Last updated on December 11, 2025
Hulk Smash (Rumored Scene Box) | Illustration by Adi Granov
The first Marvel Super Heroes previews dropped yesterday, and predictably the market went hunting for the next big Commander combo. This time the target wasn’t a shiny new mythic, but an old, uncommon artifact from Urza’s Destiny that’s been quietly hanging around the $3–$4 range on the back of niche EDH play: Caltrops.
Thanks to a grumpy green hero and a two-card infinite combo, Caltrops has skyrocketed 900% overnight, pushing near-mint copies over $40.
Caltrops' Price Spike
Lava Spike – Illustration by Mark Tedin
Caltrops is a 3-mana artifact that reads: “Whenever a creature attacks, Caltrops deals 1 damage to it.”
No tapping, no once-per-turn clause. It just sits there pinging every attacker (yours too!). Despite being extremely old and pretty niche, though, it does see a bit of casual play. Classic pinger commanders like Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph (who is himself one of the Top 50 most popular commanders according to EDHREC) often include a Caltrops copy in their 99, and more recently Sonic the Hedgehog has also adopted this artifact. Coupled with how scarce this card is (Caltrops has only two printings, both very old: the original Urza's Destiny, and a 7th Edition reprint), has allowed it to sit in the $3.50-$4 range in the last couple of years.
Until exactly yesterday, when the original Urza's Destiny printing jumped from $4 to $40, a 900% increase in a single day, while the 7th Edition reprint saw a somewhat more modest spike of about 714%.
Source: MTGStocks
At the time of writing, near-mint copies are listed around $45 on TCGplayer, while lightly-played copies are around $35.
Why Is Caltrops Spiking?
In two words: HULK SMASH!!!
In more words: Yesterday we had the first batch of reveals for the next Marvel x Universes Beyond crossover (which is still several months and a couple of MTG sets away from launching, but I guess WotC's hype machine just gotta hype).
Among the upcoming cards, we saw the double-faced Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk:
Whenever Hulk is dealt damage, you put a +1/+1 counter on it. And, if it’s attacking when that happens, you untap it and get an additional combat phase. Simple as that: A two-card infinite combat combo which, while easy to interact with, can very much kill the whole table on the spot if they can't stop Hulky.
The combo was brought up directly on WotC's reveal stream, and quickly shared all over reddit, including the MTG finance subreddit and discussions about the combo's viability in cEDH. There are still very few Bruce Banner brews, given the card was released yesterday, but most of them pack Caltrops.
Which in turn quickly prompted a buyout, as the huge spike in demand Caltrops saw yesterday:
Source: TCGplayer
229 copies near-mint were traded in the last six months (so just about 1 copy per day, on average), while 94 were traded in a single day.
What Will Happen With Caltrops Price?
Divination – Illustration by Matt Stewart
In two words: Who knows?
For starters, Marvel Super Heroes will be the fourth Magic set to be released in 2026. There are three sets before it: Lorwyn Eclipsed in January, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in March, and Secrets of Strixhaven in April. We could see everything from a Caltrops reprint.
At any rate, though, this infinite attacks combo is the real deal: Just two cards to fire it off, maybe a third to give the Hulk indestructible or evasion, and the flavor is pure HULK SMASH!! Expect it on Commander pods everywhere in six months
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