Pyrogoyf, a red Magic the Gathering creature card that can burn any target when it enters the battlefield and rewards you for filling your graveyard with different card types, has shot up in price from $1.20 to $9.50 in the space of a week. Demand seems to be driven by the Legacy format, where the Pyrogoyf sees play in several red strategies.
Pyrogoyf was printed in June in the Graveyard Overdrive MTG Commander Precon, released alongside the Modern Horizons 3 MTG set. It’s a red Lhurgoyf creature that costs three generic and one red mana, and has a classic Tarmogoyf statline – its power is equal to the number of card types in all graveyards, and its toughness is that number plus one.
While Tarmogoyf was once a format defining MTG card for Modern, it has long since been eclipsed, and the Pyrogoyf costs twice as much mana to cast. But the new ‘Goyf comes with a very useful upside – when it, or any other Lhurgoyf enters under your control, it deals damage equal to its power to any target.
In Legacy it’s very easy to get different card types into your graveyard. So there’s a good chance that by the time you play a Pyrogoyf it will enter as a 4 / 5. That means it deals four damage to something, and has enough toughness to survive an opposing player casting Fury.
When combined with Fable of the Mirror Breaker, which transforms into the duplicate creating Reflection of Kiki Jiki, you can eventually create copies of the Pyrogoyf, and this gets much scarier. When the copied Pyrogoyf enters the first Pyrogoyf’s damage dealing ability triggers, and you’ll do double damage – usually enough to clear the opponent’s board so you can swing with both ‘Goyfs, or zap them to death.
YouTuber ThrabenU released a video praising the new ‘Goyf on September 20, particularly for its ability to burn the blue-black Pyschic Frog off the battlefield – you can watch the whole video below. The Legacy meta has evolved since September when Grief was added to the Legacy MTG banlist, and new threats have emerged – among them the fast-growing and evasive blue-black Psychic Frog.
With Duskmourn fast approaching on the MTG release schedule there might be some really powerful new cards on the horizon – who knows where mono-red is going next. If you want to play in an eternal format where there’s no chance of facing down this terrifying card, you could build a Timeless format MTG Arena deck – we have a guide to the MTG Arena codes that still function so you can grab some free boosters and hopefully help that along.
Source: Wargamer
