The Magic: The Gathering saga card Kiora Bests the Sea God is one of the biggest TCG price spikes of the week. This MTG card’s price has risen 140% in the last seven days – from $4.80 on June 26 to $11.60 today. While it’s not exactly set to become the most expensive MTG card ever, its value has surged in a short period of time, and still appears to be rising.
Kiora Bests the Sea God is a saga that creates a massive threat, neutralises your opponents for a couple turns, and then steals their best permanent. It ranked as the biggest bomb in Theros Beyond Death limited, right up there with Dream Trawler for cards that’ll make an opponent spontaneously concede. But why would it be spiking now?
Well the most likely explanation lies in its card subtype. It’s a saga, and one of Magic’s strongest sagas at that. That means it gels very nicely with a most eye catching MTG Lord of the Rings card, Tom Bombadil. A God Bard that becomes indestructible and hexproof once you have some sagas on the board, Tom was our pick for the #1 best MTG Lord of the Rings commander, and he seems to have been equally popular with fans.
Bombadil now has 2,749 decks on EDHREC, making him the most played MTG commander from the Lord of the Rings set, narrowly beating out Sauron, Shelob, and all of the many different Aragorns.
As the saga was invented relatively recently, with 2018’s MTG set Dominaria, only 106 examples of the card type have been printed. So while it’s a multicolored commander that could theoretically run any card, there are relatively few good card options for prospective Tom Bombadil brewers, and they’re hardly likely to pass up Kiora.
Sure enough, Of those 2,749 Tom Bombadil decks, a whopping 82% run Kiora Bests the Sea God. Which aptly explains why this mythic saga is suddenly in high demand.
This is far from the only MTG price spike caused by Lord of the Rings cards. For instance, an infinite combo saw an old ’90s card explode in price, while the Nazgul are flying high due to their alternate artwork.
If you plan to craft your own Bombadil brew, you may benefit from our tips on how to build an MTG Commander deck. Or, if you’re more of a digital player, check out these MTG Arena codes.