With Duskmourn: House of Horror fully revealed, there’s a lot to talk about. We’ve got new Commanders, new mechanics, and a whole lot of interest. We’ve got just about two months until Foundations is out, and while I’ll be curious to see who switches over on packs, I think Duskmourn will end up like Bloomburrow, getting an abbreviated time on its own in the spotlight. 

So with that in mind, I want to look at some of the cards that I think have real potential to go up from their preorder prices, and which I want to stay the hell away from.

Two caveats before we get into the numbers: First, there’s still two weeks till the official release, and that will include a few days where it’s Arena legal. Prereleases haven’t happened yet, and not every store or company can do preorder pricing. These are not licked-in numbers. Second, almost everything drops from preorder prices, and while I’ll explain my logic, these are swings at the fences. Be kind.

Duskmourn Commander Cards – In a Collector Booster, you’ll have a slot just for the DSC cards, and 81.9% of the times, you’ll open one of the 27 nonfoil EA cards.That gives you a roughly 3% chance to open a specific card you want, or an average of 33 Collector Boosters to snag the one you desire.These will be one of the easiest pulls from CBs.

Notably, the five DSC rooms are only available by buying and opening a sealed Commander deck, they don’t show up in the Collector Boosters at all. If any of those five cards get popular, watch out as they will climb in price quite quickly.

Ancient Cellarspawn (current preorder price $10, and $12 for EA versions)

This is one of my picks for the set, but I can’t recommend getting in at this price. There are a lot of decks that can use this, including everything that wants to pay life, to pitch, to Plot, and to Cascade. Legacy would love this card, especially pitching a Force of Will and adding 5 damage to the opponent. There’s only a couple of Commander decks that can play this with Cascade (Abbadon, Yidris) but free spells is a mechanic that Wizards has been leaning on. 

It’s even got me thinking that I’d add it to The Ur-Dragon, but really, adding one damage to my Dragon spells isn’t worth it.

It’s preordering for $10-$12, but the EA price should come down some and in a few weeks I’ll be ready to buy. 

Sadistic Shell Game ($4.50 EA/$8 regular) – The TCG prices are heavily skewed based off of who’s allowed to post preorder pricing. Folks who preorder are the ones who want the card ASAP, don’t care what it costs, and upgrade every deck with every set. It’s a lot of work and a lot of money, but that’s where we are at. 

The Shell Game is a fantastic card, and as a player used to casting Druid of Purification, let me tell you that this mechanic is busted as hell. If you’re the Archenemy, they will band together and all pick a creature that’s worthless, then you get the one that needs to go. If it’s still more free-for-all, the Game is even better because they pick first! It’s a lot of fun and you should play this card in most of your decks. The EA pricing is tempting but I’m going to be patient for a bit. It’ll drop, but not too far. The Druid is up over $6.

Duskmourn Main Set 

First of all, I think the Japanese-art Enduring cards are set to go off. We’ve got the confluence of three things Magic players have been shown to love: sweet foiling, cute animals, and hyper-rare drop rates. I did the math for you last week, but in English Collector Boosters, it’s going to take you approximately 1,428 CB packs to get just one Fractured Foil English language Enduring Courage. 

The Japanese-language versions are tougher pulls in English packs, but easier in Japanese packs. I don’t have enough information to know if that balances out yet. My inclination is that the Japanese-language cards will be priced less, even in Fractured Foil, but it won’t be too huge a gap.

The other Fractured Foil cards have potential, but cute animals are their own category in Magic. Please keep in mind that the English versions are the same degree of difficulty as the Textured Foils from OTP, but these look a lot more distinct.

Hedge Shredder feels like the card that the casual player will push up and up. That ability goes into so many decks, and will feel utterly broken in whichever deck gets it into play. I think that the demand and the combos will push the card back up to the $15 range soon, up from its current levels around $7 for the basics. So yes, I’m picking this to be the needle in the haystack, the card that rises above its preorder, or bounces quickly back up. If you get your personal copies in the $7 range I think you’re going to feel very good in a month.

Meathook Massacre II is not a supremely broken card. It is a good card, but the combination of mana cost and mana type make it difficult to use. I like the ability, and as a four mana enchantment it’s actually got a lot of utility. It’s definitely not one of the five best cards in the set, and the price will fall.

Exorcise foils should be a pretty good long-term card, as a premium piece of removal that will never be lacking for targets. I don’t like getting in right now at these prices but once the big operations have opened up their product, this is a great target to be an expensive uncommon.

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.

We’re six months past the release of Murders at Karlov Manor, and that’s the timeframe at which we can be pretty confident that supply has hit maximum and attention is pretty low 

This is the time that I want to get into speculating on cards from this set (and its Commander subset, plus the Cluedo cards) and so let’s go over the things that have the best chance of paying us off in the future.

