The artifact MTG card Ashes of the Fallen is currently spiking, going from $3 to $13.30 in the past month, an increase of 343%. There’s renewed interest around this card because it’s the ideal inclusion for a popular new Commander deck.
Indeed, its creature-altering abilities make Ashes of the Fallen slot perfectly into one of the new MTG precons released alongside Modern Horizons 3: Graveyard Overdrive.
Led by Disa the Restless, this Jund deck wants you to pop Lhurgoyfs into your grave, then resurrect them with your commander’s ability. The only issue with that is there aren’t many cards with the Lhurgoyf MTG creature type. You’re likely to nab a few freebies over the course of a game by self-milling, but it’s far from consistent.
That makes Maskwood Nexus, which can make all your creatures into Lhurgoyfs, one of the most valuable cards in the precon. And lo and behold, Ashes of the Fallen has pretty much the same effect as Nexus, while being far cheaper on your mana. It can make every creature that goes into your graveyard a goyf, which is basically all you need for Disa.
We’ve seen some confusion around the interaction here. Since Ashes of the Fallen only affects cards while they’re in your graveyard, many intuitively believe it wouldn’t work with Disa. This artifact is confusing – and there are lots of interactions with it that don’t work quite the way you’d expect, as the video below by Attack on Cardboard spells out.
The long and short of it is that because the static ability of Ashes of the Fallen changes the creature type to Lhurgoyf before Disa’s triggered ability goes off, the combo does indeed work, and it can provide a massive power boost to the Graveyard Overdrive deck.
Since it was only ever printed in the MTG set Saviors of Kamigawa, Ashes of the Fallen is pretty susceptible to price spikes. In fact, the card blew up to around this same price point when Modern Horizons 2 came out in 2021, as players were excited to try it out with the mass reanimate card Patriarch’s Bidding.
This is the second time Modern Horizons 3 has triggered a price spike for a niche artifact from original Kamigawa block. We’ve also seen Shuko shoot up in value, thanks to its interaction with the absurd Simic value bird, Nadu, Winged Wisdom. It seems like people can’t wait for that one to find its way onto an MTG banlist or two.
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