The Magic: The Gathering card Seize The Spotlight has more than doubled in price over the past three weeks. On August 16, it was worth $5.30 on the secondary market, but since then it's risen to $11.30, and shows no signs of slowing. It's pretty impressive, considering this relatively new card cost just $2 when Aetherdrift - the first set of the year - came out.
This is an EDH-only card released with the Streets of New Capenna Commander precon decks, so there's no need to ponder what format caused it to rise. However, there doesn't seem to be one particular new MTG commander responsible for putting Seize The Spotlight in the spotlight. Instead, the card seems to have gone up in value, simply because it's very bloody good.
At a glance, Seize the Spotlight seems like a powered-down version of Expropriate, the nine-mana blue card that gives extra turns or lets you steal your opponent's stuff. This is a three mana red spell which gives each opponent a choice. They can let you borrow their best creature for the turn, or they can let you make a treasure and draw a card.
The thing is, as long as you have three opponents and they all have creatures you'd like to borrow, there are no bad outcomes for you. Most of the time, it's much better for you if your opponents pick the 'fortune' option. If all three make that choice, you've basically cast a zero-mana Ancestral Recall.
If all three pick fame - this spell is potentially less impactful - just borrow some good creatures for a turn. It's by no means bad, just nothing special. But here's the thing: unless everyone's got their head screwed on properly, chances are not every player will make that choice.
In Commander, people don't like having their stuff stolen and used against them. If you give them a way out, they will often leap for it - no matter how bad the alternative is. We see this play out with Expropriate, where often players will give their opponent an entire extra turn instead of parting with their best creature. Compared to that, how dangerous can some card draw really be?
Cards like this are like a mini prisoner's dilemma. If one player refuses to give up their creature, this is often followed by the others following suit. In a casual setting especially, players will rarely do the optimal thing and give up their permanents. If you can threaten to sacrifice something, it makes that an even less attractive option, and even if you can't, your foes will still fear losing them in a suicidal attack, or even just being bludgeoned by their own pieces.
All that combined means Seize the Spotlight has a good chance of punching above its weight. It's powerful, not just in treasure-making token decks, but in pretty much every red deck going.
This explains the price spike - even though the card's pretty new and got reprinted in Thunder Junction.
Have you played this card in a deck? Let us know how it performed at the Wargamer Discord. You can also learn about upcoming MTG sets with our Magic: The Gathering release schedule guide.