When I’m looking at a whole set, I want to start with cross-format staples, then Commander cards, then Constructed cards, and basically nothing after that. For MKM, there’s a clear place to start.

Surveil Lands (Borderless foil $17-$40, regular frame $9-$17) – These lands are all over the place since rotation, and have jumped in price basically since release. If you got in early, you’re looking at double-ups, at least to start with. 

Notably, though, we’re looking at the next set of Triomes. It didn’t take long for Modern players to add a one-of Triome to decks, as an additional target for fetchlands, but giving the fetchable lands a surveil trigger, that’s exceedingly powerful. 

As a result, I don’t think we’re done with this growth, but I’m expecting a trickle rather than a roar from here out. These lands have two years left in Standard, and they are worthy additions to every Commander and Modern deck that can run them. I don’t think these will grow enough to be good specs, but I would definitely get your personal copies now, rather than wait till they are $5 more. (No, I don’t think a card that goes from $10 to $15 in a year is a good spec. Allow me to link you a classic by Travis Allen that explains this concept, still very relevant a decade later)

Archdruid’s Charm (Foil EA $10) – Interestingly, the most popular card from MKM on EDHREC is Demand Answers, but I don’t want to spec on commons that way, though it’s a very good version of this effect. The Charm is the #3 card from the set, after the UB Surveil land, and makes for a great spec target. It’s been registered in 48,000 decks online, and big green decks will always be a thing in Commander. These are three very good abilities, and while there’s still a lot of vendors left, the card cannot be overlooked.

Wizards has started a cycle here, too. We’ve got Archmage’s Charm, and now Archdruid’s Charm, so presumably we’ll get the other three colors eventually. When the cycle is complete, I fully expect a Secret Lair drop for the set, but for now, I think this is a fantastic spec to hit $20-$25 in the next 12 months. 

Warleader’s Call (Foil Showcase $8.50) – Being in 36k decks already is impressive, and what it does is two things that boros decks tend to want. First, you want a way to buff everything that you have, and boom, here’s a three-mana Anthem effect. Combine that with a way to kill your opponent when you spew tokens onto the board, and you’re off to the races. We know this is a good ability to have, in the permanent type that is the most difficult to remove.

I think this has great potential both as a Standard card, as Bloomburrow gave some really amazing aggro effects, and in Commander. The Standard decks currently using it are rarely at a four-of, but I’m content with 2-3 copies showing up frequently.

Case of the Locked Hothouse (pack foil $6.50) – I like that it’s in 29k decks, and it’s what every green player wants to do. This effect exists in a lot of creatures, but the enchantment being harder to remove makes it so much better. Seven lands is pretty easy to do in the majority of green decks, and then you’re off to valuetown. 

The other appealing thing here is that Sagas are just reprinted less than other cards. It requires a different size of art and so we don’t get as many Secret Lair or other variations. Dodging the reprint risk (at least until Return to Return to Ravnica) makes me feel better about this.

Forensic Gadgeteer (Foil Dossier $3) – The combo potential is very high here, and it can combo in two different ways, both with the Clue synergies and with the reduction in costs. We’ve got another version of this card in Sai, Master Thopterist, and the most premium version of that is over $6. I like where this could go, but the hard part is that the investment may be locked up for quite a while. 

Pick your Poison (Foils $2) – There’s no reason for these foils to be this cheap when it’s played in as many sideboards as this is. It’s a very popular answer to The One Ring, and it was also a fun way to answer Vein Ripper in Pioneer. The recent bannings make that use-case less appealing, but it’s still a useful and flexible card. If you want to wait and see if it’s still popular in sideboards post-banning, I won’t argue.

Slime Against Humanity (Foils $3) – Purely, this is a play based on what has gone before. When a card rewards the playing of many in a row like this, the price gets high. Depending on the deck, the reprint can torpedo the value, but the great news here is that this card synergizes really well with two very popular themes: tokens and +1/+1 counters. This is a great card in a long list of strategies, and while there’s a lot of foils out there right now, they get bought in big clumps. Get a clump for yourself.

Crime Novelist (Foils $1) – Finally, let’s talk about a card that got a LOT of attention early on and now has dropped in the attention rankings. The ‘token artifacts’ method of cards has exploded in the last couple years, and the Novelist loves every bit of this. Adding additional mana after a Food, Clue, or Treasure sacrifice is something a lot of decks can’t pass up, and this will synergize with lots of cards that have yet to see print. Purely speculative, yes, but it’s already the #6 nonland card from the set. 

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.

It might seem odd, but there’s yet another Secret Lair going on sale next Tuesday, August 27. 

