While the spoiler season for MTG Star Trek is starting to draw to a close, this set hasn’t set the secondary MTG markets alight with spikes. Instead, it seems initial reactions have been rather tepid; however, that may all change once the final precon is revealed.
Notably, while we’re still waiting on the Landing Party precon to be revealed, other forces are still causing price spikes. Reality Fracture, for instance, is having a rather enduring impact, with powerful Commanders and new staples driving demand.
Throughout the MTG Star Trek spoiler season, these spikes have kept on popping up, and today is no different. Thanks to a steady climb, Moonshadow is now selling for over $21, and it might not stop there.
MTG Moonshadow
Released earlier this year as part of Lorwyn Eclipsed, Moonshadow didn’t hesitate to make a big splash competitively. Harkening back to Death’s Shadow
Death’s ShadowThis creature gets -X/-X, where X is your life total., this card is a cheap but potentially massive threat if you can jump through its hoops.
In this case, you want to put six permanents into your graveyard to scale Moonshadow up to its full 7/7 potential. Once done, this card is a massive beater for a marginal cost, ideally allowing you to run away with the game.
Notably, while Moonshadow obviously works with creatures dying, it also triggers off Mill effects. Thanks to this, it didn’t take long for dedicated Moonshadow decks to emerge with a strong Mill core to empower this card.
In Modern, for instance, you’ve got Rakdos Moonshadow decks using Fear of Missing Out and Street Wraith
Street WraithSwampwalk (This creature can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a Swamp.)
Cycling—Pay 2 life. (Pay 2 life, Discard this card: Draw a card.). While these decks have been popular for a while, they recently got a massive boost from the release of Dark Matter Manipulator
Dark Matter ManipulatorWhen this creature enters, mill three cards.
This creature gets +2/+0 for every seven cards in your graveyard..
Following this card’s release in Reality Fracture, Rakdos Moonshadow decks have been on a tear in Modern. While this would already be enough to increase demand for the titular card, Moonshadow has been popping up all over.
Recently, for instance, we’ve seen Moonshadow popping up in Dimir Hogaak decks in Legacy. With this deck using Stitcher’s Supplier
Stitcher’s SupplierWhen this creature enters or dies, mill three cards. (Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.) alongside Dark Matter Manipulator for extra Mill, it’s another fantastic Moonshadow core.
Hell, beyond this new deck, Moonshadow has long been a staple in Legacy, and it’s popular in Standard, too. This card even sees a fair bit of Commander play, although admittedly it’s not quite a staple.
Still, even without Commander being a massive demand driver, Moonshadow is clearly a very powerful MTG card. Due to this, it’s no wonder its price has been climbing up and up recently.
A Steadily Spiking Staple
Since its release, Moonshadow has only seemed to get more and more popular over time. A decent part of this is thanks to new support being released; however, the card is just plain strong.
Potentially getting a 7/7 for just one mana while not interfering with your game plan is unsurprisingly very useful. Thanks to this, basically every Mill or discard-focused decks is running this card, and that’s unlikely to change soon.
Due to this seemingly ever-increasing popularity, the price of Moonshadow has been on a similar trend. Over the past few months, this card has almost exclusively been climbing in price, albeit somewhat slowly.
Back in early August, for instance, a near-mint copy of Moonshadow would have set you back around $10.59 on average. Now, however, the cheapest near-mint listing is $21.23, including shipping.
While Moonshadow has already more than doubled in price, supply is rather low on TCGplayer. With just 43 near-mint listings remaining, it won’t take long for prices to increase further if demand continues.
Unfortunately, while there is a showcase frame version of Moonshadow available, this isn’t any cheaper. Right now, near-mint copies of this variant are going for $24+, and there’s even less supply available.
Should you really want to spend the big bucks for whatever reason, there’s even a Japan Showcase variant. While there’s currently no near-mint supply of this variant, prices topped out at around $48, showing the clear demand.
A Future Classic?
As much as nothing in MTG is certain, when looking ahead, the future of Moonshadow does look rather solid. Given how much play this card is seeing in multiple formats, it going anywhere would be a real surprise.
Thanks to only just being released this year, too, there aren’t any concerns about rotation. That said, while seeing multiformat play is positive, if a format’s meta suddenly shifts, Moonshadow could be pushed out.
Admittedly, given just how powerful and useful Moonshadow is, having this happen seems very unlikely. In MTG, however, nothing is guaranteed, so we can only really wait and see what happens.
With so many MTG sets being released each year, there’s plenty of opportunities for metagames to change, after all. While this does make the future uncertain, it shouldn’t be boring, at least, as we rarely have to wait long for new cards.
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