Commander 2018 is available for purchase and people are going to town on stuff that isn't included in the precons. I know it's not much of a surprise that this happened, but there are a few cards that are pretty surprising. It seems like the new supplementary commanders, the ones that aren't all the colors of the deck, have been pushing a lot more cards than I would have expected. Given that the decks are not built around those Commanders, there are a lot of confusing cards reaching the top of the interests list. This week I'm going to take a look at some obvious ones and some weird ones and give you my thoughts on their future.

Let's start with some easy ones to explain. Argothian Enchantress wasn't included in the Adaptive Enchantment deck and is the enchantress with the lowest converted mana cost. It's a staple in every enchantment deck and it was an easy one to expect to jump. This card has only been reprinted in one booster set, Eternal Masters which is now 2 years old. We don't know if there is an imminent Masters set and this card seems far too good to be included in Standard to be reprinted soon. I don't expect any price relief soon. Sterling Grove has to have been on Wizards of the Coast's radar for a long time but continues to evade reprint. Much like Aura Shards, it's an extremely expensive Invasion uncommon that is too good for Standard. I don't see anything they can do to reprint it soon, so the price increase is likely here to stay. If you are trying to get ahead of the next spikes, I would recommend looking into getting Mesa Enchantress and Verduran Enchantress. Neither of them are included in the precon and have quite a bit of supply for now. Unfortunately, there is no real analogous card to Sterling Grove and that is one of the reasons why it is so expensive.

This trio evaded reprint and fits perfectly into the Jund lands theme. Nature's Vengeance seems to be one of the least popular decks out of the box but these three have quickly climbed from their previous price points. The Gitrog Monster is now the most expensive card in Shadows over Innistrad just barely beating out Tireless Tracker. Omnath, Locus of Rage is now the 2nd most expensive card in Battle for Zendikar, losing by a bit to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Titania, Protector of Argoth was recently reprinted in Commander Anthology last year. None of these should have been as expensive as they are, and due to the lack of announcements for future products I don't see an avenue they will receive a reprint. Putting any of these legendary creatures into a Ravnica set is a pretty absurd long shot

This is my last batch of 'obvious cards that should have probably be included in these decks.' Temporal Mastery was the only rare or mythic miracle that was left out of Subjective Reality so it is no surprise it's seen an uptick. Miracles in general are pretty difficult to reprint, even in Masters sets, so I can't advocate any price relief soon. Even discounting the fact that we don't know what products are in our future, it seems unlikely that miracles would be included after just being included in Commander 2018. Vedalken Archmage is the first card I think might actually see a price decrease after all of this is said and done. I don't think it will get reprinted, but I do think it's quite fragile and bad in the deck that all of the new Izzet commanders want to be in. This is a more fragile but single color Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Much like Jhoira, this isn't really good in a fair deck trying to play normal Commander things. It's a combo card that should let you draw your whole deck. I think people will quickly realize that spending four mana to cast this is probably just worse than playing Windfall or Wheel of Fortune instead.

Okay now that you've had some time to read all these cards, yeah they're kinda expensive now. They're all being played in some versions of Xantcha, Sleeper Agent Commander decks according to EDHREC.com. The Urza's Saga Oppression even features Xantcha in the art and flavor text. They're all odd old cards without any real reason to see a reprint. I do not expect them in the next year. If Wizards has some omniscient reprint schedule, maybe they find their way into next year's Commander sets, but probably not. They're all pretty caustic for the precons that generally try to be inviting to new players. If you really need any of them I don't expect them to fall in price. Now is probably the best time until December.

While I'm not sure that every card I mentioned today will continue to climb, it has been a really long time since Wizards of the Coast has announced new products. When we get some information, I will revisit the cards I think that could be reprinted and maybe have a better outlook on the future price.