The set officially releases today, after being available to draft online, and while you’d think that preorders would have trended downwards, some specific cards have gone kind of haywire. Let’s take a look at what cards have gone up and what’s gone down, and perhaps see where things are going to go.

Generally speaking, preorders are a sign of overeager behavior. There’s no huge tournament coming up that people need cards immediately to have the new hotness, and it’s impossible to buy up available supply as a speculator for a card that’s about to have millions of packs unleashed on the world.

So when preorder prices go crazy, that means people have gone crazy with anticipation, demanding it RIGHT NOW! They don’t care that the prices are going to come down soon. I respect the need to have a new sweet card in a deck, and I don’t judge folks for overpaying for premium versions early. Heaven knows I’ve done stuff like buy a foil borderless Tiamat for $50 early on (currently $20) and done worse for the cards I need to have for a new deck.

Let’s start out with the big one.

Beseech the Mirror was under $30, and shot up to sell some copies at nearly $70, and is back down to the $35 range as of the night before release. There’s no question of the card’s power, the combos are quite prevalent and all of them worthwhile. 

I fully expect to see this go back under $30, maybe as low as $20, but long-term, this is clearly a powerhouse and is only going to get better with new cards being printed at four mana or less. We’ve seen a lot of variations on tutors, and this is very very good. Clearly Wizards’ testers thought it was very good, with the card ending up having a very restrictive mana cost.

Agatha’s Soul Cauldron went from above $30 to $14 and is now at $20, where I expect it to slowly decline. Again, there are many combos and they are all wacky and fun and mean you win after ten minutes of explanations to the rest of the table and two judge calls.

It’s got Commander applications, not just for combos but also for exiling things from graveyards and adding counters to your stuff. If you build around the card, there’s a whole lot you can do, much like a fun Experiment Kraj deck with infinite damage. I have a hard time imagining that this will hold a price thanks to inherent demand. This will probably be a flash in the pan, and slowly lose value till it’s pushing against $5 for regular copies.

Stroke of Midnight is about to make you some money. If you crack a promo foil soon, sell it ASAP, as there’s a lot out there. Later on, we’ll come back and add a lot of these to our carts and make another tidy profit.

I don’t think there’s money to be made on the regular versions as yet. On TCGPlayer, they are already around $2 with shipping, and this is about to get opened a whole lot. If they were in the 50¢ range, I might think about it, but at $2 each I’d need to be selling at $4 to make a worthwhile profit. Pass for now. It’s also definitely going to be in a Secret Lair soon–Beast Within has had several special printings, and this is just as good.

Another uncommon that’s on the rise, I’ll be interested to see where this lands. We’ve had another card very similar in what it does, and it hasn’t really moved, even for the premium version. Garruk’s Uprising does the same thing but focuses on power, not mana cost, but also gives trample, which every green creature wants.

Uprising is also getting a version in the Enchanting Tales, and that’s probably the last straw for the financial value. It’s a card that sells well, had a neat Showcase version, but there were just so many copies that the value never really had a chance to go up. 

Up the Beanstalk does not have a premium version, just the pack foil. As a new card, it’s going to be a thing that casual players vacuum up left and right, because it’s just about their dream card. Play huge creatures and cantrip every time, even if the spell is countered? I can see the appeal. It’s not even creatures only, it’s any spell!

I will be looking to buy a lot of foil copies in about 3-6 months. If we were still in lockdown, and only big stores were opening product to sell, this card would be a target now. As it stands, because we’re drafting and having conventions, I’m expecting a lot of this to go into storage.

Finally, let’s talk about Questing Druid. We know that this has potential, especially with multiples allowing for the adventure to do a lot of work. This got down near a quarter and is trending back up near a dollar, likely because deckbuilders recognize how fast this can grow if in the right deck. I’ve seen Pioneer players trying to figure out how to cast a green spell in the Pia Nalaar decks, and that seems like a fantastic set of interactions too.

As a mere rare, and not even one of the creaturelands, this would need incredible adoption levels across many formats to hit $10. We’re talking Ledger Shredder/Fable of the Mirror-Breaker popularity, and I don’t think this will get there.

