Four sets rotate out of Standard today, Friday, August 2nd: Midnight Hunt, Crimson Vow, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Streets of New Capenna. If you’ve been waiting to pick up some cards for your Commander decks, now is a great time to take inventory and keep an eye on prices.
Generally speaking, a lot of cards drop in price due to lack of Standard play. However, if cards see play in Modern or Pioneer, as well as in Commander? The demand for the card doesn’t necessarily drop off that much, and in some instances, the card can go up in price.
A great example of this is Terror of the Peaks. After it rotated in 2021, it actually climbed in price, before seeing another climb in price the following year. It only recently dropped down again thanks to a reprint in Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
MIDNIGHT HUNT
The first set we lose to rotation is Midnight Hunt, which has some pretty powerful cards. The Meathook Massacre continues to carry the set, price wise, and it’s a fantastic card to put into all manner of Commander decks, from enchantress, to aristocrats, to monoblack, to big mana decks like Belbe. It’s a great boardwipe, all in all.
Adeline, Resplendent Cathar has enjoyed a steady price for some time now, which wasn’t even dampened much by her reprint in March of the Machines Commander decks. Given she’ll be leaving Standard, she could well cool off a little. I wouldn’t wait too long, though, as she’s currently a 4-of in Selesnya Humans and Mono-White Aggro in Modern, which might see more play once Nadu finally goes. When you need a playset of a card in Modern, the price tends to reflect demand.
Wrenn and Seven isn’t the most bombastic Planeswalker, but it’s a great option for Lands decks or self-mill decks in Golgari and Jund primarily. Rotating out of Standard should see this card drop in demand.
Rockfall Vale | Overgrown Farmland
Shattered Sanctum | Deathcap Glade | Dreamroot Cascade
Stormcarved Coast | Sundown Pass
The slow land cycle are better than they look, and it could be argued that they’re more reliable than playing the checklands like Clifftop Retreat, especially in 3 color decks. Are they “bad” enough to see reprints in Commander decks? I don’t think so. Wizards are still pretty stingy with manabases. I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
Rounding up the more exciting stuff from MID is Unnatural Growth. This color intensive rare only sees play in Commander, and the reason to consider grabbing one is that the price can only really go up until it gets reprinted – which considering we got it on the Enchanting Tales bonus sheet, might not be for a minute. It’s a fantastic enchantment, and we just got a lot of support for Gruul enchantments in Bloomburrow Commander.
CRIMSON VOW
Over to Crimson Vow and we have format boogie… slug, Toxrill. Toxrill is basically a Commander card, and it’s one of the strongest things you can reanimate. Ramping into or reanimating Toxrill early can end games before they even get started. It’s also currently one of the more expensive cards in VOW.
Cultivator Colossus is another in-demand VOW Mythic, but is actually seeing some play in Amulet Titan, which means the price is unlikely to change massively. In Commander, it’s something of a “combo” card that can dig out all of the lands from your deck.
Necroduality is a Commander card through and through. Doublers tend to be in good demand, and even if this one is a little niche – only caring about nontoken Zombies – it’s still a doubler, at Mythic, in a set that wasn’t that popular to open. One to keep an eye on for sure.
Showcase cards are an interesting one to evaluate these days. If they’re in any way playable, only able to be opened in Collector Boosters, and in a set without Serial cards or a chase land cycle like Fetches or Shocks? I think they might prove to hold their price as time goes on, and in some cases, only rise.
Chandra and Sorin are both gorgeous showcase cards, and if you had a hankering to grab one, they should be on your radar.
Speaking of showcase frames, Olivia, Crimson Bride looks great in the Showcase frame. She’s a solid curve topper in Commander, and reasonably popular as a Commander in her own right. She’s seeing a little play in Pioneer, but for the most part, she’ll likely steadily creep up as a playable Mythic in a set that, like MID, wasn’t the most popular.
Although more copies exist of cards like this thanks to Double Feature, it proved extremely unpopular, with the card treatment being pretty unpopular – which weirdly makes these other treatments a lot safer than they might have been.
Pioneer Midrange decks love a bit of Cemetery Prowler, but I think it’s criminally underplayed in Commander. It can really start to snowball mana advantage when played on curve, and does a great job of keeping opponents in check.
Hullbreaker Horror is cheap now, having already enjoyed a reprint, but it’s played everywhere from cEDH to Legacy. It’s a game-winning curve topper to cheat into play or reanimate. This is going to have to be kept in check by reprints, in my eyes.
Giving your werewolves hexproof is really good, and so is putting counters on them. At mythic, Avabruck Caretaker may well creep up in price; werewolves are a popular tribe to build with. There’s also the double-faced-card conundrum. This’ll only be reprinted in a double-face set, which might take some time.
