The Magic: The Gathering card Harbinger of Night has seen a rapid price increase. Previously costing around $3, this card shot up in value around December 13. It's now seen a 533% spike, with copies selling for $13.
This ancient card hails from the 1996 MTG set Mirage. It has a spot on the infamous Reserved List, where cards can never be reprinted, which obviously makes supply an issue and price spikes more likely.
But still, a rise like this wouldn't have happened unless more players and collectors were picking up copies, so what new synergy has arisen to herald this harbinger's rise?
Well Harbinger of Night has an ability that puts -1/-1 counters on every creature at the beginning of your upkeep. That includes itself, meaning without intervention it'll die after three turns. A pretty pants creature then, but it is a great option if you just want to put as many -1/-1 counters on the board as possible, which is why it sees so much play with The Scorpion God.
In the handful of Lorwyn spoilers released so far, we have seen one commander that uses -1/-1 counters: High Perfect Morcant. These two can work well together. If you have the Harbinger and a bunch of elves out you can tap them to slowly kill off everyone else's creatures, making a slow one-sided board wipe. But honestly, that's pretty clunky. You'd be much better off just including another elf in your deck, or a crazy combo piece like Flourishing Defences.
But Harbinger - and another counters card Spitting Dilophosaurus - is spiking not because of what High Perfect Morcant actually is, but what she represents. That is, she's a strong indication there's a heavy -1/-1 counters theme in Lorwyn. As we can see, there's a keyworded mechanic, Blight, that uses this counter type, and presumably the theme will get plenty of support in this set.
Still, the fans buying up these cards are taking a bit of a gamble. They're assuming there'll be an MTG commander printed that can turn -1/-1 counters into generic value. If we only get stuff that's a bit more specific like Morcant, then cards like Harbinger of Night might not end up being so useful after all.
Check out our MTG release schedule to see what's coming out next year, or share your Xmas MTG exploits at the Wargamer Discord!