Hello folks!

I hope that you are having a safe and fun day today! Today I want to unpack for you what factors can play a role in how expensive a Commander staple may wind up being. It can seem like the market is pretty wild for Commander cards.

How so?

Let's look at two examples: Stroke of Genius vs. Mana Crypt!

Both had limited printruns initially. Stroke of Genius was printed three times in in Urza's Saga, Commander 2014 and Commander 2015. Mana Crypt was originally a promo card, and then you added in sets such as Eternal Masters, Kaladash Masterpieces, and other places as well such as Mystery Booster and as a judge promo. Both dominated during their era, both have been on multiple banned and restricted lists, both of them are great in Commander.

Stroke of Genius? $3.49 for the cheapest near mint version

Mana Crypt? $149.99 for the cheapest near mint version

How are they so different? There are more printings of Mana Crypt than Stroke of Genius! How is that possible?

That's the craziness of Commander finances.

The goal today is to unpack the ways that cards will increase in price, and then give you tools to use to assess the potential price point of a new card or key reprint for the format.

We'll be looking at Commanders specifically, as they have a higher cost due to their legendary status. People are much more interested in having a great Commander that has a great look. You may not draw that foil Swords to Plowshares, but you are always going to run your Commander.

And then on Friday for my Top Ten article, I want to look at the top ten most expensive Commanders in the game today according to their price here at CSI.com.

Ready?

Let's get started!

The Reserve List

Way back when, cards were initially printed in a black border form (typically in an expansion) and then could be printed in a core set in painful white border. When this happened, the initial printing would be more freely available and thus drop its price. Take as a good example the card Serendib Efreet. It was a powerhouse in Arabian Nights and then also put into another set. When it was, people who wanted them could turn to the white-bordered version so the price of the original one fell. That happened a lot. The early game was odd. New sets would increase their print runs massively and still sell out quickly. More and more and more people were coming to the game. This quickly created an environment where more and more people couldn't get the cards they wanted.

What do we do?

We create a new expansion with only reprints with white borders and we call it Chronicles. It's only using reprints from the first few sets that missed Fourth Edition such as City of Brass and Erhnam Djinn. It reprinted legendary creatures from Legends including the Elder Dragon Legends that were the most expensive cards from the set. Chronicles was designed to reduce the cost of these cards to enable newer players to play cheaply.

But if you invested in those cards?

You felt betrayed by Wizards of the Coast.

After this was a disaster, many people began to leave the game. How do you save it? The Reserve List. A list of cards that Wizards of the Coasts pinky swears that they will never reprint again! Although they broke it with the Homelands card called Feroz's Ban reprinted in a Core Set which bothered no one and then again when a bunch of uncommons were pulled off the list after being voted off by the public. But we don't talk about that.

Anyways, a lot of older cards were placed on the Reserve List, and this includes some fun cards for Commander. You can check out which cards are on the list here. As you can see, hundreds of cards from Alpha through Urza's Destiny are on this list. Powerful cards like Academy Rector and Gaea's Cradle cannot be reprinted, as well as great leaders for your Commander deck.

I decided to count them all!

How many legendary creatures are reserved? 57! That's a lot and it includes everyone from crowd favorites Sliver Queen and Karn, Silver Golem to fun options such as Zirilan of the Claw and Rasputin Dreamweaver. One is so good he's banned in Commander - Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary.

And of course, cards that are reserved are seen as safe bets. For that reason, they are usually worth a lot more money than peers in the same set, even ones that have never been reprinted.

Old Versions of Cheaper Cards

There are three Sol'Kanars. Here are their respective prices for near mint copies:

• Legends $29.99
• Chronicles $0.25
• Time Spiral $0.25

As you can see that's a wide variance from the first printing of our good Sol'Kanar the Swamp King and today. After suffering a reprinting in Chronicles, the initial version has recovered. No one wants a white-bordered Commander, so the Chronicles version is very cheap. Other early cards that play into this theme of wanting the first printing of their leader include Sun Quan, Lord of Wu. Sun Quan, Lord of Wu was reprinted in a From the Vault and that version is just $10.99. However, the original version is north of $30.00 for a near mint copy. This is the opposite of the next effect, as a non-foil white-bordered version won't hit any sails, but it's there.

