbled. The fact that Arena cards/art will not be the same as the physical cards is a huge miss, very confusing, but I doubt that will affect the prices or play patterns much.

We’re going to see some extremely disappointed people, as the Pro Tour Cloud, Midgar Mercenary is going for $4,000+ as a nonfoil, the participation in the Pro Tour. The top 32 got foil versions that have sold for as much as $25,000! The Pro Tour before that, which was Pro Tour Aetherdrift in late February of this year, participants got a nonfoil Karn Liberated: 

Top 32 got a foil version, but the price gap here is breathtaking. To make it worse, let me quote from Wizards’ website: “Karn Liberated is 2025’s Pro Tour and World Championship Secret Lair prize card, so expect to see more of our favorite sun-tanning silver golem throughout the year at the Magic Pro Tour.” Right now, on eBay, I can find nonfoils under $300 and foils for $1200. That is a huge gap in price and attention.

Heck, even the RC participation card is a sweet Aerith variant, and that’s a card I will be keeping an eye on too.

What I want to keep in mind here is that the influx of new people to the game means that if they start with Final Fantasy…they are going to expect every set to behave this way. And while EOE is shaping up to be a fun set, it’s not going to be in the same league financially. You can’t get a month’s bills out of whatever nonfoil is being handed out, or an MP Beta Black Lotus from the foil version.

If they act the same way (I hope they don’t, but humans are humans) then we’ll see people buying in a frenzy, and trying to sell cards that no one is heavily motivated to buy. That’s a nice Karn, but buddy, you’re no Cloud Strife.

That will lead to people becoming motivated and confused sellers. Again, if your business model is ‘stalk the restockers, instantly sell for 2.5x’ for Edge of Eternities, then you are in for some very bad times.

I think EOE will have some brutal undercutting going on, but I can’t say for sure what the price levels will end up at. What I’m really not sure about is what this will mean when Spider-Man shows up. Will we see people stalking the unsuspecting floor workers again? If there’s a ‘bad’ set to this group of people, will they write off Magic entirely, or wait for others to tell them that it’s worth going after again?

There will undoubtedly be an effect on EOE prices, as sealed becomes a harder thing to find. I am doubtful that the singles will hold up, though, because so far, this looks like a sweet Magic set but nothing that captures a brand new group of collectors the way FIN did. Brace yourselves, because we’re in for a wild ride. 

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 an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Edge of Eternities is going to release in about a month, and the previews start Monday. We’ve already found out about spaceships, and shocklands, and at least one Eldrazi. There’s teasers and leaks and all sorts of things, but before we get to some Edge of Eternities packs, something else is coming up fast.

That’s right, on July 14th, we get a chance to buy a Sonic the Hedgehog themed Secret Lair drop. We haven’t been told if there are other drops coming with this, and while I think more is unlikely right now, I can’t rule anything out with Wizards these days. 

So let’s go over the drops, and the cards, and see where we want to put our money. 

As an overview, we’re going to start with the one drop that’s all new-to-Magic, and costs $10 more. The other two are reskins, and they are at the usual $30/$40 price point. I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep that price point as the base setting, as I fully expect Wizards to crank that to $40/$50 as the base price at some point in the future. 

We also haven’t been told of any bundle discounts or add-ins, so if they spring new information on us, I’ll update this post. For the reprints, I’m going to list the most expensive non-serialized version of the card, as well as the EDHREC number. Be careful with that number, because as you’ll see some cards that have been printed in Commander precons (maybe even more than once) are listed here because of the folks who take a deck and do budget upgrades or league additions, it’s not in for power reasons. 

Secret Lair x Sonic: Friends & Foes

I am a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to new-to-Magic cards being sold via Secret Lair, and while I know Wizards has said that their policy is to make some Universes Within versions of cards eventually, they haven’t really done much of that since they printed all of the Street Fighter cards as Universes Within.

That said, the last few times they’ve done this, it’s been the Marvel cards and those have consistently done well. Those drops were new legend plus favorite cards, and now we’re looking at one $50 drop to get seven new and unique cards? Heck yes. 

The attention has all been on Shadow’s ability to obliterate counterspells by giving all of your stuff split second if artifact mana is involved. That’s a really powerful ability, and Rakdos decks really do despite reactive blue mages who don’t bother to play permanents.

