Rising MTG Format Causes Multiple Spikes Up to 1269%

Last updated on January 22, 2026

Pyroblast | Illustration by Lake Hurwitz

The growing popularity of Premodern, and banning of Parallax Wave, has led to sharp price spikes this week, with the marquee cards being Pandemonium (up 1269%) and Saproling Burst (up 409%), per MTGStocks.com.

What Is Premodern?

Phyrexian Dreadnought | Illustration by Pete Venters

Premodern is a casual, fan-driven format created by Martin Berlin in 2012. The format attempts to capture the feel of old-school Magic by restricting the available sets; you can play sets from Scourge to Fourth Edition. The rule of thumb is that any cards printed between 1995 and 2003 can be played, provided they were printed in the original, premodern card frame. The format is played with 60 cards, modern rules, and has a modest ban list that includes cards like Force of Will and Brainstorm that have dominated other formats, in the interest of making Premodern unique.

Premodern has seen a gradual increase in popularity over the years. Tolarian Community College has made two videos covering Premodern (not unlike the videos that helped Pauper’s rise) and Wizards of the Coast recently began supporting the format on MTGO.

As new eyes turn to the format and the player base grows, it’s expected that demand will drive prices up—especially considering the age of these cards, which might lead to supply issues. In fact, a recent price spike article on Draftsim covered the spike of Withered Wretch, a main-stay in black aggro decks.

Why Are Pandemonium and Saproling Burst Spiking?

Saproling Burst | Illustration by Carl Critchlow

While it’s perfectly reasonable to expect card prices to spike based on increased attention to a format, you would expect a universal spike across staples, but Pandemonium and Saproling Burst are extreme outliers. This is due to a recent shake-up in Premodern: The banning of Parallax Tide on January 18.

In short, Parallax Tide was banned for unfun, oppressive play patterns where it served as a one-sided Armageddon. Players could exploit the 4-mana enchantment by activating its ability to remove a fade counter five times, holding priority each time, then preventing their opponent from getting the cards back by countering the return trigger with Stifle or destroying Parallax Tide with Seal of Cleansing or a similar spell while the exile land triggers sit on the stack. The end result? Your opponent has few to no lands and you have everything. It’s a control player’s dream, and a nightmare for everybody else.

Because Parallax Tide got banned, the meta will shift, and players will try new strategies—or return to old ones. This is where Pandemonium and Saproling Burst come into the picture. The two cards are a lethal yet simple one-turn kill from 20 life. If you control both permanents, and Saproling Burst has all its counters, you can remove them one by one to make increasingly smaller tokens, each of which burn your opponent when they enter. With the help of fast mana and Replenish, this can be done fairly early.

With Parallax Tide out of the picture, this combo has a chance to make an impact on the format—given the price spikes, some players certainly think so. Whether or not it holds up to the fast aggro Sligh decks or powerful combo decks like StifleNought is another story, however; will this be a flash in the pan, or a deck that redefines the Premodern meta?