Last updated on February 20, 2026
Iona, Shield of Emeria | Illustration by Jason Chan
A somewhat quiet week in the MTG card market; probably the calm before the storm, as Lorwyn Eclipsed winds down and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle gets the spotlight.
But both sets are still impacting the market… along with the waves made but one of the latest Secret Lairs.
Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor – 275%
Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor | Illustration by Wonchun Choi
Here’s the man of the hour! Or, well, zombie mutant of the hour: Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor, who went from $2.14 last Friday to $8 today, roughly a 275% increase!
Source: MTGStocks
As you can imagine with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right around the corner, Hancock being and caring about the mutant creature type is of course part of the deal here. And Magic players are theorycrafting him in the 99 of Heroes in a Half Shelf decks, and there’s upward pressure on prices from other Fallout mutants like Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet.
But, as we reported earlier this week, the main suspect for Hancock’s spike is a new Fallout card: The Ghoul, Gunslinger, one of the five cards from the Beyond Vault 33 Secret Lair, which started shipping this week:
Hancock is in 2 out of 3 The Ghoul, Gunslinger decks, and the total number of decks has increased a lot since we reported them last Tuesday.
Iona, Shield of Emeria – 500%
Iona, Shield of Emeria was banned in Commander back in 2019 because its ability to lock entire colors out of the game created a “miserable,” non-interactive, and unfun experience. Iona often completely stopped one or more players from participating in a game.
So why is it up 100% since last week (from around $14 then to about $28 now), and nearly 500% if you compare with two weeks ago?
Source: MTGStocks
The first part of the spike is pretty straightforward: Some MTG players were speculating that Iona, Shield of Emeria would get unbanned in WotC’s Banned & Restricted announcement of Monday last week.
And while they were not on the money, they almost had a hit.
Iona wasn’t unbanned (citing the same reason for why it was originally banned: it’s too easy for Iona to lock a monocolor player out of a game), but according to WotC’s Gavin Verhey it’s something that they were very much considering… and are still considering.
“This was very close to being unbanned and was right on the cusp,” Gavin wrote. “Ultimately, we decided it would be great to get feedback from you all first.”
Iona, Shield of Emeria spiking even harder after it not being unbanned very likely means that some speculators are still hoping she’ll become legal in Commander in the next B&R.
Feedback from MTG players on reddit seem to indicate the opposite, though. “Them even considering Iona is very concerning,” notes u/TobytheRam in reply with lots of upvotes. “If you’re mono-color and not in blue and it goes on the stack I guess that’s just it? You don’t play the game while everyone else does?”
Phyrexian Soulgorger – 100%
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may be around the corner.. But we’re not done with Lorwyn Eclipsed yet!
And this time it is not elves buffing elves, but rather a bird commander pushing up the price of a… snow artifact!
Phyrexian Soulgorger, a card most Commander players have never heard of, is having quite the week (nearly doubling in price, from about $7 to close to $14 in a week)…
Source: MTGStocks
… because Phyrexian Soulgorger‘s clunky cumulative upkeep is a very good target for Abigale, Eloquent First-Year‘s lose-all-abilities ability.
Content creators have highlighted Phyrexian Soulgorger as one of the most fun (and jankiest) targets for Abigale. Tied with how scarce the Soulgorger is (since the Coldsnap original, it has only been reprinted in The List), the price is following suit.
Arrogant Wurm – 110%
Here’s another very old card (the original Arrogant Wurm is from Torment)…
… but the price spike in this case has nothing to do with Commander, where this green creature sees virtually no play.
Source: MTGStocks
The reason in this case seems to be Arrogant Wurm‘s popularity and good tournament results in Premodern, a player-run format that some months ago was added to MTGO. The Wurm has been on slowly going up in price for months now, and it spiked by 110% last week
Taeko, the Patient Avalanche – 58%
TMNT will be the first mutant turtles that Magic will get… but not the first turtle ninjas!
The first was Kappa Tech-Wrecker from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, which saw a bit of Standard and Pioneer play. And the second is Taeko, the Patient Avalanche from Foundations Jumpstart, who tripled in price as soon as TMT was announced:
Source: MTGStocks
Taeko’s price went slowly down since then, but it’s again on the rise: from about $8.50 to $13.50 in the last seven days, as TMT approaches.
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Herko Kerghans
Herko has been battling online since EVE was a thing, fell in love with digital CCGs nearly a decade ago, and got his first taste of MTG during Arena’s Open Beta. He loves Limited formats, crunching data, and (usually silly) puns and wordplay.