Two things have happened at the same time in Magic finance: First, the Final Fantasy Secret Lair drops have started arriving, and the phenomenon I labeled ‘Dump Week’ is happening. While those prices are going down, the premium cards from the main set are rocketing upwards and the Collector Boosters are matching the escape velocity.

What does it mean and what should you buy? Read on and find out!

First of all, let’s deal with the 8,000-gem question: What is going on with the Final Fantasy Collector Boosters? 

The simple answer is that we’re at quite a nexus for making prices go wild. All of these factors are contributing to the rise of $1,000 boxes of Collector Boosters. That’s $80 for a pack! Consider the following:

• Global collector market, especially the US and Japan
• Nostalgia through the roof, over 16 main games and oodles of other games over the last 30 years
• Iconic characters in premium treatments
• Allocations for CB boxes that weren’t as high as TDM, even though this is a Standard set

Put it all together, and you have things being scorchingly hot. We’ve seen the surge foil character cards go on a tear, especially the Commander cards that people want as the headliners. Cloud, Ex-Soldier from $150 to $600. Y’Shtola, Night’s Blessed went to $700 after being $400. Tifa, Martial Artist doubled from $200 to $400 in just a few days. The only one of the eight face commanders who is under $100 is G’raha Tia, and that has a single copy at $90, as of this writing. 

Those borderless surge foils are one in 267 packs to get a specific character, or 1/33 to get any of the eight. That is nearly three boxes of Collector Boosters, which might break $1300 before we hit July 1. There’s also lots of hits to be had at $100+, for rares and mythics, mostly for the borderless characters but there’s a Buster Sword and a little bit of Bahamut in that top tier. 

The Through the Ages foils are no better. Less than a week ago, the Stay With Me version of Rhystic Study was $350, and now it’s $650. The Sephiroth version of Atraxa, Grand Unifier went from $200 to $400. Terra Branford as Urza jumped $250, and so on. Not every one of the mythics has grown this way, but lots of the character ones definitely have. Note that the foils are Collector Booster exclusives, so stay patient on the nonfoils, which can be opened in the Play Boosters. Those will be specs when the supply has maxed out, and we aren’t there yet.

Please keep in mind that these Collector Boosters are lottery tickets. You are going to get your money back on not too many of these packs, though you will open lots of cool cards. I would advocate against buying these boxes and hoping to open some of the big cards, including the Chocobos. Just spend the money on the singles you want.

With the velocities on the rise this way, and the low drop rate, it’s hard for me to imagine that any of the chase rares go down at this point. We’re having a Pro Tour this weekend where Cori-Steel Cutter decks are more prevalent than many other boogeymen of past Pro Tours, but all the focus right now is on these meteoric risers. There’s loose boosters on sale at the Magic-Con, and there’s going to be more CB boxes coming as a result of this weekend’s Arena Direct event, but I don’t think that quantity would be enough to make a dent in the current demand. There’s something like 130 boxes/day being sold, and the total number of CB boxes sold so far (which is a WEEK of public sales!) is roughly equivalent to the number of Tarkir: Dragonstorm CB boxes sold!

Some of those CB sales are undoubtedly flipping, the same box being sold more than once, but still. This is velocity that we’ve never seen before. Lord of the Rings Holiday Edition CBs have gone up and up but it’s taken a lot longer to get rolling. Dump Week for these CBs was nonexistent here, but it started at its lowest point and it’s only gone up.

Dump Week is absolutely a thing for the Secret Lairs, though. Mine won’t arrive till next week, but they have landed for a ton of people and the undercutting is real. I don’t think we’ve quite reached max supply, but given where prices are at and how cards are selling, I’m not going to freak out if these fall another buck or two, and don’t be shocked if I pick these over the coming weeks on MTG Fast Finance.

Cyclonic Rift/Hope’s Aero Magic – $30 nonfoil/$30 foil – To me, this is an incredible bargain. A foil of one of the most powerful things to do in Commander, a Game Changer, and this is $5-$15 cheaper than the most basic versions of the card. Get in now while it’s cheap–there were versions that sold earlier today for $25 but all of those have sold out already and we’re looking at $30 tonight. 

Toxic Deluge/Merciless Poisoning – $20/$23 – The borderless from Double Masters is $32 in regular and foil, and this should climb up to match it nicely. I’ll be waiting to see if this drops any farther, but foils under $20 feel like a steal. Might not go much lower, though, with all things Final Fantasy being at max hype. 

Heroic Intervention/Aerith’s Curaga Magic – $15/$15 – The Black Panther/Marvel version is freely available for $17 in foil, but Aerith’s version, having a much more ‘magical’ feeling as well as her and Cloud on the same art, which is something that I can’t enough of with collectors going berserk. 

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.

