Mana Market WatchA werewolf got rewritten so a Starfleet land could do math
Ep. 6: a werewolf rewrite, Commander price spikes, Star Trek prerelease prices, Worlds 32, and Magic’s movie star.
· by Tim Johnson
1. A werewolf got rewritten so a Starfleet land could do math
Wizards' Nov 6 Star Trek Update Bulletin has exactly one notable Oracle change, and it isn't even a Star Trek card. Werewolf Pack Leader, a green rare from 2021's Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, used to say it "isn't a Human" until end of turn. Now it "is a Werewolf."
Blame Starfleet Academy, a new land that adds mana equal to the number of creature types among your non-Borg creatures. Wizards' nightmare scenario: Stalactite Dagger makes Pack Leader every creature type, Artificial Evolution swaps "Human" for "Borg" in its text, and one activation later you have a non-Borg creature with every type but one. How much mana is that? Wizards says you shouldn't have to know: "Please feel free to store other, more interesting Magic trivia in your neurons instead."
Fair, because the list just got longer: the set adds 43 new creature types, from Aenar to Xindi. Narrative designer Crystal Frasier's Nov 4 IDIC feature explains why. Data was going to be a Construct, then a Robot, except Data spent seven seasons insisting he isn't a robot. So Magic now has an Android type. With around 373 differently named creatures to type, Frasier suggested making all Vulcans Elves and got "howls of rage and thrown chairs." Star Trek's rule that nobody is an "alien" killed the Alien type too, so the team turned the paperwork into a mechanic: federation. Very Starfleet of them.
Werewolf Pack Leader (AFR #211), art by Miranda Meeks; Starfleet Academy (TRK #297), art by Robin Olausson; Lieutenant Commander Data (TRK #69), art by Irvin Rodriguez. Images: Scryfall / Wizards of the Coast.
2. Spikes of the Week
Same three cards as on manamarketwatch.com. Prices are TCGplayer daily market prices (Near Mint, normal printing), Oct 30 to Nov 6.
Flawless Maneuver (Commander: Reality Fracture): $7.32 → $7.99, +9.2%, with 308 copies sold in seven days. Jace, Multiverse Architect keeps recruiting. EDHREC counts 15,141 Jace decks today, up from 14,152 on Friday (Nov 6), and 8,793 of them run Flawless Maneuver. That's 58%, and 590 more decks since Friday. Free with a commander out, it makes your team indestructible: Commander's version of a fire drill. It was $7.64 on TCGplayer this morning.
Thought Vessel (Final Fantasy Commander): $2.13 → $2.55, +19.7%, with 181 copies sold. A plain mana rock on a commander's coattails. Leonardo da Vinci went from $1.22 on Oct 28 to $3.01 this morning on TCGplayer, and EDHREC shows Thought Vessel in 3,484 of 4,802 Leonardo decks (73%). Leonardo turns discarded artifacts into Thopters as big as your hand, so removing the hand-size cap was never going to be optional. It was $2.52 this morning.
Propaganda (Final Fantasy Commander): $2.15 → $2.43, +13.0%, with 148 copies sold. Jace again. EDHREC lists it in 3,014 of those 15,141 Jace decks, 210 more since Friday. A blue mage charging rent to attack them is the most traditional thing in Magic. It was back to $2.30 this morning, so part of the spike has already left the building.
Flawless Maneuver (FRC #25), art by Zoltan Boros; Thought Vessel (FIC #368), art by Daniel Correia; Propaganda (FIC #268), art by Gintas Galvanauskas. Images: Scryfall / Wizards of the Coast.
3. Star Trek Sealed & Chase-Card Watch
Prerelease started Nov 6, real packs got opened, and the chase cards met supply. TCGplayer market prices checked Nov 8, 1:17 AM PT, next to last week's Nov 1 numbers:
| Card | Nov 1 | Nov 8 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep Space 9 | $49.83 | $14.11 | −72% |
| Mr. Spock, Science Officer | $26.13 | $7.52 | −71% |
| LCARS Blood Crypt | $21.94 | $9.96 | −55% |
| Death Is Irrelevant | $19.02 | $5.10 | −73% |
| Georgiou, Terran Emperor | $18.40 | $3.37 | −82% |
| Captain James T. Kirk (Showcase) | $13.16 | $6.36 | −52% |
Deep Space 9 sold 106 copies on Nov 7 alone, after zero on Oct 31. The signed Spock and Kirk headliners still have zero listings.
