The Doctor Who MTG card RMS Titanic has soared to surprising heights, with a 730% price spike in the past week. This card was worth only 60 cents on June 20, but now copies are selling for $5, while surge foils have surged all the way up to $47 - a ridiculous jump considering they were previously worth about $9.
The reason for the Titanic's climb will be pretty obvious if you were paying attention to the big Magic news last week. Thanks to the upcoming MTG set Edge of Eternities, vehicles can now be commanders, and no doubt players have been searching for the best legendary vehicle cards to build a unique deck around.
There aren't yet many good options, as it turns out, but while I'm not sure I'd call the RMS Titanic good exactly, it certainly is funny. In case you're not a Doctor Who fan, the card is based on an episode in which a head in a jar tries to crash a spaceship into Earth, as part of a revenge plot slash insurance scam. Also, Kylie Minogue is there.
The gameplan with the RMS Titanic is pretty obvious. You want a bunch of cards that synergize with treasures, like Goldspan Dragon, Academy Manufacturer, or Reckless Fireweaver. Then you need to buff up the Titanic and hit someone in the face with it as hard as possible. You might only get to do this once per game, since you'll have to pay six mana to recast the vehicle, so this deck is all about having one big explosive moment. I can definitely see the appeal.
With 168 decks logged on EDHREC, the Titanic is definitely the playerbase's vehicle commander of choice - as the rest are struggling to even crack 100. But 168 isn't loads. I definitely expected to see more decks to explain this kind of spike, though perhaps the Doctor Who cards sold worse (and are now rarer) than I realized.
Perhaps, by chance, there are tons of players running this that aren't using EDHREC - I suppose taking the time to submit a deck to an online database is not very Timmy, so there could be something to that.
The other alternative is that this spike is driven more by hype around the rules change than actual demand. In which case we could easily see the card strike an iceberg in the coming weeks and plummet right back down again.
If you're building a Vehicle-led commander deck, I would love to hear about it - share your list over on our Discord. You might also like our guides to the best MTG commanders and top MTG Arena decks.