For the last several years, Commander has become Magic: the Gathering’s undisputed most-popular format, as well as the biggest motivator on prices of individual cards on the secondary market. Today, the team here at Cardboard by the Numbers will walk through the biggest impacts that the recent Commander precons for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan have had on individual cards, and hopefully we can use this to better understand what kinds of cards you should pick up early if you’re looking to upgrade a precon paired with future expansions. 

This “return to Ixalan” expansion is not a return set in the traditional manner: most of the themes and mechanics of the world’s previous visit have been passed over in favor of exploring the expansive underground world of the plane. Chiefly, the first iteration of Ixalan was centered on creature type-matters effects, funneling drafters and brave Standard players alike into one of four typal decks focused on either pirates, vampires, dinosaurs, or merfolk. While with the popular reception of Lost Caverns – particularly compared to the less-than-stellar reputation of Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan – it’s easy to argue that the pivot was a successful one, the original expansion’s most resonant feature still merited some attention.

As a result, Studio X took the opportunity to double the typical number of Commander decks paired with a premiere expansion to four: one for each of the plane’s iconic creature types, which we’ll now explore one-by-one. (As an interesting side-note, it looks like this was a popular move internally at WotC and will become the norm going forward, as Murders at Karlov Manner will have the same volume of Commander precons). 

Velici-Ramp-Tor

The Velici-Ramp-Tor deck, helmed by Pantlaza, Sun-Favored, is dedicated to dinosaurs, and the most popular of the four decks by every available metric.

Unsurprisingly, one of the game’s bombiest dinos ever printed, Etali, Primal Conqueror, is the biggest winner of the month. The Phyrexianized elder dinosaur gained an impressive $10 in value in just the last 30 days, about the same amount that second-place Silverclad Ferocidons appreciated. Not too far behind, the recently-printed Dinosaurs on a Spaceship from the Doctor Who precons is more than $6 US than it was a month ago, a 66% bump in price!

While Etali has seen some play in Standard, with an inclusion rate of 58% in Pantlaza decks on EDHRec, a significant amount of the demand is coming from casual multiplayer formats, where Etali’s ETB effect can be best maximized. That said, he’s wonderful in powerful Cube lists if that’s your jam as well!

It’s worth noting that this precon has the highest price of the bunch, going for as much as the merfolk and pirate decks combined on most online marketplaces, which both implies the higher value of this deck and the increased demand. The fact that more dinosaurs didn’t grow even more is indicative of the volume of high-quality dinos in the box!

Were it not for the main set reprint of Gishath, Sun’s Avatar, that card would certainly top the list here — but the popular dino instead is now the cheapest he’s ever been. Printings of Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Tranquil Frillback have also seen significant price increases in the last month, but not nearly as high of a total dollar amount as the three cards listed above can claim.

Blood Rites

Blood Rites is an aristocrats-styled vampire deck with Clavileño, First of the Blessed as its face. Like with the dinosaur example, the cards that have generated the most value in the last 30 days that can be directly attributed to the release of the precon are all vampire creatures, but this time, they’re exclusively from expansions printed when the Magic player base was meaningfully smaller than it is today. 

The most notable of these is Innistrad’s Bloodline Keeper, a card that doubled in price in 30 days and was most likely excluded from the precon due to being double-faced. Its ability to put another vampire into play each turn is impressive, but when Bloodline Keeper flips into Lord of Lineage, it gives an even more notable boost to all your creatures in a deck – so long as they’re all creatures of the night. 

M11’s vampire lord Captivating Vampire also saw a ~100% increase in its market price to ~$14. This card’s opportunities for the precon are equally obvious: Captivating Vampire also gives all of your other creatures a power and toughness boost. Its ability to steal creatures from your opponents is made much easier with Bloodline Keeper’s, no less!

The third vampire with a big market value gain is certainly not the least: Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose is a slam-dunk in any black deck dealing a lot of damage, but also plays the role of a combo piece with Exquisite Blood – a card packaged in Blood Rites.

Explorers of the Deep

Explorers of the Deep, helmed by Hakbal of the Surging Soul, is an impressively potent merfolk deck that has seemingly inspired many to upgrade it even further, as represented by some massive price swings in related cards – the highest in dollar amount of any of these decks. 

Foremost among these is Merrow Commerce, an uncommon from Lorwyn that, unlike all the other cards being discussed today, is not a creature! The two mana kindred enchantment lets you untap each of your creatures at the end of your turn, allowing you to keep defenses up or tab abilities at the ready. The card was printed roughly half of Magic’s lifetime ago, so it’s no surprise the supply was not able to meet the demand that came with this precon. 

Wanderwine Prophets is another splashy merfolk most recently printed in Lorwyn, and saw a 150% bump in price for similar reasons. With the merfolk tokens generated by many of the most popular cards in the deck, this six-mana bomb can easily gain islandwalk and give its controller nearly infinite turns, a surefire strategy for winning games and making your deck unpopular in your playgroup.

The final member of our merfolk crew is a card that was barely above bulk status just a month ago: Dominaria United’s Vodalian Hexcatcher. Now thereabouts of $11, this is the biggest gainer of the whole list percentage wise, and as a Merfolk lord that both pumps your team and has two other relevant abilities for just two mana, it’s not hard to see why. 

Tishana’s Tidebender has increased in price about 50% in the last month, but while the LCI rare has a high play-rate in Hakbal lists, it’s much easier to point to impact on 60-card formats as the motivation, and performance of the card in winning decklists are correlated with spikes in the card’s price to the point that I wouldn’t give Hakbal enough credit to include it here, even if it had passed the $10 increase threshold needed to make top 3.

Ahoy Mateys

Ahoy Mateys, the pirate-themed deck led by the newest rendition of Admiral Brass, has the lowest market price of the four and has had a similarly unimpressive impact on the price of supporting cards. While particularly potent right out of the box, there simply aren’t many more pirates or pirate-specific cards worth very much that escaped a reprint in this precon. 

Pirated Copy is a notable exception, however. Printed only once in Jumpstart 2022, the card saw a massive $30+ price increase timed with the release of the deck. The five-mana clone retains its pirate creature type even after copying another ability, allowing you to take your opponents’ most potent creature while still synergizing with the rest of your deck. Somewhat less impressively, the M20 rare Glint-Horn Buccaneer gained $1.77 in price this month due from Admiral Brass devotees. 

Thanks so much for reading! We’ll be sharing the results from our 2023 Limited Survey next week as well as new Magic: the Gathering infographics and analysis on the regular, so if you’ve enjoyed this article, sign up for our newsletter and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Threads!!

Miles Atherton is the editor-in-chief of “Cardboard by the Numbers” and has been playing Magic since 2006. Since studying Agricultural Economics at UC Davis, he’s built a career as an award-winning marketing executive in the entertainment industry with a love of data journalism. He’s also written for Anime Buscience and Crunchyroll News, serving as Executive Editor of the latter from 2016 to 2021.