Two uncommon Magic: The Gathering cards have leapt up in price in the past few weeks, reaching surprisingly high values for cards so lacking in scarcity. In terms of percentage increase, the biggest jump has been for Pawpatch Formation, a green instant card which has gone up from $0.40 when Foundations came out to $3.50 – a jump of 775%. Meanwhile, Sheltered by Ghosts – already a pricey uncommon at $2.10 – has risen to an impressive $6.75.
These cards, both from recent MTG sets, are premium uncommons, and they’ve risen in value thanks to their roles in some of the best MTG Arena decks of late.
Pawpatch Formation, for instance, is mainly a sideboard card, but one that slots nicely into practically any green deck. It can deal with problematic permanents – namely enchantments and creatures with flying – but what’s particularly great is if you lack a target, you’ve still got the perfectly reasonable mode of cantripping and gaining a food token.
In Standard, Pawpatch Formation sees play in decks like Gruul Prowess, where it’s useful to take out cards like Deep-Cavern Bat, Unholy Annex (or Ritual Chamber’s massive demon token), as well as Caretaker’s Talent. In Pioneer, it’s also seeing play in Jund Sacrifice decks, which can not only benefit from the removal spell, but also make good use of the food token.
Sheltered by Ghosts, meanwhile, has proven itself to be an extremely potent card, not just in limited but in Standard too. It’s especially powerful in aggro decks like Jeskai Convoke that have lots of creatures, but aren’t super dependent on any one of them in particular.
You can plonk this down to remove a key blocker, while making one of your attackers into a more powerful, lifelinking threat, which gets that much harder to remove thanks to Ward 2. While your opponent may well eventually get their permanent back, taking it out temporarily while strengthening your own board is a huge tempo swing, one that will often thwart their efforts to stabilize.
For more MTG content, check out our list of the most expensive MTG cards, or the Magic: The Gathering release schedule.
Source: Wargamer
