The Magic: The Gathering enchantment card Stony Silence has seen a huge spike in price over the last couple of weeks. According to the chart on MTGGoldfish, this card was valued at only $3 in mid-January. Now copies are selling for a much higher price – going for $16.85 each.
Originally released in the original Innistrad MTG set in 2011, Stony Silence is a two-mana enchantment card that combats artifacts, preventing their activated abilities from being used. In Commander, it’s often run by enchantment decks to shut down Sol Rings and Swiftfoot Boots alike, but this particular price spike has been caused by the Modern format.
In particular, Stony Silence is now being played as a sideboard card to deal with a popular new Modern deck that’s nearly top tier. That deck is Grinding Station, which is heavily reliant on artifacts, including the titular mill card Grinding Station and the newly unbanned mana-maker Mox Opal.
With Stony Silence on the board, it’s not possible to pull off the Grinding Stations/Underworld Breach combo, making the card a huge threat to this deck’s gameplan. And with so much of the decklist consisting of artifacts, there are limited slots for answers: mainly just counterspells or the odd bounce.
As Grinding Station is probably the second or third most popular deck in the Modern format right now, basically every deck that plays white wants a Stony Silence or two for the sideboard. That includes new builds such as Orzhov Midrange, but also the incredibly dominant Boros Energy archetype. Since the latter is the most popular deck in the Modern format, it makes sense that demand for Stony Silences has gone through the roof.
While the most recent printing of this card hails from Modern Masters (2017), the Innistrad version is actually a little cheaper, selling for only $12. Foil copies, meanwhile, are significantly more expensive, costing a whopping $22.
For more Magic: The Gathering price stories, check out our list of the most expensive MTG cards of all time. You might also enjoy our guide to the best MTG Arena decks, or the MTG release schedule.
Source: Wargamer
