The MTG card Necroskitter is spiking in price. Eventide copies of the card are now worth up to $20, when they were only $8.50 a few weeks ago. While the card is available a bit cheaper, even Modern Masters versions are rising in price, and a foil Modern Masters Necroskitter is also up by more than 100%, costing $28 to the $13 it was priced at not long ago.
Necroskitter, originally released in the MTG set Eventide in 2008, is an elemental with Wither, which means it deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters. Its most powerful ability, though, is that when a creature with a -1/-1 counter on it dies while Necroskitter is on the battlefield, you get to draw a card.
It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find the recently released card that is causing Necroskitter’s bump in price. The MTG Murders at Karlov Manor card Massacre Girl, Known Killer gives all your creatures Wither, letting you splash -1/-1 counters around, and working fantastically with Necroskitter.
It looks like lots of people are running the new Massacre Girl as their MTG Commander. In fact, according to EDHREC, she’s the fourth most popular commander in the entire set, coming in just behind the mole god and the really annoying wolf. This has almost certainly led to a huge increase in demand for copies of Necroskitter.
It’s notable that this is not the first time the Eventide card was boosted by a new mono black Commander. When Yawgmoth, Thran Physician released in Modern Horizons, we saw a similar spike, and the price has never really dropped back down since then.
Wizards of the Coast doesn’t like to print too many cards with -1/-1 counter effects, deeming them too confusing alongside their more ubiquitous opposite, the +1/+1 counter.
But -1/-1 counters is still a decently popular theme, one that Wizards likes to seed a few cards for here and there for the benefit of EDH. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons is the classic commander for this archetype, and, as well as Massacre Girl, new cards include the Jurassic World dino Spitting Dilophosaurus.
For more price spike stories, check out what’s happening to the Karlov Manor lands. And don’t miss our picks for the best MTG Arena decks in Standard right now.