| Sealed product | Nov 1 | Nov 8 | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Play Booster Display (30) | $123.32 | $115.40 | — |
| Collector Booster Display (12) | $575.38 | $497.80 | $455.88 (12 × $37.99) |
| Play Booster (single) | $11.63 | $8.71 | $6.99 |
| Collector Booster (single) | $61.07 | $49.60 | $37.99 |
| Bundle | $48.09 | $53.79 | $69.99 |
| Beam Me Up Bundle | $127.20 | $138.52 | $99.99 |
| Draft Night | $97.02 | $92.42 | $119.99 |
| Scene Box: Enterprise-Q / Divergent Timelines | $38.50 / $37.00 | $37.61 / $33.95 | $41.99 |
| Commander decks (all four) | $64.54–$69.69 | $55.07–$66.39 | $74.99 |
| Collector's Edition: Klingon Fury | $231.46 | $148.68 | $159.99 |
| Collector's Edition: Federation Fleet | $206.16 | $197.45 | $159.99 |
The Collector Booster display dipped to $457.78 on Nov 6, about two dollars over MSRP, then bounced. Only the Bundle and Beam Me Up Bundle went up. Both are on Wizards' Nov 5 North American delay list (Bundles after prerelease, Beam Me Up Bundles and Draft Night after the Nov 13 release, Commander decks "may arrive" after release), though we can't confirm that's why. Klingon Fury's Collector's Edition fell 36% on three sales: less a trend than a rumor with a receipt.
4. The set lead's Riker problem
Frasier's Nov 3 essay, "Ad Astra Per Aspera," was the most human thing Wizards published all week. Her first Star Trek episode was "Devil in the Dark," at age five, next to her dad. The monster turned out to be a mother protecting her children, and it blew her young mind.
The set covers over 600 hours of television in more than 800 unique cards. The team's early rules: give characters cool things to do besides fighting, and cap how many card names can be quotes. If your favorite line didn't make it, Frasier says, "believe me when I say we debated it. A lot." She also admits her art director teased her "mercilessly" about how much Riker she included, and the caption on Open Communications reads: "Sometimes being a set lead means giving your childhood crush the screentime he deserves."
As for the Horta, the creature that taught a five-year-old not to judge by appearances: it's printed as an Elemental with trample and basic landcycling. After all that talk about nobody being an alien, the rock mom got typed as a rock.
Horta (TRK #152), art by Arthur Haas. Image: Scryfall / Wizards of the Coast.
5. Worlds 32: one day to learn a whole set
World Championship 32 runs Nov 13–15 at MagicCon: Atlanta for $1,000,000, with $100,000 to the winner. Star Trek hits MTG Arena Nov 10, and Standard decklists are due at noon ET Nov 11. Frank Karsten's Nov 5 Metagame Mentor does the math: roughly one day of practice, plus under 72 hours of Arena drafts before the Star Trek Draft rounds.
His map, from 1,810 decklists across Arena Championship 13 and both Spotlight: Fracture events: Mono-Green Landfall is most-played at 12.7% (53.4% match wins). Jund Sacrifice is the deck to beat at 57.6% after winning both Spotlights. Izzet Spellementals is 7.5% of the field and wins 44.3%, which is a lot of people losing on purpose. His Trek watchlist includes Quark, Humble Proprietor for Jund and Genesis Device for Landfall. It may also be Kaito, Bane of Nightmares' last big Standard stage before Nauctis: The Sunken Realm arrives Feb 5, 2027.
Sunday adds three Hall of Famers: Javier Dominguez, the first player ever named on every ballot (40 of 40), plus Ken Yukuhiro (37) and Jean-Emmanuel Depraz (24, exactly the 60% needed). Christoffer Larsen leads Player of the Year, and a Top 8 would lock it.
6. Magic's movie found its first star
Maya Hawke has joined Legendary and Hasbro Entertainment's live-action Magic: The Gathering film, Deadline reported Nov 4; Hasbro confirmed it. Her role is undisclosed. Matt Johnson (BlackBerry) directs and co-writes. No release date yet, and no word on whether she plays a planeswalker or the person explaining the stack.
7. Dates to know
- Now through Nov 12: Prerelease events
- Nov 9, 9 a.m. PT: Set Phasers to Superdrop (Wizards' page still says the sixth drop will be "revealed later")
- Nov 10: Star Trek on MTG Arena
- Nov 11, noon ET: Worlds Standard decklists due
- Nov 13: Tabletop release; Magic Presents: To Boldly Go runs through Jan 28
- Nov 13–15: MagicCon: Atlanta and World Championship 32 (Hall of Fame ceremony Nov 15)
- Nov 20–26: Commander Party, Round 1
- Nov 30: Full card image gallery
See you next week. Live long, and read the Oracle text.