Missing on Midnight Hunt?

The collective failure of many of us to speculate on Innistrad: Midnight Hunt shows that many things which look obvious in hindsight are easy to miss at the time. Commander decks now come out with each set. This means there is a significant risk in reprints destroying speculation targets. This justifies taking a more risk-averse approach to speculation. In the past, we could focus on cards with set or block-specific keywords if we knew Wizards had introduced a new mechanic that would make the inclusion of those cards in a Standard-legal set unlikely. The addition of these Commander decks eliminates that option. With Midnight Hunt though, once the werewolf mechanic was announced to be Daybound/Nightbound, it made reprints of older werewolves far less likely, and more of us should have acted on that knowledge and bought in on cards like Huntmaster of the Fells // Ravager of the Fells.

Crimson Vow Speculation

Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury with any of Magic's vampires, but there are still opportunities for speculation. Because of the risk, I've put upper and lower bounds on each opportunity. I feel there is significant risk in the higher dollar specs, so I've kept my choices to cards that minimize losses should they be included in one of the Commander decks, or are reprinted in Standard.

Speculation Targets

One key thing to remember with Commander is that cards that scale well tend to be very powerful as the game gets longer and board states get bigger. Sanctum Seeker is a very powerful card that allows one to kill multiple opponents at one time. The incremental and repeated life gain triggers also work well with numerous other beloved Commander cards. As this card doesn't have any set or block-specific keywords, the chance of it being reprinted is higher than cards that do.

Upper Limit: $7 - Being such a recent card, the supply is very large, so it is unlikely to go much more than 230% of its current price. It's also important to note that its price has been steadily rising since well before we knew we were returning to Innistrad, which we learned about in mid-March 2021.

Lower Limit: $0.5 - this number is based on the fact that even seeing little to no play during its time in standard it still retailed for around $1 thanks to the love of the vampire tribe, thus a reprint would likely be around half that low.

Cordial Vampire is a relatively new card. Its only printing was in Modern Horizons, which thanks to its higher pack cost, means that it was likely opened in smaller quantities than a typical Standard-legal set. This smaller quantity opened means a smaller supply than other Standard printed rares. Its price has steadily risen over the last year and a half and recently jumped in late August. The risk here is that this was basically a bulk rare for quite some time. I remember seeing plenty in the bulk rare boxes at the last GP I attended in 2019.

Upper Limit: $10 - Cordial Vampire has the potential to be very powerful if we see a lot more vampire token generators and/or good vampire sacrifice outlets.

Lower Limit: $0.75 - As with Sanctum Seeker, this card could easily be reprinted in Standard or the Commander decks releasing with Crimson Vow. Given the previously mentioned bulk rare status for this card, a reprint would likely destroy its current $5 price.

This seems exactly like the type of vampire you auto-include in any vampire-themed Commander deck. Champion of Dusk offers the potential for a lot of card draw, something crucial in the format. Thanks to the life loss though, there is always a risk that the card could become stuck in your hand thanks to a low life total and a good number of vampires on the battlefield. While it has currently doubled in price from its all-time low, the low buy-in of $1 makes this relatively low-risk.

Upper Limit: $5 - Rivals of Ixalan suffered from being another of the underpowered second sets we have seen throughout Magic's history. There wasn't a whole lot of value in the set at the time of its Standard legality, so less was opened than of more popular sets.

Lower Limit: $0.50 - while a drop down of 50% of its value would definitely hurt, the fact that its all-time low is $0.50 makes me feel confident it is unlikely to drop any lower than that given it saw little to no Standard play while legal.

I honestly thought this card had been reprinted numerous times. Necropolis Regent's only only reprints though were in Explorers of Ixalan and Commander 2021. This card was $5 at one time but is now sitting at around $1, bulk-status for a mythic. It's the type of card that can allow someone to run away with the game if it isn't answered promptly, but its biggest issue is that it doesn't do anything immediately upon entering the battlefield. Necropolis Regent's power level is heavily dependent on you having and maintaining a strong board state. Foil copies of this mythic from Return to Ravnica are around $5, which seems like the opportunity with the most upside. Many of the more modern-day vampire mechanics are +1/+1 counter-oriented, and there is a decent possibility this type of mechanic will continue, allowing this card something to combo with moving forward.

Upper Limit: $7 (non-foil)/ $25 (foil) - The non-foil limit is heavily influenced by the fact that a reprint is still available in many stores in the Silverquill Statement Commander deck. The only foil version, however, is the Return to Ravnica one, which is 9 years old and has a considerably higher upside. Full disclosure, I believe in this card so strongly that in the process of writing this article I purchased two foil copies of it.

Lower Limit: $0.5 - There are only so many times you can reprint a card before forcing it into bulk status. This card feels like it is already at that limit and a further reprint would likely halve its price.

A Different Perspective

I hope you enjoyed this second course of speculation on Innistrad: Crimson Vow. I enjoyed Kai's perspective in their article but had already planned my own take on the subject. I welcome feedback, so if you have any thoughts on either my choices of cards or my argument for my limits please feel free to comment below or reach out to me on our QS Discord server.