I love Hofri Ghostforge, not just because he does awesome things like make your Spirits get haste and trample, not just because he enables all sorts of extra value shenanigans, but because he’s a Commander in a tribe and color combination that hasn’t had a lot of direct support. Sure, Kykar makes spirit tokens, but that’s a commander for a spells-based deck that wants to get degenerate.

My personal preference is almost always tribal goodness, where synergies can grow and thrive. Hofri offers that, telling us to play a R/W Spirit deck and all the enablers we can think of. Let’s dive in, and see where the value is before others catch on.

Some of these are decent specs anyway, but keep an eye on Hofri’s status on EDHREC’s list of commanders. Currently #8, if that creeps upward some of these are going to spike hard, and that’s when you want to be selling.

Balefire Liege ($3 nonfoil/$14 foil/$3 MYB foil) – This was the first card that really caught my eye. Eventide was forever ago AND had a pretty small print run. It’s had two reprints: Planechase (also forever ago) and most recently as a Mystery Booster retail foil. There’s only 27 EVE foils on TCG right now, and only 7 are NM. That’s a really low supply, and MYB foils weren’t exactly common to begin with. An excellent pickup, even before you get into the awesome synergies that the Liege offers with all the things you’re doing. 

Eternal Dragon (less than a buck) – Mostly, I’m looking at the Pro Tour promos for $10 or less, and thinking about how there’s none of the original foil left. Right now on TCG there’s three LP foils, for $60, $225, and $275. Someone read my mind already, as that foil was available for under $40 until just a couple of weeks ago. It does everything a deck like this would want, giving long-term value and even giving you a way to trigger all of the ‘leaves graveyard’ effects on a regular basis. 

Hokori, Dust Drinker ($8/$25) – Hokori has never had a reprint, and is one of those cards that makes a table grind their teeth in annoyance. This is not something you can apply one-sided, like Urza and Winter Orb. A reprint would hit this card pretty hard, as it’s not in high demand anywhere. This price is all the scarcity of being the middle set of a block that did not sell particularly well and was 16 years ago. That said, because copies are so rare, it won’t take much to cause a price bump.

Jiwari, the Earth Aflame (50 cents/$3) – 5 NM foils on TCG for a card that’s both niche and should see a lot more play. Channel is an ability that is hard to interact with. You can Disallow the ability, but you can’t Counterspell it. It’s repeatable killing on the table, or a semi-boardwipe, all in a tasty Spirit package. 

Karmic Guide ($7 up to $140 for the OG foil) – There’s been a few versions of this over the years, but it’s such a ridiculously easy card to abuse! Being from the first foil expansion set has kept the foil value high over the years, and the Angel synergies tend to play a part too. If Spirits start taking off as a tribe, I’d expect these $7 copies to hit $15 quickly.

Kataki, War’s Wage ($1 up to $35) – Two reprints to check on here: One was Modern Masters 2013, the other was the infamous Modern Event Deck, the only one of its kind. Should Commander players start picking this up, look for the MM foils to shoot up first, as there’s about a $20 gap between that one and the Saviors of Kamigawa original.

Myojin of Cleansing Fire ($3/$25) – Only one NM foil on TCG, for a card that’s never been reprinted. Sure, it’s eight mana to destroy all other creatures, but that’s the dream in Commander-land. Triggering this with Hofri out will get you all the tokens for the other creatures you control, so use with caution.

Nobilis of War (25 cents up to $5) – Having the Modern Masters 2015 reprint probably means this won’t take off, but it’s fantastic in the deck. Giving this Spirit a boost, plus trample and haste, means that it and any other Spirits are going to come down and hit hard. Unlikely to have a huge gain, unfortunately.

Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens ($1/$7) – I get that this is a seven-mana card that requires you to cast more Spirits, but to Commander players, that’s not a downside. We run a search for the creature type in the text or type line and get to it. This will have wonderful returns once it’s in play, and is the kind of card more casual players fall in love with. So many Spirits!

