The Magic: The Gathering extra turn spell Second Chance has blown up in price, going from $4.30 to $16.30 in just a three day window. This 280% price rise is due to an infinite combo that can see you chaining turns together in Commander, guaranteeing the win. Read on to find out exactly what's set off this spike, and why the new price almost certainly won't last long.
Second Chance is an old enchantment card from the MTG set Urza's Legacy. Its effect is quite simple: if you have five or less life on your upkeep step, you sacrifice the permanent and get another turn.
Second Chance forms a straightforward infinite combo with the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty legendary creature, Tameshi, Reality Architect. After Second Chance is triggered and destroyed, you simply need to pay four mana to bring it back with Tameshi's ability, and it'll retrigger at the start of your extra turn. Repeat this and you can have a third, fourth, and fifth chance - as many chances as you need, in fact!
You'll notice, however, that this combo is not new, so why is the card spiking right now? Well, it looks like a Magic: The Gathering content creator is to blame. BenBatemanMTG showcased the Second Chance/Tameshi combo in a YouTube short published just before the price spike started and specifically spoke about the enchantment being 'an anomaly' and surprisingly cheap. Then, it seems, fans immediately went out to buy one.
The thing is, it's not like this combo is some undiscovered hidden interaction. Second Chance sharply rose to $30 when Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty came out and has slowly sunk back down since then. It also went up to $10 just before Duskmourn dropped, presumably because fans wanted to try it with The Master of Keys.
The fact this is just hype resurfacing around an old combo rather than a new busted interaction has me 99% sure that Second Chance will be back to its $4 price tag soon.
For more evidence, just check out Tameshi's EDHREC page. Less than 3% of Tameshi players are even running this combo - it's not popular. That's probably because you have to go down to five life before it even works, and in Azorius colors, with few ways to pay, that probably means you need your opponents to do the job for you.
So Second Chance is just a dead card until extremely late in the game, and if you play it or discard it early then the combo is telegraphed and can be easily avoided.
Even if your opponents don't see it coming, there's no guarantee you'll ever get to go off. What if you're on six life and you're swung at with a 6/6 flier? What if your friend has a sac outlet and a Blood Artist and just kills you as soon as you show signs of shenanigans? The combo is narrow and unreliable, and, frankly, Tameshi doesn't need it.
But just because I think the price will slump back down soon, that doesn't mean it's not a great time to offload any spare copies you have lying around!
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