Powerful Legendary Lobster Emerges as Early Favorite EOE Commander

Last updated on July 17, 2025

Ragost, Deft Gastronaut – art by Zack Stella

Edge of Eternities reveals are about to end, and it looks like we have a clear winner for most popular EOE commander: The one, the only, the Legendary Lobster Ragost, Deft Gastronaut!

We'll have to see what happens once EOE launches and brings with it a change in the Commander rules that will allow any Legendary vehicle or spacecraft to become a commander (and in that case, who knows: Maybe Inspirit, Flagship Vessel will kick in the afterburners and overtake the Legendary Lobster). But for now, Ragost, Deft Gastronaut is way ahead other EOE offerings.

And just like Kilo, Apogee Mind (who's the clear second most-popular commander from this space-faring Magic set) has been pushing prices up in the Magic card market, Ragost, Deft Gastronaut has been cooking too.

Let's see what's on the frying pan!

Bloomburrow Elemental Cat, But It's a Legendary Lobster – IN SPACE!!

Ragost, Deft Gastronaut plays in a similar space to one of the most popular Food commanders out there: Bloomburrow‘s Ygra, Eater of All. Our lobster has Ygra's “Turn Y'all Into Food” effect, but just for your artifacts.

The differences start afterward: Rather than getting big itself, Ragost, Deft Gastronaut‘s food burns all your foes down. Extra spicy!

And Ragost, Deft Gastronaut color identity makes for weird Boros Commander that does not care for equipment.

Magic players are brewing extra spicy lobster stews…

… and also going on a rampage on the all-you-can-eat Silly Jokes buffet, since Ragost, Deft Gastronaut lets you cook all the “You're telling me a shrimp fried this rice?” you feel your table will put up with.

And it's putting upward pressure on cards that play either in the “Sac Food” space, or “Lifegain matters” space.

You're Telling Me a Lobster Cooked This Nuka-Cola Soup?

Certainly, Sir. That's precisely today's special.

As soon as Ragost, Deft Gastronaut was revealed last week, one of the first ideas that Magic players had was to pair the Legendary Lobster with Nuka-Cola Vending Machine: 

The Vending Machine creates Food tokens on demand, and pops out a Treasure whenever you sacrifice a Food.

It's a fairly popular artifact in casual Commander decks alongside Academy Manufactor (and fringe-playable in cEDH brews) and has been on quite a rally all this month, going from about $7.50 to around $12-$13 now. But the spike in demand the two days after Ragost, Deft Gastronaut was revealed clearly show Lobster and Nuka go like jam and peanut butter:

Source: TCGplayer – Nuka-Cola Vending Machine (PIP), near mint

And, importantly, this is an artifact that not too long ago hovered around $20, so as far as price memory goes, it still has a lot of headroom.

Source: MTGStocks

Nuka-Cola Vending Machine has become nearly auto-include in new Ragost, Deft Gastronaut decks: In space, more than 80% of all lobster pies come with Nuka!

Hobbit Lobster Pie

The other regional cuisine that Ragost, Deft Gastronaut dabbles in is Lifegain. In that space, it's helping Hope Esteim (a very popular Final Fantasy commander) to push prices up.

In particular, both Ragost, Deft Gastronaut and Hope have a soft spot for Sam's old man, The Gaffer, which shows a very similar curve than the Vending Machine: A general upward trend in price, and a huge spike in demand after Ragost, Deft Gastronaut‘s reveal:

Source: TCGplayer – The Gaffer (LTC), near mint

Also similar to Nuka's case, The Gaffer is a card that not long ago was a lot more expensive than now (it was around $6 about a year ago, more than double of what it costs now) so it's comparatively cheap now.

So You're Telling Me These Prices Will Keep Going Up, and Up, and Up?

No, Sir, not at all – we just serve food in here, and check what others are cooking; we do not provide investment advice.

Ragost, Deft Gastronaut‘s hype is very real. The Legendary Lobster is nowhere near as popular as the top of the Final Fantasy class, but that's simply because Final Fantasy has been a massive, record-breaking outlier. Ragost, Deft Gastronaut is clearly the most popular of its set, at least during the pre-release hype.

Nuka-Cola Vending Machine and The Gaffer are quite tied to their respective Universes Beyond sets – from what we've seen thus far, WotC has not reprinted any UB card that is strongly tied to a specific IP, and really, it's hard to think of any set in which Nuka-Cola would even make sense.

And, as noted, both cards were a lot more expensive not too long ago.

That being said, the market is very much exactly like a Lobster chef: You never really know what's cooking!