The obscure MTG card Plague of Vermin has jumped up in price since Bloomburrow launched. Starting out at $18.10 at the beginning of August, it has since risen rapidly in value, reaching $40 at time of writing.
A single MTG commander from Bloomburrow has caused this rare black card from Shadowmoor to spike, and that’s Wick the Whorled Mind. These two cards gel really well, as with enough mana you can use Wick and Plague of Vermin to instantly win your Commander game.
To explain how this works, we should look more closely at Plague of Vermin: a very strangely worded card that’s really fun in EDH. It’s a seven mana spell, but it offers plenty to make up for that. It lets you spend any amount of life to create that many 1/1 rat tokens. Then your opponents can do the same. You keep going round until no one wants to pay life anymore.
I guess the idea is that this would work a bit like Poker betting, with players all gradually paying more and more life and accumulating more and more rats. The more likely scenario, though, is that you play this, then immediately pay as much life as you possibly can to produce a mighty token army of dozens of rats.
Usually, you’d use this card alongside something like Ayara or Mirkwood Bats, to drain your foes out immediately. Wick does tend to run those cards, but his own ability is a much more fun way to end the game. If you’ve got the mana for it, you can cast Plague of Vermin while Wick is on the field. Alongside your ratty ranks, you’ll get a humongous snail, which you can then sacrifice to deal lethal damage to everyone.
You do need to have the highest life total for this to work, but even if you can’t use it to its full potential and get the instant kill, it’s going to be devastatingly effective.
There are a few other places this card is seeing play. For instance, some folks are using it with Vren, the Relentless, the other major rat commander from MTG Bloomburrow, but Wick appears to be the main driver for the jump in value. Of course, this being a rare card that was only ever printed in the MTG set Shadowmoor, it doesn’t take much to set off a price spike.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guides on the best MTG Arena decks in Standard right now and to the MTG release schedule.
Source: Wargamer
