MTG Weekly Price Spikes: November 29th-December 5th

Last updated on December 5, 2025

Redirect Lightning | Illustration by Toni Infante

Big week for the MTG card market: Avatar: The Last Airbender has already had a huge impact in Magic's Standard metagame, and the MTG World Championship this weekend will very much shake up things even more.

In particular, the Day 1 metagame at Worlds has very little to do with the current Standard metagame… and, as a result, a couple of cards have more than doubled since yesterday.

But it's not all Worlds in the Magic card market; some new, hot commanders have also shot up prices two- or three-fold!

Boomerang Basics: MTG World Championship Staple

It's not secret that Badgermole Cub is hands-down one of Avatar‘s most impactful cards, seeing top-tier competitive play in everything from Standard to cEDH. And, as such, it's the most expensive TLA card when considering regular copies.

But if you look specifically at Standard, Badgermole Cub is only the second best card from TLA…

… with the first being a blue sorcery: Boomerang Basics.

According to WotC's Frank Karsten's metagame breakdown, more than half of the Standard decks from the Magic's World Championship (which launches today, by the way!) play Boomerang Basics, usually as a full playset. That makes it one of the most-played cards overall, from any MTG set.

And that has pushed the price by 247% since yesterday, according to MTGStocks…

Source: MTGStocks

… with a whopping 507% increase in the last seven days.

Boomerang Basics is not at Stock Up levels yet, but it's already one of the Top 10 most expensive uncommons this year. And with more than 50% of Worlds decks playing it, it may end up in the top 5 next Monday.

Catalyst Stone: Flashback Flashbacks

As we reported yesterday, Catalyst Stone is a very old artifact with a single printing in Odyssey, and which loooves to spike whenever flashback makes a comeback, like it did back in 2021 when, between Modern Horizons 2 and Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Magic printed 45 brand-new flashback cards.

And something similar's going on right now: Iroh, Grand Lotus has is the hot, new flashback commander in town and has sent Catalyst Stone up by around 380% since last week, with near-mint copies listed at close to $20 in TCGplayer:

Source: MTGStocks

Bulk Up: Yes, Flashback's Back!

The bulk-bin puns write themselves in this case so I'll have mercy on your cringe sensor and just skip them but, yeah, flashback's back, big time!

Interestingly, though, Bulk Up‘s spike is not related to Iroh, Grand Lotus. Rather, this red instant from Foundations has found its way into a lot of Fire Lord Azula decks…

… and being in the 99 of the most popular commander from Avatar: The Last Airbender (who, at this pace, will soon break into EDHREC's Top 100 most popular commanders overall!) sure is a ticket to big price spikes: After spending all its short life at way under 50 cents, Bulk Up saw its price increase by 300% since last Friday:

Source: MTGStocks

It's also seeing some success in competitive Standard decks, although none of them seem to have made it into the MTG World Championship, which may cool off that side of demand. 

The Legend of Kuruk: Bounce, Baby, Bounce

The Legend of Kuruk has become quite popular in casual Avatar Aang decks, but when it really punches up is in Standard, where it fits into very different decks.

For starters, The Legend of Kuruk is a centerpiece of Dimir Control, who loves abusing permanents with strong ETBs that it can bounce back to hand, and usually includes a full playset of this blue saga in its main deck.

But it also shows up as sideboard tech in some Izzet Control decks, and above all in some Izzet Lessons decks – which is the deck with the largest metagame share in the MTG World Championship.

Pushed by both casual and competitive appeal, The Legend of Kuruk has gone up from about $3 last Friday to over $10 today in the US card market:

Source: MTGStocks

Stormchaser's Talent: Eternal Standard Staple

Izzet has been the dominating color pair in Standard since Tarkir: Dragonstorm, which has also allowed it to place at the top of “Most Banned Cards” leaderboard this year. Cori-Steel Cutter and Vivi Ornitier, to mention the two most infamous cases, got crushed by the banhammer to keep Izzet at bay…

… but I think you can make a very strong argument that Stormchaser's Talent and its bunch of buffed otters is the real Izzet MVP. And it may be ready to do it all over again: All three Izzet decks at Worlds (Izzet Lessons, Izzet Looting, and Izzet Prowess) play this blue enchantment… and the second most-popular deck at Worlds is literally nicknamed “Temur Otters.” All in all, roughly half of the Worlds metagame!

Source: MTGStocks

After being forgotten for a bit by Standard players, Stormchaser's Talent has rebounded back from a $2.70 low two weeks ago, and has climbed well past $7.80 at the time of writing.

Here's another card with a big shot at being in Magic's World Champion's deck next Sunday, so there's not telling how much it could cost by Monday!