Weekly Winners 2025 - 05

Aetherdrift is having its effect on Zombies, and the Modern metagame is still shaking prices up.

Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.

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TCGplayer Companion Browser Extension

We love TCGplayer and it's clear they've been focusing a lot on their clean and slick design. And while that's absolutely a good thing, we've heard from players who'd rather have some extra information on their website. We've been experimenting with a Chrome and Firefox extension that adds a little bit more information on some screens. This past week multiple users have started using it, and we hope we can improve even more in the next couple of weeks.

You can find it in the Chrome Store and the Firefox Add-ons Store (both desktop and mobile). We'd love to get your feedback on whether you feel this can and will be useful and what other features you'd like to see. For the entire thing check out the documentation page.

Articles

Check out our other great content from this week.

An Introduction to Summer Magic by Harvey McGuinness

Underrated Versions of Commander Staples - Spotlight on Ramp by Jason Cominetto

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Varina, Lich Queen $15.10 (+2920%)

Almost 3000% rise in price! One week ago this card could be bought for between $0.50 and $1.00, but is now costing a lot more and frankly I'm not sure I've ever actively seen this card before. Varina definitely is a Zombie commander, but according to EDHREC it's only the #4 choice for the creature type.

The Aetherdrift set is wrapping up previews, and the Commander precons have already been revealed. The Eternal Might precon commander is Temmet, Naktamun's Will which is also an Esper Zombie commander. Now that we know the full decklist of the precon we see that Varina is not reprinted there, and thus is a shoo-in upgrade for the deck. And one of the channels that agree with that is The Command Zone, which has already come up with an upgrade guide naming Varina as the first card.

$29.25

Varina, Lich Queen fits perfectly in the Zombie and graveyard strategy that Temmet also has. But with both Temmet and Varina on the battlefield each attack will be a Craterhoof Behemoth type effect. The synergy there is amazing and that's why people are grabbing their copies. Remember that there is a special art of Varina from the The Evil Dead Secret Lair drop that is the only print with an unique art.

Varina, Lich Queen	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $15.10
Varina, Lich Queen	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $20.99
Linda, Kandarian Queen	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $29.25

#2 Unfulfilled Desires $29.99 (+1071%)

And our second winner with over 1000% in price jump is going up for the same reason as our previous winner. It fits perfectly in the Eternal Might precon and just like Varina isn't being reprinted into the deck. Which, in this case, is unsurprising as Unfulfilled Desires is on the Reserved List. Coming from about $2.50 this card will now cost you more than $30.

When we again look at Temmet, Naktamun's Will we can see why this card works well in the deck. First, the obvious syngergy is there in the draw and discard theme that Temmet has. But with Temmet you can also pump your team whenever you draw a card, meaning that with Unfulfilled Desires in play you can grow the size of your army when attacking or blocking as long as you have mana open. Sure, it will also cost you life, but people may be hesitant to attack into your open mana.

Another card that's closely related to this is Tortured Existence, which we see high up on the Interests as well. This card has been moving up for the same reason and is now $14.24, with an increase of 242%. This is an older common from Stronghold that has only had a minor reprint in The List.

Unfulfilled Desires

CardKingdom $19.99

TCGPlayer $29.99

#3 Recruiter of the Guard $20.00 (+122%)

Recruiter of the Guard has also spiked this week, coming from around $6. Recruiter of the Guard is a creature that searches up another creature of toughness two or less when it enters. Two weeks ago we discussed the spike of Overlord of the Balemurk that can be flickered to get "around" its Impending ability in Modern. This week we see one of the other value engines from this Orzhov Blink deck moving up.

Originally printed in Conspiracy: Take the Crown, it was adopted quite early into Legacy Death & Taxes decks where it could be Aether Vialed in, or flickered with Flickerwisp, to find the next creature. And since you get to search for one, it's the one creature you needed next. In Modern the Human Soldier became legal when reprinted in Modern Horizons 3. A similar card, Imperial Recruiter, had been legal for some time already but never really made the cut since these effects generally are slow.

However, in the Orzhov colors Recruiter of the Guard can find Solitude which answers a lot of popular threaths in the current metagame. But also being able to blink or flicker Solitude or Recruiter of the Guard itself the entire package becomes really good. Especially since the deck, piloted by Max Dore, finished second in the Regional Championship in Ottawa, people are trying to get their copies in to build the deck themselves.

Not really coincidentally, we also see Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd showing up in our Interests this week with an 117% increase to $8.24.

Recruiter of the Guard	CardKingdom $10.99	TCGPlayer $20.00
Recruiter of the Guard	CardKingdom $10.99	TCGPlayer $30.00
Recruiter of the Guard	CardKingdom $11.99	TCGPlayer $22.15

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

Flowering of the White Tree $4.85 - Moving up!

Flowering of the White Tree has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General $5.40 - Stabilizing

Loyal Retainers $2.08 - Slowly moving down

Flowering of the White Tree	CardKingdom $6.99	TCGPlayer $5.00
Liliana, Dreadhorde General	CardKingdom $5.99	TCGPlayer $5.55
Loyal Retainers	CardKingdom $2.79	TCGPlayer $2.09