The Magic: The Gathering card Overlord of the Boilerbilges has seen a pretty rapid 310% rise. At the end of June, this card was very affordable - at just $1.90 a copy. But now, this red mythic card will set you back $7.80, and it still seems to be rising in price.
Released just last year in the Duskmourn MTG set, Overlord of the Boilerbilges has always been one of the cheapest Overlords, not finding its way into the 4-color Zur the Enchanter Standard deck that was pretty popular before Beanstalk got banned (check our MTG Arena decks guide for more details).
But spoilers for the new Edge of Eternities set have caused it to become much pricier, thanks to a new MTG commander that has everyone (including me) very excited. That commander is Tannuk, Steadfast Second, a Kavu Pilot that can cheat out red creatures or artifact cards for a reduced cost, and gives everything haste.
Tannuk doesn't just play cards the normal way though - he gives things Warp. That means they can be played for three mana, but then at the end of turn get exiled, ready to be cast later on for the regular price.
This is great for Overlord of the Boilerbilges because it has both an ETB trigger and an attack trigger, dealing four damage on each. So with Tannuk on the field, you can warp this avatar horror for three mana and zap something for four damage. It then gets haste and can attack, dealing four damage again. Then you can either cast it for six mana on a later turn and do the whole thing again, or cast it with impending for four.
That's a lot of juice to be squeezed out of just one card. Tannuk turbocharges Overlord of the Boilerbilges. It's a great commander alongside any expensive creature that has both an ETB and an attack trigger. See also: Cityscape Leveller.
Tannuk appears to be the main cause of this price spike, as it didn't really start to pop off until this card was spoiled 12 days ago. However, copies will have also been taken out of circulation by an interesting new Naya Overlords Standard deck that has started to gain a little bit of traction.
This deck uses red cards to dump big enchantment creatures, like Overlord of the Boilerbilges, into the graveyard. Then it uses Final Fantasy's Yuna, Hope of Spira to pull them out, giving them ward, trample, and lifelink. That lifelink is particularly useful for ol' Bilgy here, since it triggers off its damage dealing effect, gaining you four life each time it blasts something.
Though still a pretty niche archetype, players buying up four copies of Boilerbilges to try it out will have meant there were fewer copies on the market, which left the card more susceptible to spiking once Tannuk came along.
If you have a horde of Boilerbilges - come show them off in our Discord. Sadly, I've managed to open several copies of the Floodpits Overlord, now the least prestigious of the lot!
Then check out our MTG release schedule guide for information about Spiderman, MTG Avatar the Last Airbender, and more.