Tidus and Yuna have a great story, lasting over a couple of games and endless amount of time. There was more than one twist in FInal Fantasy X, and I don’t want to spoil things for you. But these two are Bant counters creatures, and while they work really well together, I want to talk about their decks and what people are going to play. 

Some of these cards I’ll have mentioned in the ProTrader Discord, or on the MTG Fast Finance cast, so there might have been movement already by those speculators or other unknown agents. Let’s get into it!

There’s a chance some of these see reprints in the decks, no way to know till we’ve got the lists released. Some of these, though, are tough to reprint due to IP.

Cards for the couple (meaning either deck):

Damning Verdict – $19 – This has a foil at $40-$50 from the promo pack and if there’s no foil included in the Commander decks here that could be a $100 card, as it’s unfairly perfect. There’s a lot of great SNC synergies with counters, but lopsided wrath effects are the most fun by far.

Brokers Ascendancy – Gilded Foil $5 – A lot of times you just want to get the counters on everyone and everything, so this will be a welcome card. Great version, unique styling, should do well.

Kami of Whispered Hopes – Promo Pack Foil $6 – This is the only special version so far, and this does two important things. Adds counters, and when you add counters to it, lets you scale up fast. Get yours cheap.

Hardened Scales – WOT foil $5, Borderless 2XM foil $4 – Either version will be under a lot of pressure very soon, so get the one you like best. I expect either/both to be more than $10 by July 4.

Lae’zel, Vlaakith’s Champion – Foil Etched $2 – I’m one of the folks who thinks that this showcase is so unappealing, I’d much rather have the etched. Again, adds to your counters and gives you something to do with them. 

Zimone, Paradox Sculptor – Mana foil $28 – Looking at the stock, there’s just too many of the reg borderless and the FEA available, so go for the most special version. We love doubling counters, and here you do.

Branching Evolution – FEA Surge foil $10 – You would think there was a special version along the way, but nope, go for the PIP surge foils while they are still cheap.

Yuna-specific cards

Freed from the Real – nonfoil $3 – We’ve already seen the SLD rainbow foils jump to nearly $30 in less than a day, as it makes a combo with Yuna. Tap her for a blue, her +2 counters is ready to go. Untap her, do it again, cast a Triskelion of infinite size. GG. There’s only two foil versions, both too expensive already, so get yourself some cheaper ones. 

Warden of the Grove – clan foil $4 – Warden loves coming in with counters, and helps everyone else come in with counters too. Wins all around! It might get a little cheaper as time passes but not by much. 

Marwyn, the Nurturer – DOM promo foil $5 – This is very tricky, because the upcoming Festival in a Box for Vegas will have a special foil of this staple Elf, and that’s a card I can’t wait to stock up on. 

Simic Manipulator – pack foil $1 – One of my favorite ways to turn counters into profits, the Manipulator reloads well. Even if it dies, you keep the creature you stole!

Threefold Thunderhulk – Pack foil $1 – Instant value with Yuna, as it comes in with the bonus and you instantly get the bonus tokens. Sadly, a strong candidate for being reprinted in the commander deck, so watch out. 

Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant – nonfoils $1 – As a Midnight Hunt Commander card, there’s a lot of them out there, but so so good with the theme! Extra counters means extra protection.

Sage of hours – pack foil $18 – She’s about to pop this card off, and somehow it’s never been reprinted. Sage is a staple in the counters decks, but at least it’s too good/too expensive to likely be included in the deck. 

Scholar of New Horizons – bulk – A great way to use counters and get lands for them. Also great with your assorted Sagas.

Triskelion – Borderless foil 50¢ – The classic, able to turn counters into damage instantly. 

Tidus- specific cards 

Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus – Oil-Slick foil $15 – We get to double proliferates AND a way to get indestructible counters? Heck yes. Make an indestructible counter, proliferate it, and move it? Or make two counters? The fun never stops. The other Dominus creatures should likely be included too, but the blue one is the big target here. 

Arwen, Mortal Queen – scrolls foil $17 – I agree that the poster is sweeter, and that could go up a lot. This is the range I like for my specs, to go from $20ish to $40ish is much more likely than the poster foil going $120 to $250. The card is perfect for what you want, because if you proliferate her indestructible counter, you can still remove one to give out the other counters. 

Eagle of Deliverance – bulk – There are blessed few ways to put an indestructible counter onto a creature in these three colors, and the Eagle is an expensive but useful way to do it. All you need is the first one, and you can go from there. 

Agent’s Toolkit – promo foil $8 – Tidus loves this card, and I’ve mentioned it before. You can get the only foil version surprisingly cheap, but it won’t be cheap for long. 

Falco Spara, Pactweaver – Gilded foil $12 – You might run out of things to do, but with just a couple of counters around, you can do it all! This tends to get killed quite quickly, so make hay while the sun shines. 

