The Magic: The Gathering card Chronatog has seen a surprising price spike. Over the past eight days, it has jumped from $2.60 to $7.94, a rise of more than 200%. That’s pretty surprising when you glance at the card’s effect: it’s objectively a horrendous creature by modern standards.
However, Chronatog has several points in its favor, which may help to explain why there’s sustained interest in the card so many years after it was first released.
Firstly, it’s a rare card on the MTG Reserved List, which means there are limited copies, and Wizards of the Coast will never print any more. Chronatog was released in the tenth Magic: The Gathering set, Visions, at a time when Magic print runs were a fraction of the size they are today – that alone gives it a certain prestige.
There are plenty of cheap Reserved List cards, but Chronatog also has the benefit of being part of a bizarre tribe – the unique atogs. One of the oldest original MTG creature types in the game, atogs are strange, short, reptilian-looking humanoids with voracious appetites. Mechanically, they tend to have abilities that emphasize their love of consumption, gaining temporary stat buffs when you, their controller, makes some kind of sacrifice, from sacrificing forests to, yes, skipping your next turn.
Chronatog might be one of the worst, but almost all of the atogs are well below the power levels of modern creatures. It’s a plain fact that while some of the oldest instants and sorceries are renowned as some of the best MTG cards in the game, almost all creatures from the same period have been left in the dust. Yet despite this, the original atog, Atog, still managed to make it onto the MTG banlist for Pauper.
So they’re not particularly useful cards, but atogs are still unique, old, and unusual, which is enough to inspire some Magic fans to collect them.
Finally, Chronatog has a really unique ability, which is, in some circumstances, abusable. The key element is not the power and toughness boost, of course, but the fact that it allows you to skip your turn – a pretty damn rare effect.
It’s one that can be leveraged to win the game, in fact, in a very annoying way. If you play Chronatog alongside the card Stasis, you can use its power over and over, ensuring you never take another turn, while your opponents never get to untap. They’re destined to mill out while you can wander off and do something else.
However, none of this explains why the card is spiking right now in particular, and for that, I have to admit I’m stumped. I can’t see any new synergies among the MTG Final Fantasy cards, and as far as I can see no content creators have made videos to spotlight Chronatog. If you’ve got any idea what’s put the wind in this atog’s sails, let me know over at the Wargamer Discord.
For now, though, you can find some more helpful and informative reads in our pages on the MTG release schedule and best MTG Arena decks.
Source: Wargamer
