The MTG card Penance has seen a rapid price spike off the back of the Duskmourn Commander previews. Priced at $0.60 on September 1, it’s risen since then to $4.30, and we’ve every expectation that its value will continue to soar.
Penance is a really old enchantment card from the 1998 MTG set Exodus. It lets you place a card from your hand on top of your library to negate the next chunk of damage from a red or black source of your choice. But the damage negation isn’t really important. It’s actually the cost, putting a card from your hand onto your library, that makes this a fab card for the Miracle Worker Commander precon deck.
As you may already know, this deck uses the Miracle mechanic – letting you cast big enchantments for cheap when they’re the first card you drew that turn. That means manipulating the top card of your library is super important, to make sure you always draw into something valuable.
Penance can really help you out if you ever get stuck with a mighty enchantment sitting uselessly in your hand. You can simply ping it to the top of your library whenever you want to draw into it next turn.
Interestingly, Penance began to rise in value long before the Miracle Worker deck was fully spoiled on September 10. It started to tick up in price the moment Aminatou, Veil Piercer was revealed at Pax at the end of August. Presumably this means that lots of canny fans correctly predicted that an old, weird card like this wasn’t going to see a reprint, and would be worth snatching up sooner rather than later.
This looks to be our first major price spike caused by Duskmourn, but doubtless it won’t be the last. For more stories about expensive MTG cards, check out this ancient artifact that’s gone from $1 to $30. And if you like to stay current with your Magic: The Gathering, you might also enjoy our MTG release schedule guide.
Source: Wargamer
