MTG Standard Staple Sees HUGE Price Spike After Success in Spotlight Series

Last updated on January 14, 2025

This Town Ain't Big Enough – Illustration by Andrew Mar

With Magic’s first major Standard tournament of the year in the books, new brews are already causing prices to shoot up. A handful of Standard staples have seen their prices spike, and leading the charge we have an uncommon that increased more than 600% since last week: This Town Ain't Big Enough. 

According to MTGStocks, this blue instant was a $0.20 draft-chaff since printed in Outlaws of Thunder Junction and right until about two weeks ago, when it started climbing to the around $4 you’d have to pay now to buy a near-mint copy.

Source: MTGStocks

TCGPlayer shows the exact same trend, with Magic players realizing in mid-December that This Town Ain't Big Enough is the real thing.

Source: TCGPlayer – This Town Ain’t Big Enough (OTJ)

Why Has This Town Ain’t Big Enough Spiked?

This Town Ain't Big Enough – Illustration by Andrew Mar

This Town Ain't Big Enough already made some waves in early December, as a 4-of in the innovative Talented Otters (sometimes labelled Floodcaller Combo) deck. Brewed by team Sanctum of All, Talented Otters is an infinite combo deck (in Magic’s Standard, of all formats!) that transforms your cute Otters and Rats into Birds of Paradise to go wide.

Sanctum of All’s Ryan Condon and Rei Hirayama reached Top 32 with this deck during the Magic Worlds Championship. The novelty pushed Stormchaser’s Talent – another of this deck’s key pieces – price up by 300% in early December, but wasn’t enough to move the needle for This Town Ain't Big Enough at that time. As an extremely complex deck, Talented Otters became a powerful but not too popular option.

But MTG players did take notice of one of the tricks that made the deck click, and the This Town Ain't Big Enough – Stormchaser's Talent spread to other builds.

Most notably, Esper Pixies builds have taken 14% of the Standard meta in the last couple of weeks according to MTGTop8 – making it the third most-played deck in the format – while Talented Otters has retained a respectable 3% play rate.

Source: MTGTop8

Magic’s Atlanta Spotlight Series last weekend proved these cards’ effectiveness in the competitive Standard format. With nine copies of decks featuring these cards making it into the Top 32, and two reaching the Top 4, it’s clear that “This Town Ain’t Big Enough” alongside “Stormchaser’s Talent” has become a meta-defining duo.

Source: MTGTop8

A Rising Tide

As you may imagine for two cards that are partners in crime, This Town Ain't Big Enough‘s success also reflects on Stormchaser's Talent‘s price.

As noted, Stormchaser's Talent had already seen its price skyrocket back in early December, when Talented Otters demonstrated its power. The hype died down somewhat just a week later, though, with prices dropping around 30%…

Source: TCGPlayer – Stormchaser’s Talent (BLB)

… but now this Bloomburrow class enchantment is back with a vengeance, shooting from around $9-$10 by the end of last week to over $18 now.

These two criminals also pushed one innovative brew to #2 in Atlanta, where Scott Mcnamara earned second place with their Dimir Tempo making good use of yet another blue card that is doing the market rounds: Floodpits Drowner. 

Source: TCGPlayer – Floodpits Drowner – (DSK)

Never going over $0.50 since printed in Duskmourn, Floodpits Drowner increased more than 600% to over $3 now.

Will Prices Go Up or Down?

With our usual caveat that this is not investment advice (always do your own research, folks!), two things seem certain, and one thing is up in the air.

Seems Certain #1: As showcased by their performance in Atlanta, this blue combo is in Standard to stay.

“There are no better alternatives [than This Town Ain't Big Enough] to bounce nonland permanents,” notes redditor u/pipesbeweezy. “The reason this has seen play is it’s bouncing Stormchaser’s Talent and Hopeless Nightmare for example while also being able to be used to bounce two creatures.”

Seems Certain #2: Stormchaser's Talent‘s price will not go down (unless reprinted). This is a fairly new card from a very successful Magic set, but it’s a rare MTG card with a single printing that’s seeing play in a 60-card Magic format where it’s a 4-of. 

Up in the Air: This Town Ain't Big Enough, on the other hand, is an uncommon. And, notably, its peak demand happened before Atlanta, not after.

This is clear when looking at its one-month graph in TCGPlayer, where the majority of copies were traded a couple of days before Magic’s first Spotlight Series…

Source: TCGPlayer – This Town Ain’t Big Enough (OTJ)

… and it’s even replicated when checking its MTGO prices:

Source: MTGGoldfish 

In other words, this is not folks jumping onto a winning strat and drying the market after-the-fact – on the contrary, this looks like top players already knew very well these two cards were a winning combo, and were scrambling to get enough copies to test for and play in Atlanta.

If you drafted Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Duskmourn a bunch (and if you’re a drafter, I’m sure you did; they were both great!), I’d recommend you to check your uncommon bulk bin. Between This Town Ain't Big Enough and Floodpits Drowner, you may have enough for your upcoming Aetherdrift prerelease!

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