Contractual Safeguard – promo foil $4 – If you cast this in your main phase, you get 2W: put a shield counter on each creature you control. That’s already pretty good for a deck like this, but the potential with the other counters you’ll have access to really makes this fantastic. Again, promo foils are the only shiny ones out there. 

Diamond City – surge foil $5 – Being in the Fallout set, you’re pretty safe from reprints. It’s also really great as a proliferator because it helps you move around the things you proliferated. 

Brotherhood Outcast – Surge foil $8 – Just three mana to start the fun with a shield counter, already a pricey foil due to its inclusion in other proliferate decks, this should bump the price hard. 

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.

I am planning on getting to all of the big commanders in Final Fantasy, but the ones designed for Commander are the ones that are most likely to get a lot of the attention and the money. We don’t know all the legendaries that will be printed in the set, but we know four of the ‘face’ commanders and one of the backups.

Let’s get to Y’shtola first, as between the mana cost, effects, and character, this promises to be a very powerful and popular commander. I plan to get to each of the commanders in their own time, but my expectations are highest for the Cat Warlock.  

Before we get to the cards, there’s two big hurdles for these specs to get there: 1) Y’shtola has to be popular. I think that won’t be a big problem, but with the sheer amount of new legends we’re getting, so many fan-favorite characters, there’s a decent chance that all the attention splinters. 2) For any Commander, there’s staples, must-haves, cards which are too good to leave out. Sad truth is that decks could be 150 cards and still feel like there’s not enough space. These are cards that I would at least try in the decks, and we’ll see if that’s enough to get the prices to jump.

She wants you to cast spells and drain, and rewards you every turn for doing these things. Therefore we’ll want to maximize what we’re doing on other turns, or finding repeatable ways of inflicting life loss. I talked about how good buyback cards are for Y’shtola before, so none of those are on this list. For each of these, I’m going to call out what version I think is worth buying and what their current price is.

Foil Intimidation Campaign – bulk – There’s an awful lot of these around, but it’s exactly what the deck wants, a repeated way to cast a noncreature spell of cost 3 or more. Sadly, there’s no promo or foil-etched, I just feel that this is something worth doing in the deck. 

Bloodchief Ascension – borderless CMM foil $20 – The etched foil should be watched too, there’s a lot of people who like that matte look. The card doesn’t directly combo with the commander, but they do go together awfully nicely. Once it’s online, which shouldn’t take long, every kill spell you fire off ends up costing someone 4 life, 2 from the commander trigger and 2 from the Ascension. Repeat as needed.

Faerie Tauntings – pack foil $12 – Perhaps the card I love most for this deck, you’ll be casting a lot of instants and now they all come with a bonus drain. Very low supply, only one printing, this might hit some very high value if the hive mind notices the synergies. 

Bontu’s Monument – pack foil $22 – There’s no special version of this yet but if you want to build a creature version of Y’shtola, this will help the triggering a lot. 

Gixian Puppeteer – FEA $2 – Seems pretty easy to draw a second card on a turn, and the life loss will lead to more card draw. The recursion isn’t as important as the life loss, but this chaining is what you’re looking for. 

Keen Duelist – SLD Foil $2.50 – When you get to make someone lose life, for no mana, that’s going to be a win for you. It’s also handy that this can happen before you put Y’shtola into play, and you’ll still get the draw trigger at the end. 

Loyal Subordinate – CMM foil is bulk-priced – This will get you most of the way there for her trigger, and all for no extra mana. This is just a great card with the exact synergies you want. 

Rusko, Clockmaker – $90 MB2 foil – As one of the Alchemy/Arena cards to be brought to the real world in foil only, this is already pricey thanks to players who love Commander flavors of UB Control. It’s obnoxiously easy for this to get out of hand, and given such a tiny supply, this could get crazy expensive!

Subversion – NM pack foils are $40, but LP can be had at $20 – It’s expensive at five mana but the free trigger is super helpful, especially if added to other such effects. This has had one mild reprint in the Battle Royale but as a rare in Urza’s Legacy, the first foiled set, there are so few of these out there. 

Twilight Prophet – Etched Foil $9 – This is a case where the Etched Foil is the only one that looks notably different, even though there’s a Secret Lair it’s got the regular frame to go with new art. Go with the most unique frame. The card itself requires a turn cycle to work its magic, but will synergize beautifully with what the deck is trying to do. 

Will of the Abzan – EA nonfoil $6 – Really, the perfect card if Y’shtola is in play. You get to have the trigger for life loss, they lose a creature, they lose more life, you get a creature back, and then at end of turn you get something good back from your yard! It’s a recent card, so the price hasn’t fallen far, but this is a card worth keeping an eye on. Usually with Commander-only cards like this the regular frame rises more (there’s less in circulation) but with the EA cheaper that’s where I want to start. 

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.