We have ended the Brain Dead and the Festival in a Box has another 60 days to go, but yes, it’s time for the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons! We’ve got five drops that are coming out and we need to look at if these are worth buying.

For each drop, I’m going to list the cards, their EDH inclusion rate, and the current most special version of the card and its price.

For mega-staples, the number of premium versions isn’t a huge deal, but for most of these cards, there is no other special version aside from the pack foil.

Fell the Mighty (50k, Surge foil 50¢)

Faithless Looting (364k, Mystical Archive foil $14)

Goldspan Dragon (130k, FEA $40)

Reality Shift (200k, Borderless foil $1)

Monster Manual (51k, Prerelease foil $8)

Ponder (285k, SL Showdown foil $120)

Acererak the Archlich (17k, 900 as Commander, $48 Ampersand foil)

The big draw here is the Goldspan Dragon, who sees play in any number of Treasure decks. This is the drop that appears to be the best value on its own, between the Dragon and several cards lacking special versions but have good inclusion numbers. None of these are bad cards, and even if you’re not currently running them, they are worth considering. 

Reality Shift needs special attention, because it feels like this version should be more than $1 but there is an absolute boatload of the borderless foil uncommon out there. I think this version will end up as the most expensive, but it’ll be hard for this to be too much more pricey than the borderless version.

Astarion, the Decadent (20k, incl. 3k as Commander, Prerelease foil $17)

Exquisite Blood (109k, SL Dracula foil $34)

Sanguine Bond (129k, TSR Retro foil $17)

Anguished Unmaking (244k, Textured foil $27)

Mortify (122k, Player Rewards $4)

This is solid value, considering that there’s a whole lot of Mortify and Unmaking out there. Having the two enchantments that combo off together (plus you gaining life/opponent losing life) with matching art is good, and this drop should also hold value well, even if you don’t like the character as a being or as a card. So many decks play the pair of five-drop enchantments, and so I think this will be a solid drop.

Karlach, Fury of Avernus (65k, prerelease foil $37)

City on Fire (72k, FEA $7)

Stranglehold (12k, Judge foil $8)

Thrill of Possibility (228k, Mystical Archive 50¢)

Dolmen Gate (38k, Lorwyn pack foil $120)

City on Fire feels like it should have gotten there, but Karlach being in so many decks is a testament to the awesome ability to gain a second combat, with first strike added, for no cost beyond her own. It’s very hard to argue with the ability, though it’s difficult to copy/clone.

If you’re buying this drop, it’s either in the bundle or you believe in this Karlach long-term. The other cards just aren’t played enough to be worthwhile. (Dolmen Gate’s price is an effect of too little supply. This version will be lucky to be $10.)

Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant (25k, 1k as Commander, $12 EA nonfoil)

Oubliette (22k, Arabian Nights nonfoil $31)

Fling (44k, Blood Bowl SL $4)

Fire Covenant (36k, SL foil $31)

Snuff Out (51k, Mercadian Masques foil $180)

Defile (77k, MH1 Timeshifted Foil $5)

Snuff Out is in a lot more decks than you’d think, but it hasn’t been made really popular online. This is a very mid-tier drop, and I will be happy to go after singles here. There are several $7 versions of Snuff Out, and the price should be attractively low here when the drops start arriving. 

Xanathar, Guild Kingpin (15k, 1500 as Commander, $24 Ampersand foil)

Bribery (24k, $180 Mercadian Masques foil)

Stifle (14k, $60 Invocation foil)

Delay (65k, $14 Future Sight foil)

Blood Money (41k, $5 Prerelease foil)

Drown in the Loch (71k, $23 Special Guests foil)

Xanathar is a popular choice for the decks that want to do things with other peoples’ decks. Tasha, the Witch Queen and Gonti, Canny Acquisitor are excellent examples of these decks, and Xanathar fits right into such strategies. The sneaky card to watch out for here is Drown in the Loch, as it’s still a played card in Modern and occasionally in Pioneer. Blood Money isn’t a bad choice if you want a black Wrath, and Bribery will always have a home. 

I think this drop will hold value nicely, as it’s hard for me to see special versions of these cards not holding a total of $40 in value, and I plan on getting some extra copies of Drown in the Loch, hopefully as low as $5-$10 when supply reaches its maximum.

We don’t yet know the bonus cards, or the level of bundle discount, or if there will be any bonuses for higher spending. The ‘spend X, get X’ promotions haven’t been needed to help some Lairs sell out fast, so we might not get these anymore.

I am doubtful that this set of drops has a fast sellout, but the overlap between Magic and D&D cannot be discounted. My guess is that it never sells out completely, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the D&D art one sells out first, just due to the staples present within. If the bundles turn out to be the right level of discount, none of these are truly bad, but more than one will take a long while to be profitable.

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.