Surprising Turn-4 Win Combo Deck Rises to the Top

Last updated on August 27, 2025

Burgeoning – art by Stephen Andrade

New Magic sets – either both recently launched like Final Fantasy, or those that we're getting in a couple of months like Avatar: The Last Airbender – are far and away the main reason for why much older MTG cards may spike overnight and out of nowhere.

But sometimes a very old card goes up just because it's very, very good in a very good deck, as it's the case today with Land Grant:

You may have never seen this green card if you play Commander casually, or engage in most 60-card Magic formats. But this green sorcery happens to be the core of one of the strongest Pauper decks at the moment, and as such has seen its price multiply by a whopping 800% in the last couple of months.

Land Grant, Going To the Moon

Path of Ancestry – Illustration by Alayna Danner

Land Grant, a common green card from Mercadian Masques, started on an upward trend with Tarkir: Dragonstorm: It was priced at around $0.66 back in April, and ended May above $1. But the real jump happened about two weeks ago, when it hit $2 all of a sudden, and now near-mint copies are listed at about $4 in US markets: 

Source: MTGStocks

The price gap with heavily played copies is huge (you can get heavily played copies from the original Mercadian Masques set for about fifty cents), but copies in good condition go for much higher.

Supply is relatively thin, too, even if this green sorcery is a common: About 75 near-mint copies listed on TCGplayer when the monthly average is around 100 copies.

Source: TCGplayer

Why Is Land Grand's Price Spiking?

Land Grant doesn't see much play in casual Commander decks, but it's strong enough to make the cut into cEDH decks, usually with Krark + Thrasios in the command zone. But where Land Grant really shines is in Pauper.

It's also a card from a very old MTG set that has only been reprinted in The List, making it what you could call a “rare” common. 

Land Grant, Pauper Powerhouse

Land Grant does two things that Spy Combo decks love:

1. It keeps your effective land count low because you can cast it for free if your hand has no lands.
   
2. It finds a Forest anyway, giving you mana without bloating the deck’s land total.
   

That's why this green sorcery fits like a glove in Pauper “Spy” shells, since the whole plan is to minimize lands, play land tutors and landcyclers, then flip the table with Balustrade Spy.

“Land Grant is your MVP here,” notes Draftsim's Pauper specialist David Royale in Spy Combo deck guide for his own blog. “It fetches a land for free if your hand’s empty of them, helping reduce your deck’s land count fast.

Once your deck has no lands left in it, Balustrade Spy mills your entire library and let you assemble your combo win: Dread Return and Lotleth Giant. 

Four Lands and A Dream

Balustrade Spy (Gatecrash) – art by Jaime Jones

So, what will happen with Land Grant‘s price?

With our usual caveat that this is not investment advice (ain't nothing like doing your own research 'round these lands, folks!), the increased price and demand look organic and well-sustained: There's a solid, winning Pauper strategy that wants four copies of Land Grant.

In other words, it looks unlikely that Land Grant will return to the bulk bin anytime soon. And as with most cards from old sets with little of no reprints, Land Grant is fairly rare even if it's technically a common.

On the other hand, though, it is a common: Players that would not be bothered to sell their copies when the card was worth fifty cents may be a lot more willing to do so when it's worth nearly ten times more.