Unearthing Value: Analyzing the Cards Toph Turns into Price Spikes
- Jace
- Dec 3
- 3 min read
The release of the Magic: The Gathering Avatar set has introduced several compelling new Commanders, but one is clearly dominating the conversation: Toph, the First Metalbender. Quickly rose to become one of the most popular commanders. We've utilized a data-science approach to analyze her impact on the secondary market and identify the best remaining opportunities.
First off, what does Toph do?
At first look this seems kind of innocuous: "ok, you can trigger landfall with artifacts", and you wonder what the fuss is about? Then, someone starts looping their The One Ring's 'you can't lose' ability EVERY single turn through Toph's eartbend plus a sac outlet (Zuran Orb or Krark Clan Ironworks) and it seems a little less innocuous... (if you're building on a budget you can also do this with The Stasis Coffin)
So, Toph can be crazy good: what cards is it driving price changes for and what cards could it yet drive a price change for?
Terra Eternal: A cool 2x so far since Avatar's release on WorldWake's Terra Eternal - keeping all Toph's artifacts indestructible, but its probably plateaued already.
Ashaya, Soul of the Wild has also done a tidy 70% price rise since Toph's release and you can expect it to be HUGE whenever Toph hits play.
Ondu Inversion // Ondu Skyruins: has seen a slight (2x) price uptick to $1 with Tophs release because it wipes everyones board except yours (as long as they don't kill Toph at instant speed...). There aren't that many copies of it left and they're all at bargain prices. With a reprint unlikely for a while because its double sided, this might have potential for a bit of a price rise. However, there are plenty of other cards with similar functionality (e.g. Hour of Revelation or Planar Outburst) so it is fairly easily replaced -difficult to imagine it breaking the $5 mark.
Mindslaver: Not very many copies of Mindslaver have to sell for it to 2-4x and Toph lets you use Earthbent Mindslaver EVERY TURN ...
Horn of Greed: We all like to draw cards and getting to draw them for every artifact and land you play seems pretty silly. From a finance perspective: not very many Horns of Greed need to sell for it to do a 50-100% price jump.
The Golden Throne: Another never-ending never-dying loop with Toph. It's already gone up 50% since the release of Avatar (in part because it also turns earthbent cards into black lotuses that retrigger their ETBs). A few more sales and it will double in price on TCGPlayer. Having some fairly specific Warhammer 40k lore in the card also makes it pretty difficult to reprint, so its unlikely this is going down in price.
Gonti Aether Heart: It looks like someone really committed to a Gonti Aether Heart buyout a couple weeks ago with 263 copies selling in 2 days, so there's quite a few of them somewhere out there, but on TCGplayer there are a handful left and they're bargain priced for a card that with Toph may well give you an extra turn every turn. They're also selling at ~10 per day, so they might well be gone in the next couple weeks if that keeps up:
Toph, the First Metalbender is already reshaping the artifact and Landfall market and there are still a few cards (above) that are on the tipping point of gains. We'll review in a month how they did.
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Thanks for checking out the article and for your support!
Jace & Garruk
