The Magic: The Gathering card Melira, Sylvok Outcast is spiking in price, moving from $2.90 to $6.40 in the past two weeks, while foils have gone up to $21. This card hails from 2011 and originated in the third MTG set in the Scars of Mirrodin block, New Phyrexia.
In Magic lore, Melira was immune to the Phyrexians' insidious compleation process, and she has a pretty unique set of abilities to reflect that. She stops you getting poison counters, prevents your creatures getting -1/-1 counters, and causes opposing creatures to lose the infect keyword.
It's the second of those abilities that's relevant here, because of course Lorwyn Eclipsed just came out with a Commander precon deck that's all about -1/-1 counters. Melira would be a nightmare to face if you were running Blight Curse, because it would stop you from targeting her controller with most of your value generating spells, abilities, and creatures. If it came down to a 1v1, you'd have no chance.
If a dedicated -1/-1 counters deck comes up against Melira, its only hope is to remove her. The problem is, in this kind of deck it follows that a lot of your removal is going to use -1/-1 counters too, which could put you in a sticky spot. Fortunately, the Blight Curse deck has plenty of other options, from the MTG planeswalker Vraska, Betrayal's Sting to Assassin's Trophy.
The trouble with a card like Melira, of course, is in any situations where you're not facing -1/-1 counters or poison, it's completely useless. It's a bit of a strange spike this then, since presumably the card is being bought up by people who are fairly certain they're going to go up against Auntie Ool in the near future.
As I usually play commander at my LGS with a big mix of people and can't predict what I'll be facing, this is a totally alien situation to me. But perhaps if you play in a small group of friends, where the same decks keep cropping up again and again, it makes sense to prepare for each other's strategies, if that's the norm for your playgroup. Or perhaps some people are sideboarding before their Commander games?
Help me unpick this puzzle at the Wargamer Discord. Do you change your deck around based on what you think your opponents will play, or is that bad EDH etiquette?