Ryusei, the Falling Star deserves special mention here as it’s got not just the OG foil from Kamigawa, but the alternate-art prerelease foil that is a sweet-looking Dragon Spirit as well! There’s a whole lot of cheaper versions, and also two other foil versions from Iconic Masters and Modern Masters 2013. 

Twilight Drover ($3/$10) – One of the most incredible token enablers ever, the Drover has surprisingly avoided much reprinting. One Duel Deck appearance, and then that’s it. The foil is primed to explode, with only a handful of copies left and very few of those NM.

Yosei, the Morning Star ($2 up to $15) – Either go for the OG foils or the IMA foil with the sweet new art. 

Now, a couple of enablers I love:

Emeria, the Sky Ruin ($10/$40) – The foil price is a bit misleading, as there’s very few NM foils around. White has a whole lot of one-shot reanimation effects, and I like to plan for the inevitable mass death of creatures. I was gobsmacked to find that this hasn’t been reprinted even once, but if you’ve ever seen someone recur Sun Titan with this, you’d understand the power level.

Homura, Human Ascendant ($3/$10) – Not a spirit, but a card that’s got tiny supply and is begging to be abused in an aggressive deck. 

Marshal’s Anthem (50 cents/$6) – This is one of the only ways for white or red to get back more than one creature at the same time, but having the anthem tacked on is a nice bonus. No foil reprint for this, but it’s only in 3300 decks on EDHREC. It’s been in several Commander decks over the years, including Kaldheim’s set. Focus on the foils here.

Sword of Light and Shadow ($25 up to $100 for a Masterpiece) – A lot of Masterpieces have seen recent spikes as collectors exert a heavy toll on prices, but this hasn’t gone up yet. White doesn’t have a lot of creature recursion, and this is one of the few re-usable effects. I’d prefer that it comes back into play, but you can’t have it all. The Masterpiece is where I’d want to be, although the old-border judge foil is also super sick art and has been more than $75 in the past.

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.

Strixhaven is available online now, and lots of attention is going to those drafts, but take a moment and do some planning with me. I was going to write about the cards that are best to get rid of as rotation approached, but I kept stumbling over uncommons with high EDHREC numbers and prices that may or may not be pretty low for what they are and what they do. 

One thing about most of these cards is that with the pandemic, paper play was nonexistent and thus the supply is really impacted as opposed to uncommons from non-COVID-affected sets. Reprints are a possibility, but there’s also opportunities for gaining value.

Let’s get into these!

Migration Path ($1 regular/ $1.50 foil/ $1.50 nonfoil promo/ $3 promo foil) – Found in more than 11,000 decks online, the promo version is probably where you want to be, but you can acquire solid bricks of nonfoils for very reasonable prices. There’s a case to be made for all the versions, but when you’ve got this many options, I prefer to stick with the cheapest or the most expensive. Cheap ones offer large-quantity buylist exits, and the promo foils offer the highest ceiling. All are decent, even you want to go for the nonfoil promos. This is in less than half as many decks as the original, Explosive Vegetation, but this is strictly better. Vegetation has been printed a whole lot of times, and Path has avoided that so far.

Kenrith’s Transformation ($0.50/$0.75/$0.75/$3.50) – Ten thousand decks have sleeved this up in the last 18 months, and considering the almost-free nature of this spell, it’s not hard to see why. The replacement of a card drawn is always appealing, and this deals very effectively with a wide range of problems. All the abilities go away, no more triggers, and protection goes poof. Generally speaking, people will want to trade this in combat to get the replay value. Almost as good as Ixidron for solving problematic creatures. Again, you’ve got the option of going for bricks of the cheap copies or stocking up on the promo foils, and the promos offer the most insurance against a reprint. 

Syr Konrad, the Grim ($0.50/$5) – More than 20,000 players have put this in decks, and it’s not hard to see why. An amazing amount of things cause this to trigger, and he even hits each opponent instead of just one at a time! The foil gap is real, but there’s no special version to worry about. You had a chance earlier this year at foils for a lot less: 

Even so, if you missed out on sub-$3 foils, the demand pattern is real and the foil reprint shouldn’t come along for quite a while. This was reprinted in the Zendikar Rising Commander decks, so the nonfoil is really at a low right now. I could be talked into purchases of either version, or both!