However, in the absence of control decks who can wipe the board easily, I can see a world where this climbs to the $5 range because a cast on two can easily mean attacking for three on three, with a one-mana trick held up just in case. Watch out.

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 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.

Wilds of Eldraine is officially released next week, and nearly everything is dropping in price. Generally speaking, I want to stay away from preorder prices, so no new news there. However, this week we got a new set of Secret Lairs, and these are worth thinking about.

We’ll need to compare them to other drops, to see if it’s all about the card or if the look of the thing is enough on its own. We also need to consider the other factors, such as availability, number of sales, and reprints.

So let’s talk about the Fall Superdrop 2023 and where it compares.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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 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.

Welcome back to my ongoing series of calculations that takes the crumbs Wizards gives us and turns it into a statistical feast! This set has several variations, and subsets, and a bonus sheet, all of which have slightly different odds of coming out of a Collector Booster.

Please note that for some boosters we’re given detailed breakdowns, and for others we aren’t given much, but I’ll do my best to make sense of it all.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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 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 Enchanting Tales subset is completely revealed at this point, and we need to talk about what’s going to happen with these cards. I’ll have an article coming out with the math soon, both for the nonfoils and foils, but the overall idea with a set like this is to lower prices.

So how low can they go? Let’s talk about the mythics today.

First of all, know that the mythics are going to be pretty rare, even nonfoils. They’ve done some wonky things to the collation of cards in this set, and full details are coming soon. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that these will be all over the place. Keep in mind that these represent some of the most popular casual cards, and many copies that are opened by casual players won’t be put on eBay or TCGPlayer.

Second, as a supplemental subset, if these cards stay expensive, the rest of Wilds of Eldraine will be that much cheaper. This came into play with the Mystical Archive from Strixhaven, but that was added to a set with a lackluster power level. That doesn’t seem to be the case as yet with Wilds of Eldraine, but we’ll see.

For each of these cards, I’m going to list the number of printings, how much the cheapest and most expensive versions are, and the EDHREC rank. Again, casual players can place huge demand on a card without ever listing it. EDHREC is useful data, but not everyone registers there. Use the data, let it assist you, but it’s not the only number that matters.

Bitterblossom (6 printings, $20 for the cheapest version, $100 for the most expensive, 52,000 EDHREC decks) – Once upon a time, this card was $80, and pushing hard for $100 based on the dominance of Faeries in Modern.

That time was several printings ago, though, and while BItterblossom doesn’t rule Modern as it used to, it’s still used by a very wide array of decks in Commander. We last saw the card in Double Masters 2022, so a reprint here isn’t terribly shocking. This will help keep the price low, though, so all versions should be hovering around $17-$20 for some time. Even a new round of Faerie goodness will have a hard time lifting the many printings up.

Blood Moon (10 printings, $11 to $86, 48k decks) – One of the most iconic sideboard or mainboard cards, emblematic of entire strategies, this has had a lot of printings since it premiered in The Dark way back in the late nineties. As a mythic, I’m not expecting the price to tumble much from $10, even though it’s not currently in favor in Modern. It might go down a dollar or two, and the premium versions could go for a pretty penny indeed. Tournament players tend to favor nonfoils, but they make up for it by buying in playsets.

Defense of the Heart (4 printings, $10 to $170, 30k decks) – This feels like a supremely broken card, and in some ways it is. Mystery Booster versions got incredibly cheap in 2020 but slowly, interest has been growing:

This is another card that is very easy for casual demand to soak up. The appeal is obvious, and it just pops into almost any green deck. The price will drop, though, with $5 not being out of the question for the most basic versions.

Doubling Season (5 printings, $50 to $160, 134k decks) – The poster child for reprints regaining value, I have confidence in the eventual return to $60-$70 if it’s left alone for a while. I can’t remember so many cards getting back to back reprints the way they did to us this year, but for these mythics at least, the recovery should be there.

I don’t think this will drop too much farther, but again, two in a row with Commander Masters might send it lower than it’s been in a long time. Thirty dollars is my prediction, and we might see some vendors panic-sell because of the double-printing. 

