The Magic: The Gathering card Taeko the Patient Avalanche has shot up in price from $6 to $19.90, a rise of 231%. That makes it the third most expensive card in the Foundations MTG set right now, just behind another anime card Rev, Tithe Extractor, and the new landfall staple Scythecat Cub.
Wizard of the Coast's own in-universe take on a ninja turtle, Taeko is obviously built for Dimir ninja decks. Its ability gives it a counter and lets you scry every time a creature leaves the battlefield but doesn't die. One of the best ways to achieve that is with the ninja's signature Ninjutsu ability, bouncing an unblocked creature back to your hand in return for a sneaky attacking ninja. Taeko can even make a creature unblockable, further enabling the theme.
But up to now, this kung-fu tortoise never really took off. The premier ninja leader Yuriko is the 8th most popular MTG commander in all of Magic, yet Taeko only shows up in 8% of her decks (according to EDHREC). Similarly, Taeko himself has less than 1,000 decks logged.
It should be pretty obvious why Taeko's price has shot up, but in case you've been living under a rock and missed all the MTG release schedule announcements: there's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle set coming out early next year.
It doesn't take a genius to guess that there'll be some ninja synergies and maybe even some turtle synergies in this release, and although we've only seen a few cards, fans are already planning to throw Taeko into the set's lone Commander precon deck.
Honestly, it seems like a pretty good bet, given what we already know about the TMNT set. For starters, it introduces a new ability, Sneak, that functions like a more flexible Ninjutsu, allowing you to pop attacking creatures back into your hand and triggering Taeko's effect.
Plus, the set has a counters theme, with the five-color commander Heroes in a Half Shell gifting +1/+1 counters, and a new Mutagen token type that hands them out too. There are plenty of payoffs already, like Raphael which doubles damage dealt by creatures bearing counters.
While it's clearly very synergistic, it'll be interesting to see whether Taeko remains an important choice for a TMNT deck once the set actually comes out, or if it'll be crowded out by all the other ninjas, turtles, mutants, and teenagers running about.
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