Halana and Alena, Partners are like Xenagos, but I’d argue in most games I’ve played against it, way scarier. I think it’s the counters. A really strong rare, and if you don’t have a copy, maybe time to grab it.
UNIVERSES WITHIN
Before we go to the next two sets, let’s stop off to check in on Universes Within. The Walking Dead and Stranger Things secret lairs all had Innistrad-themed reprints, with Street Fighter being set on Dominaria, I believe, so I thought it’d be good to cover them here.
Greymond (Rick) is played everywhere, and the other cards in this series all range from decently playable to quite good. They’re especially good if you don’t want to play with those IPs, and want something a little more thematic for your deck.
I think now is a good time to seriously consider how much you might want to pick up some of these, as the List slot is now being used in a different way – at least it has been for a while.
KAMIGAWA: NEON DYNASTY
NEO was such a great set. It has Ninjas, powerful instants and sorceries, gorgeous art, and some great cycles.
Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance | Boseiju, Who Endures
The premier cycle of this set is, of course, the channel lands. The channel lands are going to be playable until the end of time, and some of them are really powerful. Boseiju is the standout, of course, a land that sees play in 60-card formats too. Otawara, Takenuma and Eiganjo are all excellent in Commander too. Boseiju is very unlikely to cool off.
Kodama of the West Tree is a card I’m pleasantly surprised to see command such a high price. I called this one out as a potential future staple a long way back, and it seems the demand is indeed there.
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker hasn’t been Standard legal for a while now, but that doesn’t stop it seeing play in Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy. With NEO rotating, and continued demand, it’ll need reprinting eventually. Until then, it’ll likely stay reasonably pricey. It’s great in Commander – though not if you’re on oops all legendaries.
The Wandering Emperor sees Pioneer and Legacy play, but dropping out of Standard should hopefully trim a little off the price of this spicy ‘walker. I don’t rate her too highly for Commander, but there are some decks she fits nicely in, and each version of her has fantastic art. A very collectible card.
Haha, Farewell. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny how powerful it is. I think this board wipe will continue to see more play, especially as it feels more and more relevant these days.
Atsushi, the Blazing Sky | Kura, the Boundless Sky
The NEO dragons are all fantastic cards, and because none of them see a huge amount of play outside of Commander, they should hopefully bottom out with Standard rotation.
Before we move on, I want to highlight two more things NEO has going for it. First up, the full art basics. These are gorgeous, and you’ll be unlikely to be able to pick any of these up for a good price as more time goes on, especially in foil
The other is this common, Tamiyo’s Safekeeping. It’s still seeing good demand, and the price reflects that.
STREETS OF NEW CAPENNA
Ah, Triomes. They’re excellent for three color decks, and if you still need to pick some up for yours, now might be a great time. SNC has five of them: Naya, Jund, Bant, Esper and Grixis.
Ob Nixilis is seeing play in Modern right now in midrange and Mardu Energy, one of the decks poised to enter the spotlight after Nadu flies off. It’s also played in Pioneer Rakdos Transmogrify. The long term prospects of the card in these formats aren’t clear, but if you find a cheap one at the moment it might not be a bad buy.
Ledger Shredder is going to keep seeing play in both Pioneer and cEDH, but is poised to drop in price once it stops being so playable in Standard. It’s a great card advantage engine, and always will be.
Jetmir and Halo Fountain aren’t played much at all outside of Commander, but plenty of new Commanders are being printed that want to be using both of these pieces. Being Mythics, rotation is a great time to get them before they begin the slow creep up.
Ah, FaceyB. Professional Face-Breaker is just a good card, and always will be. It goes in a huge number of red decks, and despite multiple reprints (JumpStart and MH3 Commander) it’s still fairly steady price-wise.
Two very strong blue instants are in SNC – An Offer You Can’t Refuse and Slip Out the Back. Both of these cards are incredibly useful, and at common, already command a strong price. Slip Out in particular is one I’d pick up now rather than later.
Angels are very popular, and Giada has stayed at a steady price since she’s been released. As soon as a new Angels Commander is previewed – that’s multicolor – Giada will be in high demand.
Titan of Industry is a cheap pickup. It does a bunch of relevant things, and is a great curve-topper in a variety of decks.
One Mythic I think people are sleeping on is Angel of Suffering. I’ve been gotten with this plenty of times; it shuts off combat damage completely, and enables your own graveyard shenanigans.
Finally, Unlicensed Hearse. It continues to be the premier graveyard-hate piece in multiple 1v1 formats, and in Commander, it can prove to be a useful roleplayer too. This is the kind of card that will steadily creep in price the longer it stays relevant in 1v1 formats.
END STEP
Standard Rotation is a great time to take stock and figure out if there’s anything worth picking up. I myself have a box of Neon Dynasty squirreled away for a future draft with friends, and I’m going to enjoy having the chance to open some pretty lands and maybe, if I’m lucky, a Boseiju or two.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.