However, most of the rest range from decent to outstanding. Eggman is causing or will cause everything ‘villainous choice’ to spike. Sonic himself is a great headliner for a themed deck. Knuckles gives a Treasures win condition to red, to go with Revel in Riches in black. Amy and Tails are okay at what they do, and Super State goes real nice into your most hated Uril, the Miststalker builds.

If this was $30/$40, it would be even easier to recommend this drop, but it’s still great value at $40/$50, and I will at least be getting the max of foils on this. Probably the nonfoils too.

Secret Lair x Sonic: Turbo Gear 

The Reaver Cleaver (DMC EA $13) – 124k decks – It’s a good card, and getting a premium reprint that should go well into a range of decks. However, to be widely adopted it’s got to be outstanding and this isn’t that. I think we’re going to see a big glut of copies hit the market and this won’t be a pricey card. 

Swiftfoot Boots (SLD bonus $35) – 1.72 million decks – I’d like the art better if we saw more of the character’s face, but I get it, this is is a pair of shoes that you had to have in a Sonic-themed drop. Some players love the cartoon look, others hate it, and this should be a middle of the pack sort of price. 

Myr Battlesphere (pack foil $10) – 113k decks – There hasn’t been a foil of this done in a long time, but the power of this card has been in making a horde of tokens on its own. I have a hard time thinking the demand for the singles will be enough to keep the foil over $10.

Hammer of Nazahn (CMM etched foil $27) – 108k decks – There’s a few ways to make your commander indestructible, and this is one of them. The cheapest versions are in the $10 range but that’s on the back of very few copies entering circulation. Plus, as I said with the Boots, it’s just a hammer and not really iconic with the character or the art. 

Lightning Greaves (Inventions $220) – 1.57 million decks – With 47 printings, including the memetastic Chancla we are getting in the Nuestra Magia drop, it’s very hard for a new version of this to break $20. I don’t think this will, but should be a solid $10 card. 

Weatherlight (prerelease foil $5) – 42k decks – It’s got to hit to draw a card, though it can only draw historic cards, though this is sweet art with two characters from the theme. Won’t be expensive.

Secret Lair x Sonic: Chasing Adventure

Generous Gift – (SLD Kitties foil $45) – 700k decks – This is perhaps the worst case of precon bias around. Stroke of Midnight gives a 1/1 and while it’s good to hit lands, that’s a big change on a creature’s stats. The kitties version is from four years ago, and this version, while cute, isn’t going to make a splash.

Open the Armory – (CML foil $4) – 130k decks – With Captain America, Cloud, and all the other Equipment themed commanders, this will be an excellent target for Dump Week, getting in cheap on a wanted card. 

Fabricate – (SPG foil $20) – 172k decks – There are multiple good versions of this card, and I think it’ll settle in the $10 range, given the number of copies about to enter circulation.

Deadly Dispute – (Fallout surge foil $10) – 368k decks – I can’t remember seeing a card printed this many times in a row, albeit with a sweet art/frame each time. Shadow the Hedgehog here, the FCA version coming out of Final Fantasy, and the Frank Frazetta SL that dropped a month ago. If there was just one, I would feel good about it. Three all at once means they all have a steep climb to being expensive. We might be able to get these cheap later too.

Unexpected Windfall – (Fallout surge foil $17) – 196k decks – A decent card, if you want the treasures, but only the low supply of Fallout surge foils made this expensive. 

Sol Ring – Too many to count, honestly. Has had 111 printings, and is the banner card for the format. I think this is a very cool Sol Ring, and as we’ve seen, there’s room for lots and lots of $15-$20 Sol Rings. The foils especially should look awesome, with how the ring is laid out. 

What I’m Buying

This may come as a surprise, but I’m lukewarm on this drop. I think the friends and foes is a great buy, given that many unique cards, but the other two…I don’t think I need to purchase the whole drop. I’ve written about Dump Week a few times now, and this drop is going to be an excellent time for me to put into practice what the data indicates. I fully expect the lairs to sell out within a day or two, and when people get their copies and crack them, I’ll want to target the Sol Ring, Open the Armory, and Hammer of Nazahn. The rest just don’t interest me and will have a hard time appreciating in value. 

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 an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.