The Magic: The Gathering card Panoptic Mirror has seen a 328% price spike after it was unbanned in Commander on April 22, along with four other fortunate cards. But what’s particularly fun about this one is that no one saw it coming.
In the run up to the much-anticipated MTG Commander banlist update last week, what seems like dozens of cards spiked in price, but Panoptic Mirror was not among them. The recently banned cards like Dockside Extortionist of course went up in value once again (people can’t seem to get over those being gone) but so did tons of other cards people wanted to see unbanned like Primeval Titan or even Prophet of Kruphix.
And while some cards that spiked actually were struck from the banlist, like Coalition Victory, many of the speculators got it wrong. Presumably those who sold cards like Tolarian Academy or Sylvan Primordial at a premium are now feeling pretty smug, while those who bought them up feel anything but.
But Panoptic Mirror didn’t undergo any price movements at all until the day it was taken off the MTG banlist, showing that this is one unbanning the community didn’t predict. On April 21, the card sat at $11.90 – roughly where it’s been for weeks – according to MTG Goldfish. Now it sells for $51, while foils have exploded in price to $260.
MTG designer Gavin Verhey dug into the reasons for each unbanning in a video published alongside the announcement. He says the Commander format panel was looking for cards with fond memories associated with them; that can contribute to ‘positive play patterns’, enjoyable decks, or splashy moments; and that don’t create runaway games or negative play patterns.
Panoptic Mirror is an awesome five mana artifact that can exile a spell from your hand. After that, you can cast a spell that’s been exiled with it at the start of each of your turns. According to Verhey, the card was banned because of the potential for players to imprint an extra turn spell for an easy (and frustrating) win, or just something that creates an ‘unfun’ situation and stops the game moving forward, like a board wipe every turn.
Now, however, the panel is less worried about the latter, since artifact removal is not that hard to come by. Meanwhile, the extra turn issue is dealt with by the bracket system. Bracket three dictates “no chaining extra turns”, so a deck that did this would be pushed into bracket four, where hopefully it would encounter decks that have the tools to counter it.
Where will Panoptic Mirror see play now? Well it’s great with all kinds of different MTG commanders. Obeka, Splitter of Seconds is an obvious one: more upkeep steps means more spells. It’s also good in spell-slinging decks, or Storm decks like… well, Storm!
For more Magic: The Gathering price stories, check out our guide to the most expensive MTG cards. You should also come visit our Discord for the chance to win some Tarkir Dragonstorm boosters. Or check out our handy MTG release schedule guide.
Source: Wargamer
