Like what feels like every MTG release nowadays, Wilds of Eldraine, alongside releasing a fantastic new Standard-legal set with a Fairy Tale theme, showed off two new preconstructed Commander decks. These are an excellent way for players new to Commander to get into Magic’s most popular format. It’s also great for Commander veterans to pick up a new strategy without worrying about deckbuilding and finding too many singles.
Unfortunately, these Commander decks generally aren’t the most powerful. Our review of the new Virtue and Valor preconstructed Commander deck was far from positive. While the general Ethereal Armor-oriented plan is very explosive, the deck has a multitude of issues. The worst being that this deck, played optimally, is not entertaining for anyone, and, while Ethereal Armor effects are powerful, the deck may actually have too many of them, making removal absolutely devastating.
While Fae Dominion has a lot more potential than Virtue and Valor, the proper way to play the deck is not super obvious. Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor‘s aggressive creature token plan is actually far inferior to the alternate Commander this deck has – Alela, Cunning Conqueror. These strategies play very differently – one as a traditional typal tokens deck and the other has an instant-speed tempo control strategy.
This leaves a lot of room for players to upgrade either strategy. Virtue and Valor, frankly, just needs a better gameplan overall, and if you’re insistent on using the tools in this deck, upgrades can get there. Fae Dominion has a lot of room to customize what strategy you want to use.
As a result, popular upgrades for these new products are starting to rise in price! Frankly, they’ve been doing so for weeks now, but some new cards have hit the MTG Finance scene and it’s all thanks to these decks.
Nesting Dovehawk
Nesting Dovehawk is a four mana flier that appears in the Divine Convocation preconstructed Commander deck from March of the Machine. This is the Jeskai list that focuses on the Convoke mechanic.
Nesting Dovehawk, while being powerful alongside some of the new token generators in Wilds of Eldraine, is a great fit for Virtue and Valor. Thanks to the deck’s Commander, Ellivere of the Wild Court, generating a ton of Virtuous Role tokens. For reference, this Role token is basically an Ethereal Armor – just without the First Strike.
Populating these tokens not only ramps up the amount of buffs that your Virtuous Role tokens grant, but it can also convert to card draw if you have a lot of smaller creatures to enchant with Virtuous Roles.
Thanks in-part to this upgrade, Nesting Dovehawk has exploded in price over the past few weeks. Worth only $1 back in July, the card has spike to $16!
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Notorious Throng
Looking at this card reveals an interesting fact: a lot of Faerie cards also happen to be Rogues. This allows both Rogues and Faeries to see fringe competitive play as typal strategies in different formats. Some examples of powerful creatures that are both Faeries and Rogues are Brazen Borrower, Faerie Mastermind, Faerie Bladecrafter and many more.
Notorious Throng currently has two printings: its original one was released as a rare in Morningtide and its more recent printing was in the Zendikar Rising preconstructed Commander deck that pushed Rogue typal synergies.
The point in talking about this is to ensure that the Prowl cost of Notorious Throng is not as difficult to play in a Faerie typal deck as it seems. It won’t trigger on every creature, but creating a bunch of Faerie Rogue creature tokens and taking an extra turn is an incredibly powerful ability, especially if you’ve pushed forward with the Tegwyll build of Fae Dominion.
Either way, even if you don’t pay the Prowl cost, Notorious Throng is still capable of creating a ton of Faerie tokens for four mana. For that reason, and the surprising ease of utilizing the Prowl cost in a Faerie deck, Notorious Throng is rising in price.
Worth just 50 cents at the end of July, Notorious Throng increased to about 65 cents by the end of August before skyrocketing to about $2.50 on average now. That said, copies of Notorious Throng do sell for as much as $4.
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Raise the Palisade
Raise the Palisade has also seen a massive spike in price recently thanks to being recommended by TCGplayer as an upgrade to the Fae Dominion preconstructed deck. You can find this in the Elven Council Commander preconstructed deck from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.
The synergy here is clear to see. One-sided boardwipes have proven to be one of the most powerful things you can do in Commander. Need proof? Look at Cyclonic Rift.
Naming Faeries with Raise the Palisade isn’t quite as powerful as the aforementioned Commander staple, but the effect is pretty similar. Bouncing all non-Faerie creatures to their owner’s hands, Raise the Palisade will, more often than not, provide a clean slate for you to turn your Faeries sideways.
Thanks to this simply being one of the better typal cards in blue period, and being a slam dunk in Fae Dominion, Raise the Palisade has increased in price from $7 to a current sales high of $18 since the start of September. The average selling price for Raise the Palisade is closer to $11-12, but prices do appear to be rising.
There’s more Upgrades to Try!
These are far from the only cards spiking in price thanks to the new Commander preconstructed decks from Wilds of Eldraine. If you’re interested in some other cards that have seen the temporary spotlight, take a look at our finance archives.
Otherwise, if you’re looking to upgrade these Commander decks yourselves, I would recommend reading our reviews for Fae Dominion and Virtue and Valor first to get an idea of what strategies you should be thinking of when customizing your deck. Whatever it is you decide, with some tweaking, these preconstructed Commander decks from Wilds of Eldraine can be seriously powerful.
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