Next week, on Tuesday, April 22, Gavin Verhey is going to go on a stream and talk about the unbannings that Wizards has in mind for Commander. That’s going to set off some epic buying and selling, and if you have forgotten, here’s my list for what you can spec on or not spec on. Those picks are based off of my experience as a Commander player, nothing else. 

I think what we’re also going to get is a set of changes for how Commander decks are categorized, and that carries some interesting implications as well. So let’s talk about changes that could be made to the Commander format, deckbuilding, and the Tiers system, in order to maximize the Commander experience.

The problem Wizards faces is that it’s trying to apply a layer of standardization to an intensely personal experience. We all have fun in different ways. Commander is a game where you can have hours of fun and yet not win. I have played two-hour games that went by in a flash of enjoyment and I’ve played 30-minute games that dragged on for what felt like days. 

I don’t play cEDH and I don’t pretend to have an indepth knowledge of the format. It’s a serious format, with an interlocking puzzle of interactions and combos that I couldn’t begin to unpack quickly.

What I can do is estimate what happens to the format next. Let’s go through some scenarios:

Scenario #1: No big changes, aside from unbans.

This is the most likely to happen on the 22nd, since the unbans will be a big deal but they won’t break the game open. Some combination of the stuff that was banned and caused the RC to resign (Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt) and low-hanging fruit (biorhythm and Coalition Victory are the current front-runners) is likely on the agenda. 

I think Wizards wants these cards unbanned because they are major selling points for any set they appear in. They have been high-value reprints for more than one set, and they have a vested financial interest in making these cards legal again. When the unbans happen, of the fast mana or other things from the list, we’ll see mega-spikes in all of those cards. I don’t think they will all get unbanned at once, but they will eventually be freed from their jail and the prices will go wild. (Disclosure: When this date was first mentioned, I went out and bought a playset of foil borderless Jeweled Lotus, so I’ve got an interest in that one.)

I agree with the concept that unbanning these cards in response to the outcry from some of the worst people online, the ones making threats and making the RC feel unsafe, is a bad idea. It’s also true that Wizards stands to benefit financially from such unbans and the eventual reprints. This leads directly to the second potential part of next week’s announcements. 

Scenario #2: Changes to game-changers (possibly tier rebalance too)

I think there’s going to be some cards added to this list, and some clear statements about how many of each can be on the different tiers. Such a list of cards will never be complete, and many cards are only a problem depending on the cards around them. (Example: Tooth and Nail for Mike and Trike is GG for the table at instant speed, but T/N for Avenger and Hoof on an empty board only kills one person)

This is a useful thing to talk about before a game, and really, that’s the goal of these tiers and this entire process. Commander is godawful when the decks are on uneven power levels. One deck will wipe the floor with the other three. Hopefully that happens fast, but some powerful decks like to durdle and board wipe a few times first, which no one enjoys.

I don’t think there will be a huge gain from being added to the game-changer list, nor a penalty to the card’s price, but we’ll have to see what the eventual announcement says and what the market does.

It’s difficult to work out power level with strangers, so having a bigger list of the most powerful/problematic cards and then being able to say that three of them is level X, six is level Y, and so on, gives people a way to say, quickly and cleanly, how tuned and powerful their deck is. Remember that the core philosophy of this is to make it easy at big events (or, god forbid, tournaments) for strangers to know how well built a deck is. 

I think this is going to happen eventually, I’m not sure if it starts next Tuesday. 

Scenario #3: cEDH is its own format, own banlist, etc.

This is the other shoe that will eventually drop. Competitive EDH is its own format, an outgrowth of Commander, and deserves its own area to shine. Free spells aplenty, maximal interaction and if you give it a moment to combo off, it will. That mentality shouldn’t be asked to share a space with decks based on the Wizard of Oz, or only using art where everyone looks like they are using performance-enhancing drugs. 

I think that long-term, cEDH has to be a separate format. Pauper does it, as an example of a fan format that Wizards helps to curate. When cEDH is its own thing, there will also be more organized tournaments and other events. Eventually, there might even be a set of cards designed and sold just for cEDH enthusiasts. There are a few cards that are expensive and are cEDH staples, but they are just very good cards and should not see much of a bump. 

If cEDH becomes its own format with its own banlist, I think everything that’s banned in regular but allowed in cEDH will have quite a spike, but should settle down eventually, albeit at a higher price than when it started. The demand will jump, but the proportion of players is much smaller and probably won’t be able to keep the price high on their own.

Wizards’ goal is not just to make a great game–it’s to expand the game and make money from the game. Adding the new format will do exactly that. It’ll be necessary and painful, awkward as people seek to bend rules and the politics will make for very awkward tournaments. There will also have to be a reckoning when it comes to proxies, much like local Legacy events that allow for players to have fake cards in their decks. It’s already treated as a separate format by casuals, might as well make it official. 

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.