Commander Players Drive Market for Duplication Effects

Last updated on June 25, 2025

Spark Double – art by Eric Deschamps

Copy effects are having a moment in the secondary Magic market right now, with Commander players pushing up the price of a couple of Clone variants.

Headlining the surge is Irenicus's Vile Duplication, a Baldur’s Gate blue sorcery whose own price has, fittingly, duplicated its 2022 all-time high. Not far behind is Bloomburrow’s avian powerhouse Mockingbird has flown roughly 60 % north since early June.

Irenicus's Vile Duplication Reaches All-Time High

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed – art by Magali Villeneuve

Irenicus's Vile Duplication, a blue sorcery from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, has duplicated its all-time high price from 2022.

A fairly popular blue card in casual Commander that shows up from time to time in the final pod of a cEDH tournament, Irenicus's Vile Duplication stands apart from most clone effects in that the copy is not legendary. In other words, if you copy your commander (or any other legendary card), the legend rule won't apply and you get to keep both copies.

The token copy also has flying, quite fittingly for Irenicus's Vile Duplication‘s soaring price this week:

Source: MTGStocks

If you're wondering about what is sending this blue sorcery's price up, the answer to your curiosity is always the cat (warlock, that is).

Specifically, the cat warlock from Final Fantasy x MTG, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed:

On top of the obvious upside of having two cat ladies to play with, instead of just one, Irenicus's Vile Duplication trigger's Y'shtola's last ability since it costs more than 3. About a third of all Y'shtola, Night's Blessed decks carry a copy of Irenicus's Vile Duplication, and that's a lot of decks: She's the commander with most new decks this week, and she's just a whisker away from breaking into the Top 100 most popular commanders.

Soaring Mockingbird

Choco, Seeker of Paradise – art by Miho Midorikawa

Cat ladies are cool and all, but birds are also quite hot after Final Fantasy brought quite a few bird cards into Magic.

And one hot bird card this week is another clone variant: Mockingbird.

A blue creature from Bloomburrow, Mockingbird has become a cEDH staple since it was released a year ago, and is no stranger to the #1 spot in top-tier Commander tournaments. But besides its competitive punch, Mockingbird is experiencing increased demand from the casual Commander side: 

Source: MTGStocks

Going up by 60% since early June – from $2.50  back then, to about $4 nowadays – Mockingbird seems to have found a cozy nest with Final Fantasy's new bird commander: Choco, Seeker of Paradise. You'll find a Mockingbird copy in a  whopping three out of four Choco decks!

Choco, Seeker of Paradise decks have thus far seen little competitive success (although not zero, mind you!). But the legendary Final Fantasy bird has proven a fan-favorite, currently ranking as the fifth most-popular FIN Commander – and, as noted, these are some extremely popular commanders.

Interestingly, cats and birds don't seem to mix for these two clone effects:

• Choco, Seeker of Paradise don't seem to have much interest in Irenicus's Vile Duplication, suggesting that Choco decks have no interest in duplicating non-legendaries, and that they really care about Mockingbird‘s bird synergy,
• Likewise, Y'shtola decks seem uninterested in Mockingbird, indicating they do want to have two cat warlocks in play.

Not Vivi's Fault – This Time!

Vivi Ornitier – art by Toni Infante

One very common trend in the last few weeks was that, if Y'shotla, Night's Blessed was spiking a blue card, odds were good that Vivi Ornitier was helping her in the task.

That doesn't seem to be the case now. Neither Mockingbird nor Irenicus's Vile Duplication see much play with this Izzet commander.

There's been some upward pressure on a red clone variant, Molten Duplication – which, like Mockingbird, is a card strong enough to see frequent cEDH play – but, again, Vivi doesn't seem interested in having twins. A mythic rare from OTJ's The Big Score bonus sheet, Molten Duplication went up by about 20% in the last couple of weeks (from about $15 to near $18) but still not reaching its April peak of $21.