The Biggest Magic: The Gathering Crashers and Climbers This Week - August 18

It’s a land that can become a 3/3 creature, but that creature is all types. That means that if your opponent goes for the Shoot the Sheriff (a low-cost removal spell), it won’t be able to remove Soulstone Sanctuary since it’s essentially an Assassin, Mercenary, Pirate, Rogue, and Warlock all in one.

Next? Masako the Humorless was printed way back in Champions of Kamigawa, and she’s a low-cost creature that can be played at instant speed thanks to the flash keyword, allowing your untapped cards to block.

That’s great, but why is she so popular now? Well, it’s because you can tap all your creatures to station one of the new spacecraft card types in Edge of Eternities, safe in the knowledge that they can still block thanks to Masako.

Unsurprisingly, we’re also talking about Final Fantasy’s Vivi Ornitier again. He’s been tearing up just about any competition in recent months, and while he started to drop in value, he’s back in vogue after a string of competitive appearances.

We’re seeing him back to around $60 in market value, and I’m STILL trying to find time to build a spellslinger deck around him.

He pairs very nicely with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron from Wilds of Eldraine, and it’s still being sold for around $70. Its market value is lower, though, at around $55.

Finally, Winternight Stories is a recent release (from Tarkir: Dragonstorm) that gets Vivi into the graveyard so that the Soul Cauldron can exile it, thereby turning any creature with a counter into another Vivi.

It’s still cheap at around $2, but as its value is becoming clearer, expect it to shuffle higher. Buy low, as they say.

Life Is A Stage

More Edge of Eternities drop-offs this week, as expected. For one, this lovely borderless treatment of Thespian’s Stage is down to $2 but is selling for less.

If you fancy pulling off the Thespian’s Stage/Dark Depths combo to cheat out a 20/20 monstrosity, this is a nice printing to do it with.

Icetill Explorer is on the way down, too, having been one of the set’s more popular cards at launch.

I maintain it’s a perfect addition to the World Shaper precon, and its market value has dropped below $20 now. Expect it to go down further in the coming weeks.

Another popular card is Tezzeret, Cruel Captain. This Planeswalker has dropped from $70 at the set’s launch down to just shy of $30. I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t get lower week by week now.

Uthros, Titanic Godcore has just hit a low of $18.54, having been in the high $40 range around launch, and can be a late-game powerhouse for blue decks.

We’ll end this section today with Yuna, Hope of Spira. This Final Fantasy card is starting to drop, now at around the $10 mark. Expect it to get lower, too.

A Future Climber?

One card that’s caught the eye of Commander deckbuilders from the upcoming Avatar set is Redirect Lighting. As the name suggests, it’ll turn a spell or ability from one target onto another.

It’s not quite as powerful as Deflecting Swat, but it’s still likely to be very popular later this year. Plus, that card is $50!

But that's not the only Magic deals worth discussing today, and arguably the best deal of the week is still the MTG x Final Fantasy precons bundle. It's down to $189.99 at Amazon, $90 off the MSRP, and the best price we've ever seen for the four commander deck set.

That’s less than $50 a deck, despite three out of four costing more than that when bought separately. In fact, Final Fantasy 7’s Limit Break is STILL $72.50 at Amazon.

Amazon has also just launched one of the best Magic: The Gathering deals of the year today, heavily discounting the stylish MTG Aetherdrift Finish Line Bundle for a limited time. Usually priced at $79.99, it's on a hot lap discount and dropped to its lowest price yet at $52.70.

Staying in theme with its racing roots, this bundle is selling fast, as Magic fans are snapping up the discount as quickly as they can. And it's clear why, as this deal is even better than the one we saw a few months back during a similar Amazon sale, where it hovered around $60 for a short time.

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.