The MTG card Great Unclean One has seen a major price increase over the past couple of weeks. According to MTG Goldfish’s price tracker, the card cost just $0.70 at the beginning of September, but now it’s risen all the way to $6.23 – a spike of 790%.
Released in Magic: The Gathering’s Warhammer 40k crossover decks in 2022, Great Unclean One is a demon card that’s one of the best token-makers in black. It makes each opponent lose life at the start of your upkeep step, and then you get a 1/3 Plaguebearer token for each player that has less life than you.
The card seems to be spiking because players are picking up copies to slot into their Endless Punishment Commander precon decks. This looks to be the most popular deck from Duskmourn, since it features both a clear, straightforward game plan, and powerful cards to help you execute it. Plus the other decks all feature heroes – this is the only one dedicated to Duskmourn’s monsters, cultists, and torturers.
Interestingly, the deck’s MTG commander Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls doesn’t synergize with Great Unclean One at all. The Warhammer 40k Chaos demon hurts players at the beginning of their upkeep, whereas Valgavoth only triggers if a player loses life during their own turn. We’re wondering if people have misread this, in which case they’re going to be sorely disappointed when someone points out the mistake during their first game with the deck.
However, that may not be it. Great Unclean One is probably worth popping in the Endless Punishment deck despite only causing life loss on your own turn. After all, it still works nicely with other life loss cards like Florian, Voldaren Scion and Rakdos Lord of Riots. At the end of the day, the deck just wants to be dishing out as much life loss as possible, and Great Unclean One is a good way to ensure this, while also providing a solid bunch of blockers.
That brings us to the other, probably more important reason we think this card is great in the deck. If you’re doing well, your opponents will all probably have less life than you, in which case you get a bunch of tokens every turn.
That’s going to be pretty invaluable because it’s also very likely that you’re going to be the bad guy at the table. Having up to three chump blockers you can throw in front of incoming aggressors is going to save you more often than you’d think. They don’t even die to 1/1s!
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our MTG release schedule and our guide to the best MTG Arena decks.
Source: Wargamer
