The Magic: The Gathering card Overlord of the Balemurk has seen a 150% increase in price over the past seven days. The default version of the card was valued at $12.20 on January 10, according to the MTG Goldfish price tracker, but now it’s leapt up to $31 – not a bad little jump.
Part of the overlord cycle from the recent MTG set Duskmourn, Overlord of the Balemurk is all about the graveyard, milling a few cards when you play it, then popping a creature or planeswalker back into your hand. It also has the honor of being one of the most truly terrifying designs in this entire horror-inspired set, looking like it stepped right out of a folk horror film like Hereditary.
But, as you’d expect, it’s function, not form, that’s set Overlord of the Balemurk rising in price. The creature’s powerful enter the battlefield effect and ability to enter as an enchantment for just two mana has seen it suddenly finding spots in several new decks.
Most notable of these is the new Orzhov Midrange deck in Modern. This archetype seems to have only emerged in the past couple of weeks, but has gone from strength to strength, steadily becoming a larger part of the Modern meta.
The deck runs a combination of creatures with strong ETB abilities, along with flicker spells like Ephemerate and Phelia Exuberant Shepherd, to ensure you get plenty of use out of them.
With multiple uses of Solitude, Skyclave Apparition, White Orchid Phantom, and Witch Enchanter, you can deal with any pesky permanents your opponent brings to the table. Overlord of the Balemurk then helps you restock your hand.
Flicker cards also work really well with Balemurk, and the rest of the overlords for that matter, thanks to the Impending ability. This means you can play the card as an enchantment at first, but immediately turn it into a mighty creature simply by blinking it.
Modern has seen a pretty big shake-up in the past month, as changes to the MTG banlist saw three cards get the chop, while four very powerful spells got unbanned.
But Ozhov Midrange seems to have emerged independent of these shifts. It has none of the newly unbanned cards, and perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see how any of the bans would’ve made it more viable either. Witch Enchanter would’ve been no good against The One Ring, but a single card interaction like that doesn’t seem enough to explain a whole new deck coming into being.
In any case, this deck’s surging popularity has been enough to send Overlord of the Balemurk spiking in value. The card’s also seeing a little bit of play in Esper Self-Bounce decks, where it has a very similar function as in Modern.
This isn’t actually the first time this Overlord has spiked. It previously rose to around its current price not long after release, after becoming part of a popular Pioneer deck, before falling back down.
For more card price fun, check out our guide to the most expensive MTG cards. And don’t miss our MTG release schedule guide or our list of the best MTG Arena decks.
Source: Wargamer