Destiny Spinner ($1/$4) – I think that the biggest appeal here is the anti-countering clause, but the second ability is a nice bonus too in the right deck. Putting this down early, and feeling confident that your other creatures will stick around, is a real delight. We only have two versions of this, and with the enchantment frame looking as nice as it does in foil, I prefer buying in on the foil version here. Don’t miss out on the opportunity a brick of nonfoils can offer too, as there’s a fair amount of those available on TCG under a buck.

Hydra’s Growth ($1/$1.50) – This is only in 5500 decks, but the decks that want an effect like this, REALLY WANT an effect like this. The slightly lower demand for this accounts for why the foil is so close in price to the nonfoil, and that means go for the foil in this case. Yes, it’s an uncommon, but it’s a popular one from a set that didn’t get a lot of attention in paper. Grab a bunch of foils and be patient as this rises to $5.

Bastion of Remembrance ($1/$2) – Nearly 10k decks have this going on, less for the token and more for the ‘my creature dies, each of you lose one’ effect. Again, they chose to print this as ‘each opponent’ as opposed to ‘target opponent’ and that makes a HUGE difference. This is a really easy effect to abuse in a wide range of decks, and a small gap in pricing makes the foils much more attractive to me. 

Reconnaissance Mission ($1/$2) – Being in 8k decks, 3k more than Coastal Piracy, speaks a lot to how available this is, and it is directly better by any comparison. Having the option to cycle it away makes this super flexible. Gotta love that in Commander, when every card is important. Again, a small foil gap and no other versions makes the foil far more attractive to purchase, which should lead to a delightful gain past $5. 

Ominous Seas ($0.50/$1.50) – Blue decks love drawing cards, and 5500 different decks have decided that this would be a great way to have drawing cards translate to giant tentacle monsters. This is a pretty easy ability to abuse, especially if you go after the looting effects as well as pure card drawing. Foils and nonfoils alike are appealing options here, and the growth potential is clear.

Miscast ($1/$5) – Spell Pierce is in 11,000 decks, and Miscast is only half that…for a card that’s less than a year old. The high foil multiplier also indicates the high level of interest in casual circles for the card, and that’s a very good sign. I’m more inclined to pick up large amounts of nonfoils here, instead of hoping the foils spike to $10 or $15. Having the nonfoils rise to $2 or $3 seems like the more probable outcome. 

Garruk’s Uprising ($2.50/$3.50/$1/$1.50) – Yes, the Showcase versions are cheaper than the regular-frame versions, mainly because the Collector Boosters had dedicated slots for the Showcases. There’s no question that the Showcases look better, though, especially in foil, and that’s the version I’d want to be stocked up on going forward. Even if the Showcase foil rises just to the level of the regular-frame foil, you’ll be able to buylist your copies away for a small profit. With patience, though, these will get even higher and make you a delightful profit.

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.

All right, we have a release date, we have the full Commander lists, we know all of the Mystical Archive cards. We’re even got a few days of preorder prices to look at and think about as we get ready to make our purchases. The beginning of the set is always an exciting time, so let’s get into what’s a good price, what to wait for, and what is going to happen with the special versions.

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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.

We haven’t had a MagicFest/Grand Prix event since Lyon in early March of 2020. Paper Magic is starting to reopen in some places, with different levels of precautions in place depending on local governments. There are places in the world that didn’t need to shut down local stores for long, and paper didn’t really dwindle there. 

For most of the world, though, paper games are a relic of the before-time, and hopefully will be a thing that comes back soon. Commander players are making do on Spelltable, and Magic Online plus Magic Arena scratches the itch for most Constructed or Limited players. 

However, as long-term thinkers, we have to consider what is going to happen when paper play returns. What formats should we be focused on? What staples can we get now? What versions carry the best prospects?

To be clear, I don’t have any inside information about when paper events will start again. Conventions are starting to make plans, the World Series of Poker is planning on events in November, and it looks like (oh please) schools will be approaching a new normal when the fall comes around.

