A new Strixhaven spoiler has caused a runaway price spike for this common MTG card. In just a few days, the Future Sight card Sprout Swarm has jumped up in value from about $0.60 to a whopping $6, making this a truly premium common.
The cause of the sudden price rise is a freshly revealed card Witherbloom, the Balancer, from new MTG set Secrets of Strixhaven. This mighty black/green elder dragon has affinity for creatures and gives all your instants and sorceries affinity for creatures too!
This obviously makes it a great commander for a deck filled with token-making instants and sorceries, and it creates a gnarly two-card infinite combo with Sprout Swarm, a two mana instant that makes a saproling.
Sprout Swarm has Buyback, which means you can pay three extra mana to pop it back into your hand when you cast it. With Witherbloom and just three other creatures out on the battlefield, you can remove the colorless mana cost entirely and keep playing the spell over and over.
As for the one green pip, well, Sprout Swarm has convoke. Each time you play the spell and make a saproling, you can then tap it for one green mana to pay for the next casting.
Of course, you'll need to pick your moment to unleash this combo. An infinite number of tapped saprolings won't immediately win you the game and will immediately make you enemy number one, as every player at the table combines their resources to try and take you out before your untap step. Luckily, Sprout Swarm's an instant. You can combo off just before your turn begins and then swing with impunity.
Or if you want to be really stylish about it, you can not attack at all and just cast an X-cost spell like Torment of Hailfire, with X=∞. That kind of thing belongs in this deck anyway!
We've already seen the Boros version of this cycle, Lorehold, the Historian, which gives all your instants and sorceries Miracle. Mark Rosewater's teaser promised "A mythic rare cycle that grants your instants and sorceries old keywords" so we'll have to see if the rest of the dragons follow this theme, and if they're all as good for Commander as these two.
We'll have to see if the rest of the elder dragon cycle does funky spell-slinging things too, and if they're all as good for Commander as these two. To stay up to speed with all the Secrets of Strixhaven news as it drops, join the free Wargamer Discord community! We want your takes, deck techs, and general foolishness, please!