Grave Pact (8 printings, $12 to $240, 50k decks) – Yes, this has had more printings than Season, but the super-chase foils of 8th Edition has boosted the max price by a lot. Grave Pact is a ridiculously powerful card, causing entire strategies to fold under the weight of the forced sacrifices. However, CMM versions were trending down to $10 and this might push regular copies to $7 or even $5.

Greater Auramancy (2 printings, $30 to $90, 13k decks) – Shadowmoor was the original printing, and this got a judge foil in 2022. We’re about to see this fall, and fall hard, because the casual demand just isn’t there. Shroud is an ability that is both good and bad. You lose out on two things: you can’t target your own enchantments, nor give your enchanted creatures further enchantments. As a result, this card isn’t very popular in Commander. This will be lucky to be $10 and more likely $5.

Kindred Discovery (3 printings, $15 to $25, 77k decks) – The graph here tells quite a story, and hints at what could be: 

This is an extremely powerful draw engine for typal decks, good before you cast the creatures or when you’re ready to swing with them. Either way, you’re getting some cards, and the incidental printings on The List kept the price from rising until Baldur’s Gate sent it to $5, where it had finally started to recover.

Right away, $5-$10 feels right for the card, that’s where it got to as a rare for CLB. These premium versions should be pretty affordable as well, and once they bottom out should be excellent spec targets.

Land Tax (7 printings, $25 to $80, 84k decks) – Another card that has seen a lot of printings, I have similar hopes for this as I do for Doubling Season:

It gets low, time passes, it gets high again. The reprint pace is picking up, though, with 2X2 and now CMM plus this extra printing probably putting this as low as $20, possibly $15. 

As I said before: If they leave it alone, it’ll recover. No guarantee that they will with how sets go in the modern age. No guarantees anymore, so it’ll be time to be cautious.

Necropotence (6 printings, $15 to $75, 80k decks) – A surprising number of people have never played with this card, and its delightful pattern of ‘pay now, draw later.’ It’s quite powerful, and fun to abuse, which it’s why it’s listed in so many decks online. I fully expect it to go below $10 during this printing.

Omniscience (4 printings, $13 to $180, 37k decks) – The Invocation version is by far the most expensive, and that won’t budge much with this printing. Another card whose price is warped by the invisible forces of casual players, as this should be cheaper, given its play patterns and availability. I expect this to dip below $10 for the cheapest versions.

Parallel Lives (2 printings, $40 to $70, 86k decks) – Parallel Lives is what everyone expected in this set, just not alongside Doubling Season. It was a rare in 2011, and then a judge foil a couple years ago, and now gets its first major injection of copies. This should hold near $25 when all is said and done.

Repercussion (2 printings, $20 to $100, 10k decks) – If this was opponents only, you’d be in the realm of most busted cards ever. It’s still very fun to abuse, though, but the low play pattern is going to doom this card to be very cheap. I don’t know yet if collectors will be enough to keep the price of premium versions high, but this is reprint equity that will never be regained.

Rhystic Study (7 printings, $38 to $360, 411k decks!) – Iconic, powerful, the fastest way to turn a Commander game into a 3v1 scenario, you should always pay the one but sometimes you just can’t. 

It’s gone from common to rare and now a mythic, and while the price will come down some, this is another card that has the ‘ooh, I have the perfect deck for this to go into’ effect. I think this will hold above $30 in the short term, and start climbing again in the long run. The premium versions will be very costly, so prepare yourself.

Smothering Tithe (4 printings, $16 to $52, 344k decks) – For a card released in 2019, this has one of the biggest inclusion rates around. In that time, it’s spawned a hundred memes about how weak white is, how it needs the help so badly. This is yet another card to be printed in Double Masters 2022, then hit twice in a row with CMM and now this. With the Commander Masters copies already pushing to $15 and lower, this is going to be a siren, singing of future profit, but only once it hits bottom.

Sneak Attack (6 printings, $6 to $30, 33k decks) – You might play this in a Commander deck already, or use it in Sneak and Show in Legacy, but the demand isn’t strong. It’s neat to play giant monsters with haste, and then figure out some mass reanimation, bounce the critter, or flicker the card. My favorite is Teferi’s Veil, but season to your personal taste. I suspect that this printing will make sure that the card stays at or below $5 for quite some time to come.

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 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.