The Magic: The Gathering card Thieving Varmint has seen an enormous price spike over the past month. In mid-October this card cost only $1, but since then it's undergone an immense increase of more than 1300%, and copies are now being sold for about $14.30.
That's a pretty major glow-up for a card that only came out last year. Thieving Varmint appeared in the Gonti, Canny Acquisitor MTG commander precon deck, and it's a brilliant inclusion for a popular EDH archetype - card theft
There are lots of different cards that will let you play with your opponents' decks, either grabbing their permanents directly or letting you pay your own mana to cast them. With the latter option often you're limited, not by the number of cards you can steal, but by the number you can actually afford to play.
That's where Thieving Varmint comes in. It's a powerful mana dork for these decks, tapping for two mana that can only be spent on spells which you don't own. That's really useful, and as a result the varmint has found a spot alongside many new commanders since it came out, from Rev, Tithe Collector to Tinybones, Bauble Burglar.
It's particularly great with the recent Nathan Drake, Treasure Hunter card from the Playstation Secret Lair drops, which were revealed a little before this spike began. That's because, whereas most theft commanders have some sort of mechanic that lets you play your stolen cards in later turns, with Drake you have to cast the card as soon as you reveal it.
It seems like Drake was the catalyst for this price spike, and that it was amplified because Thieving Varmint has only been printed once and copies have been snapped up anybody making a commander in this archetype.
Once a rather niche theme for a multiplayer deck, theft has become a pretty popular theme over the last couple of years. Of course, Outlaws of Thunder Junction helped with that, but Wizards seems to be printing more of these cards in general. According to EDHREC, three of the five most popular pilfering commanders came out in 2023 or later.
Nathan Drake isn't the only Playstation card causing price spikes. We've also seen a bunch of combat-trigger critters launched skyward by Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima.
Are you picking up any Playstation drops? Let us know on the Wargamer Discord. Or check out our guide to the MTG release schedule.