This week in Magic finance, the biggest Standard gainer was Abhorrent Oculus (borderless), which gained 47% to $33, making it the most expensive card from Duskmourn. The mythic has found homes in both Standard (Azorius Helping Hand Reanimator) and Pioneer (Esper Self-Mill Midrange) and has been tested in Dimir Murktide in Modern. While the card was underrated (at least by me) during spoiler season, this might be around its peak financially. The card sees minimal play in Commander, which puts a cap on its demand. At over $30, it's already one of the most expensive Standard-legal mythics, and other similar cards like Bristly Bill, Spine Sower and Cavern of Souls all see meaningfully more Commander play. I'd be tempted to sell my copies into the hype. While the cards is good, it's not easy for a card to stick at $30+ without seeing heavy Commander play.

Speaking of Commander, one of the weird trends of the week is banned cards being bought out. Earlier this week, Wizards took control of the Commander format and promised to reevaluate the ban list, fueling speculation about what could be unbanned. Cards like Sway of the Stars (up 303% to $5) and Biorhythm (up 371% to $8) saw big price increases while longshot unban candidates like Primeval Titan and even Paradox Engine saw smaller increases. Several versions of Armageddon also spiked thanks to it showing up on a demo for Wizards' new bracket system designed to help people with their rule zero conversations. If anything does get unbanned, its price will certainly spike - just look at Worldfire which went from under $2 to $15 immediately after it was unbanned in 2021 and today sits at over $30.

Finally, the potentially free Coldsnap wrath Sunscour gained 174% this week to $8, although I'm not exactly sure why. It showed up in a couple of Modern Magic Online events about a month ago, but beyond that it isn't really seeing any play. My guess is this is mostly because the card is from Coldsnap - a notoriously low supply set - and has never been reprinted. As we saw with Soul Spike, which jumped from $4 to $47 after the printing of Necrodominance, if a card that has only ever been printed in Coldsnap suddenly becomes in-demand, the sky is the limit price-wise. To me this looks like a finance play, with people hoping that Sunscour becomes the next Soul Spike. Personally I'm not seeing it. Soul Spike is a four-of in a popular deck, while Sunscour was a two-of in a brew that posted a couple of finishes and has since disappeared.