The Magic: The Gathering card Dystopia has jumped in value, with a 323% increase in the past 12 days. This Enchantment card has risen from about $8.50 on November 1, to $36 right now, and it's all thanks to an unofficial format that isn't even sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast.
Dystopia is an old, old card which was released before I was, in 1996, with the MTG set Alliances. This black enchantment has a cumulative upkeep cost forcing you to pay increasing amounts of life to keep it on the field, so it's pretty dangerous to have around. Its effect forces any player with green or white permanents to sacrifice one of them on each of their upkeep steps.
The card seems to be spiking thanks to the unofficial format Premodern. This is a fan-made way to play Magic: The Gathering that uses only old school cards released between 1995 and 2003. If you want to play decks with cards that all have the old frame style but won't cause financial ruin, this is the format for you.
It has its own cardpool, MTG banlist, and tournaments, and in those tournaments mono black decks have recently started performing very well.
A mono-black midrange deck won the Premodern spanish nationals, and a black deck running a Bottomless Pit and The Rack combo came second in the 'La Previa' side event.
These black decks all run several copies of Dystopia in the sideboard for dealing with one simple problem: enchantment cards. Black is famous for lacking a way to get rid of this pesky card type, and though recently Wizards has given it a couple of decent options, none of them are legal in Premodern.
White and green enchantments are rife in Premodern - Oath of Druids forms a strong synergy with Terravore, and Enchantress decks are a popular archetype. Black needs a way to handle these cards, and it doesn't really have any better options in this format than Dystopia.
For more price spikes, check out the varmint being boosted by Nathan Drake, and don't forget to check out the Wargamer Discord community -there's fun stuff going on over there!