This original value is true of many cards that may have a cheaper reprint out there, such as the aforementioned Elder Dragon Legends like Chromium and Nicol Bolas.

The Bling Version

People will pay a bigger premium for a souped-up Commander than anything else. Take the popular Captain Sisay as a great example thereof. Here are its prices here at CSI.com:

• Captain Sisay, non-foil, Invasion - $11.99
• Captain Sisay, foil, Invasion - $69.99
• Captain Sisay, From the Vault: Legends - $16.99

As you can see, this version of Captain Sisay is the original foil. If you are running a Captain Sisay deck, then this is what you want to target for acquisition. The FTV version is more expensive than the non-foil version, but not by that much. It's an acceptable souped-up version for those on a budget. Most people prefer the original foil or the original card. This foil tax is true of many other Commanders out there. Many other examples are out there, such as Memnarch, whose foil is $19.99 vs it's $7.99 non-foil version or Rhys the Redeemed, whose foil version can be north of $100 in some sites online vs a $11.99 normal version.

High Demand

What do I mean with high demand? Consider the Commander classic of Sol Ring. It's arguably the most heavily printed card in the history of the format. How many Commander decks made by WOTC have a copy of it in them? How many others of these are frumping around in other places? Masterpiece? Uncommons from Revised? And yet, despite how many Sol Rings are in print, we still have a $4.49 pricetag for the cheapest version here at CSI.com. That's how highly demanded they are!

The same is true for a lot of staples in the format, like Swords to Plowshares ($1.49), Kodama's Reach ($1.99), Eternal Witness ($4.99) or Mulldrifter ($1.25) despite the fact that all of those are commons or uncommons that have been heavily reprinted over the years.

There are a lot of cards out there with high demand that drives up their price. Consider Muldrotha, the Gravetide as a good example. She was just printed a couple of years ago in a Standard-legal set. Despite that, she is the most popular Commander over at EDHREC.com with 4869 decks registered as of this writing. There are a good number of her out there given her recent printing. Despite that, Muldrotha costs $12.99 for a near mint copy here at CSI.com. She's a good example of a high demand that drives price despite a good number of copies or a recent printing.

Yarok, the Desecrated has 2000 fewer decks registered than Muldrotha and stands at the #10 most registered Commander and yet costs $9.99. A little less than Muldrotha despite being released last year and with a lessened demand than Muldrotha. Yarok is an organic contrast you can use to compare to Muldrotha as they have similar costs to their demand.

Low Printrun

Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen may not be a strong card to add into your next Commander build. She's just a 5 mana 4/3 with unblockable. But, due to her limited print-run in Portal Three Kingdoms, she'll cost you at least $60. You may find yourself paying the low three digits. There are such a small number of Lady Zhurongs out there that you must pay a big tax if you seek to acquire her. And she is not the only expensive legendary card from Portal Three Kingdoms. Others like Dong Zhou, the Tyrant, or Liu Bei, Lord of Shu that have never been reprinted have high secondary market costs as well.

P3k is the biggest example of a low print run. One printing by these will usually drop their price permanently, such as Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" which was reprinted in a Commander set and is just $0.49. Other sets and cards have similar trajectories.

These cards don't even need to be hits to be expensive. Just a low print run will give them a high pricetag. Grim Tutor was another example, costing you $150.00 for the only version until it was reprinted in Core Set 2021. There are many other examples out there of low print runs escalating prices.

Another great example? Cards printed once in a Commander set and never again. Kaalia of the Vast, the 36th most common leader in Commander, was printed way back in Commander 2011, and then once in the rare Commander's Arsenal. And then the first Commander Anthology reprint years ago. Right now, a near mint is $39.99. Lots of great and loved Commanders and other key cards printed in just one or two Commander sets, particularly long ago, have a low printrun and thus a high price. Here's a counter example, (literally). Ghave, Guru of Spores was also printed initially in Commander 2011. But it's been printed in more sets. Ghave is beloved as a Commander and is the 53rd most-used leader. How much is he worth? $2.99. Print run matters a lot.

And there you have it! As you can see, there are five ways that can drive up the price of cards in Commander. Cards that have more than one of these will face very high prices as a result. But which are the most expensive? Check out my article on Friday to find out!

In the meantime, what did you think of my article? Anything in here that I missed or that spoke to you? Just let me know!