by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff
Infernal Darkness is an interesting Black Enchantment from Ice Age. What’s particularly interesting about it is that it has not seen just one price jump, but two in recent months. What’s this card used for? It’s sort of a “budget” version of an Urza’s Saga Enchantment called Contamination, which does a similar thing, but replacing the cumulative upkeep with the requirement to instead sacrifice a creature during each upkeep or sacrifice itself.
According to EDHREC, a great resource for seeing how much a card is played in the EDH / Commander format, Contamination is played four times as often as Infernal Darkness - 384 vs 100 in a similar amount of decks. Thus, the Urza’s Saga Enchantment is $7 while Infernal Darkness languished well under $1 for a long time. From June to late August 2015, interest in the card slowly brought its price up to just over a dollar. Then, suddenly, there was a TCG Player buyout and consequently it hit an all-time high of $2.69. There was then a steady selloff that brought it back down to $1.28 by early October. But now, in late October, there’s been a second buyout bringing it back up to its all-time high once again.
Is Infernal Darkness more popular than EDHREC considers it to be? It’s certainly never going to be a bulk rare again, simply from the price benefiting from very old set’s supply drying up. I wouldn’t go out and rush into buying this card, but if you have any around, I’d definitely look to hold them long term. Contamination is probably strictly better, as that cumulative upkeep of Infernal Darkness can add up rather quickly. But in the format that Infernal Darkness would ever see play in - Commander - having another mana denial card in a Mono-Black control deck’s arsenal never hurts.
While not on the Reserved List, it's doubtful that Infernal Darkness will be reprinted due to the Cumulative Upkeep requirement. Contamination is more likely to see reprint, but like Infernal Darkness, forcing all lands to tap for nothing but Black mana doesn't seem like something Wizards of the Coast really wants to bring back.
Investment Window: Long-Term
Risk: Medium, but Low if you have copies you buy at under $1 or already have some to hold.
Price Target: $3-5+
Is Infernal Darkness more popular than EDHREC considers it to be? It’s certainly never going to be a bulk rare again, simply from the price benefiting from very old set’s supply drying up. I wouldn’t go out and rush into buying this card, but if you have any around, I’d definitely look to hold them long term. Contamination is probably strictly better, as that cumulative upkeep of Infernal Darkness can add up rather quickly. But in the format that Infernal Darkness would ever see play in - Commander - having another mana denial card in a Mono-Black control deck’s arsenal never hurts.
While not on the Reserved List, it's doubtful that Infernal Darkness will be reprinted due to the Cumulative Upkeep requirement. Contamination is more likely to see reprint, but like Infernal Darkness, forcing all lands to tap for nothing but Black mana doesn't seem like something Wizards of the Coast really wants to bring back.
Investment Window: Long-Term
Risk: Medium, but Low if you have copies you buy at under $1 or already have some to hold.
Price Target: $3-5+
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