New Card Type Breaks This Bizarre Forgotten Legendary Creature

Last updated on August 28, 2025

The Wandering Emperor – art by Tommy Arnold

Following an excellent first-week opening at the start of August, Magic's spacefaring set is being seen as a big success by WotC.

And as it's usually the case in the MTG card market, a set's success brings older, fringe cards into the limelight as players discover new synergies.

Today's that's the case of a grumpy old white creature from Champions of Kamigawa, printed more than two decades ago: Masako the Humorless

Masako the Humorless won't break Magic formats any time soon, but casual Commander players are finding her unique talents quite fun to play with several Edge of Eternities cards – and, as such, this no-jokes Advisor has seen its price nearly quadrupled since a month ago.

Old Lady Silently Stares at Clouds

Malevolent Hermit | Illustration by Daarken

“Masako the Humorless may be the only card in the game that lets tapped creatures block,” notes Jeff when ranking Masako as one Magic's best Advisors. Flash lets Masako surprise your opponent when they counterattack while you’re tapped out, but as Jeff also notes, “once the initial combat trick’s been resolved, Masako kind of reverts to just being a 2/1 with a pseudo-vigilance anthem.”

That's probably why Masako the Humorless has never seen much competitive play, but it's still interesting that her effect is indeed something you can't get from another single card.

And it looks like Masako the Humorless‘s stern gaze is all the more fun to play since Edge of Eternities launched. Masako the Humorless has never been priced under $5 on average, but it started trending upwards as soon as Edge of Eternities landed; it had already doubled in price by mid-August, and nowadays near-mint copies cost about $20-$22 in US markets:

Source: MTGStocks

It's definitely not the most sought-after card in Magic, by any means – it just trades about one copy per day on average on TCGplayer – but the extremely low supply has pushed the price upwards, and Masako the Humorless shows as out of stock on Card Kingdom at the time of writing.

Source: TCGplayer – Masako the Humorless (CHK), near-mint copies

Why Is Masako The Humorless Spiking?

Up until now, Masako the Humorless has only been a very niche tech card for equally niche commanders. Quite fittingly, her most common commander is the most well-known character from Kamigawa, although in this case from her appearance in Duskmourn: The Wandering Rescuer. Nearly 60% of decks with the Rescuer in the command zone include a copy of Masako the Humorless, with both Kamigawa ladies helping each other with their tapped-matters synergies.

But Edge of Eternities has changed things a bit, for two reasons.

The first is that the spacefaring MTG set has given Masako the Humorless some cards that allow her to show up in the command zone in casual games, like Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought, Lumen-Class Frigate:

Spacecraft want you to tap creatures, and Masako the Humorless lets you do so without dropping your shields. As noted, chances of Masako the Humorless becoming a top-tier commander are exactly zero, but EOE has indeed given players some tools to brew with her as a white commander.

So, What's the Punchline?

Skeletal Grimace – Illustration by Eric Deschamps

With our usual caveat that this is not investment advice (no joke, folks: doing your own research is priceless!), Masako the Humorless‘s price spike seems to follow organic demand.

Supply is extremely low, so there may be a component of speculation here, but a gradual increase in price and no marked one-day spike in demand often suggest that interest is real. Besides, Masako the Humorless has never been priced below $5: Even if fringe-playable, there's always been enough interest in this grim lady to keep well away from the bulk bin. Some players may be tempted to sell their copies now that the price has increased, but those that bought her at $5 probably did so because they enjoyed her lack of humor, rather than expecting her to triple in price to resell her.