When it comes to paper events starting again, I don’t think Commander is going to have as huge an impact as Constructed formats. Commander has been driving prices for more than a year now, and when combined with the collectors that have been targeting older cards, you get the recent increases that we’ve seen. People have been buying new cards and getting the rarest versions of cards for their Commander decks for some time, so I’m not expecting local stores reopening to bump those prices significantly. Likewise with GP-level events: the Command Zone probably won’t be a huge price driver either.

So what I’m thinking about more are the constructed formats: Standard, Pioneer, Modern, and Legacy. Standard is on the cusp of rotation, but if I’m thinking that paper events start again in the fall, or perhaps even this summer, where do I want to be? At rotation, we’re losing Throne of Eldraine, Ikoria, Theros: Beyond Death and Core 2021. That’s a whole lot of cards we don’t want to pick up if we’re Standard-focused.

We don’t know all of Strixhaven yet, but we know that the Triomes will be leaving Standard, along with Fabled Passage. So as a starter, if I’m predicting Standard’s return, I want to be picking up the ten Pathways right now, as they are the only game in town for mana fixing. It won’t stay that way, but they are likely to be good enough to see play, and jumping from $3-$4 to $8-$9 seems reasonable. I wish I could have a better sense of which Pathways to focus on, but there’s too much unknown information with the sets still to come.

Faceless Haven and Crawling Barrens are the only creature-lands that are legal in Standard, until some new ones come along. Faceless is at $1.50 and Barrens is only fifty cents, and both would be buylist plays if purchases in large amounts. Right now there isn’t a big demand for either, but that has the potential to change, especially once the Castles rotate as utility lands. The Temples are not a spec target for me, because of the additional supply from the original Theros block.

Remember that Pioneer was announced as a format in October of 2019, and in-person play ended about five months later. The format barely had a chance to get set up! During those five months, everything was all about Pioneer from a finance perspective, and when paper events start again, I think that’s one of the main places we should be looking. Modern is a more expensive format, but those who love it, really love it. Same with Legacy, only for an even smaller group of players.

With all three of those formats, it’s MTGO or bust right now, and luckily, we’ve got good metagame data and all three are nonrotating formats. 

With Pioneer, there’s one card I’m really staring at, because it started to spike hard when Pioneer was getting started, but it’s fallen back down significantly: Sylvan Caryatid.

It’s only in ten percent of decks, but it’s the full playset when it shows up. No one dares shave on one of the best mana accelerators ever. A wide range of decks want to play this, and while Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic are also in a lot of decks, there’s a lot of those cards out there. (Yes, Mystic is on the Remastered sheet, and I’ll get to that category in a moment.) There has not yet been a meaningful reprint of the Caryatid, and as a rare plus being the buy-a-box promo, supply is constrained. Right now on TCG there’s a lot of copies in the $5 range, and that feels like an easy double-up when events happen in person again.

I’m also very big on one of the more utility creatures in the format: Bonecrusher Giant. Here, though, I am going to call attention to one of the side plots present in the current Magic pantheon: Is Constructed Magic the target audience for non-foil special frame, Showcase, Extended Art, or any other variant? It feels like the answer is yes: Tournament decks cannot play just a few foil cards for fear of being called out for Marked Cards. We now have a way to have a special version of a card without that version being noticeably warped. So if you’re going to spec on Bonecrusher Giant (good creature plus a removal spell) or Fae of Wishes (only wishboard enabler in the format) or Fabled Passage (only fetchland in the format) I’d advocate going in on the nonfoil special frame.

This includes things like the Time Spiral Remastered Old Border sheet for Elvish Mystic, or Thoughtseize, the second-most-played spell in the format right now. Getting the OB versions for $40ish is very appealing. Keep in mind that there’s other versions under $20 still, both Double Masters and Iconic Masters…but they don’t look as cool. Those versions might well be underpriced when paper launches again, for that matter.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of everything that could blow up when paper events start, but a framework for what it would take for that to happen. Do you have some other ideas, some favorite cards? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, or speak up in the ProTrader Discord!

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.