The Magic: The Gathering card Harabaz Druid has seen a very rapid and pretty large price spike, shooting from $2.30 to $12.80 in just a day or two - a rise of 456%.
This Human Druid Ally from the 2010 MTG set Worldwake is but a humble mana dork, but it taps for one mana for each ally you control. Stuff a bunch of allies into your deck and it can make a huge amount of mana for you every turn.
This card has remained relatively cheap for so long because there just aren't that many solid ally cards, and there didn't appear to be any on the horizon. But that's all changed, as we can now be fairly certain they're a big part of the upcoming MTG Avatar the Last Airbender set.
We already knew allies were going to make a comeback in this release, as the first card revealed for Avatar the Last Airbender, Avatar Aang, featured this creature type. But now, two more cards have been shown and not only are both of them allies, one even has an allies-matters ability.
The new promo card Katara, the Fearless makes for a fantastic MTG commander for fans who want to play allies, as she makes all of their abilities trigger twice. In fact, Katara alone may have been enough to make Harabaz Druid spike, even though she doesn't synergize with it specifically, but fans are likely also banking on there being all kinds of other cool allies in this set - which seems like a pretty safe bet.
With that in mind, Harabaz Druid might be the first ally card to spike off the back of the Avatar set, but it probably won't be the last. Because allies is such a niche theme, and allies cards often have names that lock them into a specific plane, most of these cards have never seen a reprint, leaving them susceptible to sudden, rapid spikes.
While allies will probably appear in all five MTG colors (in fact, Avatar Aang already does this by himself) it's quite like that most of them will appear in the Bant color identity rather than the more traditionally villainous colors of black and red.
Therefore, we'll be keeping an eye on white, blue, and green allies with good effects such as Sea Gate Loremaster, Kabira Evangel, and Talus Paladin. Oh, and General Tazri - the go-to allies leader before Katara came along.
Are you excited for the upcoming Avatar set or is this UB release not the right fit for Magic? Come join the conversation in our Discord. You should also check out our list of the most expensive MTG cards and our MTG release schedule guide.