The Magic: The Gathering card Legion Extruder has come out of nowhere with a really rapid spike in value. It's risen from relative obscurity - plus a meagre $1 price tag - and is fast approaching the $10 mark. Right now the cheapest copy is $8, and there's no sign we've reached the peak just yet.
This card came out in the miniature MTG set Thunder Junction: The Big Score (what would have been Thunder Junction: Aftermath if Wizards hadn't made a swift U-turn on that strategy). It's a bit of a weird one; both underpowered burn spell and sacrifice outlet, it deals a little bit of damage when it comes in and can then be used to sacrifice artifacts and create 3/3 golems.
Unlike other Big Score artifact cards (cough cough Simulacrum Synthesizer) Legion Extruder has never seen much play. Personally I think it's the cost on its tap ability that kills it. Two mana to turn an artifact into a 3/3 just seems too steep.
Clearly this card has something going for it, though, or it wouldn't have blown up in price. Suspect number one is the Boros MTG commander Ragost, Deft Gastronaut. This flavorful lobster is all about sacrificing artifacts, and we've already seen it cause some market movements.
The Ragost deck creates food tokens and blats foes in the face with them, and it plays all sorts of cards that work nicely with Legion Extruder, such as Academy Manufactor and Ichor Wellspring. You might think Extruder and Ragost would be working against each other - after all, if you're sacrificing your artifacts to Legion Extruder, you're not using them as projectiles with Ragost.
But that's not quite how it works out. Because firstly, you're not always going to have Ragost on the field, so having another sac outlet to make use of your deck's various synergies is useful. And secondly, Legion Extruder makes another artifact when it destroys one, so it still gives Ragost something to utilize.
Judging by EDHREC, however, only a tiny minority of Ragost decks (just 2%!) are running Legion Extruder. Now, this being a Big Score card we can assume copies are in short supply, and perhaps this is sufficient to explain the price movements, but I'm tempted to cast about for another explanation.
I am seeing some people experiment with the card in various MTG Arena decks, and perhaps that's translating to paper Standard as well. Edge of Eternities gave us loads of interesting new artifact-based cards, such as Biotech Specialist, Weftstalker Ardent, and Weapons Manufacturing.
That last one seems particularly interesting with Extruder, as it makes damaging artifact tokens that are ripe for sacrificing, whenever you cast an artifact spell. There's quite a bit of buzz around this card right now, and Legion Extruder appears to be a shoe-in for any popular Standard deck that eventually coalesces.
I even spotted one fan going 5-0 in a Standard League on MTG Online with a surprising Jeskai build. It's still very niche right now, but perhaps between a handful of Ragost players, fans speculating on Standard, and the low supply of Legion Extruders, we have enough to explain why the card has become so costly.
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