The Magic: The Gathering card Terra Eternal has risen in price by 622%, a massive increase in only a week. Before the Avatar: The Last Airbender spoilers were revealed on August 12, this card was priced at just 90 cents, but now copies are going for $6.50 each, and the number just keeps climbing.
This enchantment card came out in the MTG set Worldwake in 2010, and has never seen a reprint, leaving it susceptible to hefty fluctuations in price like this one. The card is a three-mana enchantment that, very simply, makes all lands indestructible.
That's a powerful effect, and the card would probably be worth a bit more if mass land destruction wasn't tacitly banned in EDH. But now it's rising, thanks to an up and coming new MTG commander, Toph, the First Metalbender.
As I wrote yesterday, this very unique creature has the potential to make some big waves on the secondary market, and Terra Eternal is likely to be the first of many cards that it lifts up. Toph's static ability turns all artifacts into lands, which in combination with Terra Eternal, gives all of them indestructible.
Toph can also protect your artifacts with her Earthbend ability, which gives one land per turn the power to come back to the battlefield after being killed or exiled. We could argue all day long about whether that makes Worldwake's protection unnecessary for the deck, but personally I reckon getting Darksteel Forge's effect for cheap is not to be sniffed at.
If you play into the synergy and run a load of powerful artifact creatures in this deck, you can all but ignore Toph's secondary effect and just use it as an extra insurance policy for your most valuable artifacts. I don't think it's necessarily the best way to use Toph, but it is straightforward and effective.
We'll be keeping an eye out this week for more cards moving up thanks to Toph, the First Metalbender. I'm looking at Blossoming Tortoise for instance, which is an easy infinite mana enabler in the deck.
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