I like Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter a lot. She's very Standard playable and useful in EDH. With probably Magic the Gathering's  best set ever on the horizon, Dominaria, this one-drop gal could be a part of some competitive deck. She's proven herself as a two-of in Green/White Aggro and already sees play in a few Commander decks on a regular basis. 

Now, ElspethFTW already has a solid write-up on Oviya Pashiri and her worthiness of being in your Magic collection. But here, I want to talk a bit about why Oviya suddenly went from a $0.25 bulk rare to a $0.50 card on the rise. Even foils are seeing a healthy interest, and it's not all from EDH players like myself who want her in my Rhys the Redeemed deck.

Oviya Pashiri has become the biggest speculation target leading up to Dominaria's release. That's why she's been a consistent best-seller on TCGPlayer. How did this happen?

Well, first of all, she's cheap. And if she's a best-seller, a lot of other players not quite aware of the fact that she's being speculated on join in thinking, hey, maybe something is up here. And, honestly, as I've already stated, a one-drop Legendary creature in a Standard format that rewards you for playing Legendary spells is going to be pretty good.

But HOW good will she be? Yes, Dominaria has good additions to Green/White Aggro, and perhaps Mono-Green Aggro, as well. But for Oviya to be worth speculating on, she's going to have to be at least a three-of or four-of in some deck that reaches the top tier of a major tournament. A 1/2 one-drop with decent tap abilities playable at instant speed  is certainly Standard playable. Yes, being a  Legendary Creature triggers historic spell abilities from Dominaria.

But is Oviya going to become a $2.50 card (or more) and make lots of people money? Perhaps.

The logic of speculators here is pretty sound. If you buy a playset for between $1.50 and $2 with shipping costs included, your risk is super low. If you buy a foil copy for $1-2 or so, your risk is even lower. That's because Oviya is playable in EDH and those players who want to make her a permanent shiny part of a token-happy EDH deck will pay that price.

If the nonfoil busts, you're out $2 per playset of four copies, minus the 40 cents or so you could recoup from a vendor. You could try and unload your failed spec at eBay or TCGPlayer; but, after shipping and fees, your net loss will be the same. However, the foil won't lose much if the card doesn't become widely adopted in Standard. Worst case, you break even or lose a minimal amount of value as trade fodder.

If you're starting out in Magic the Gathering collection building, this is not a bad card to have. I've always been more keen on foils as investments, as reprints tend to destroy the value of nonfoil printings quite dramatically. While Oviya doesn't look like a prime reprint target, her inclusion in a Commander related product isn't out of the question.

So, if you want to bet on Oviya becoming an awesome sauce can't miss investment during her time in Standard, I'd pick up a foil copy or two and call it a day. While I'm not remiss to pick up a nonfoil copy as an order tack-on or trade throw-in, I just don't see her as much more than she already is.

That being said, I always love foils of EDH playables, especially those that have seen play in standard.  With a foil multiplier of 2.5x already, if Oviya becomes even just a dollar in nonfoil, you're up to probably $3 on the foil. Even selling that one foil copy is going to net you a profit. Also, while the market for nonfoil copies is larger, people who really want foils really, really want them. People will be willing to pay a premium for a foil of a card they need for their deck. And if Oviya does his $2.50 or $3, you'll have a $5 foil at the minimum. But if she doesn't, you hedged your bets and she's still a decent card to hold in your collection.

Whenever you're considering a card to hold onto for pure speculation purposes, you have to consider the card's floor, its potential ceiling, and your costs of unloading it if and when it does go up in price. Personally, I don't do speculation. I just collect good cards. But if and when you see a card selling like there's no tomorrow, it's cheap, playable, and  potentially a top-table player, there's no reason not to grab a copy or two (preferably foil), sit back, and potentially reap some solid rewards.

Don't speculate. Collect intelligently, instead.

Weathered Wayfarer is one of those cards that you buy for $5, and three years later, it's $10! As of July 5th, 2017, Weathered Wayfarer had a TCG Player market price of roughly $10. Less than a year later, the Wayfarer was pushing $13-15! The 9th edition printing is slightly higher than the original Onslaught, but the price points are a wash when you factor in shipping costs.

Playability

While Weathered Wayfarer has seen occasional play in the Modern format, this creature's value is most appreciated in EDH. The Wayfarer sees play in over 6000 deck lists on EDHrec, and there isn't one commander that favors Weathered Wayfarer.

The reason for this is probably the simplicity of the Wayfarer ability. For just one White mana, you can tap Weathered Wayfarer to add any land card from your deck to your hand. Plus, Weathered Wayfarer is only a one drop creature to begin with. Basically, as long as decks use white mana and play lands, Weathered Wayfarer will be a great way to get some early card advantage.



Future Value

The supply of both printings of Weathered Wayfarer isn't all that high. Buy list prices weren't extremely high in 2017, and there was an over 40 percent spread between retail and most buy list prices. This was because despite being such a good card, most vendors don't seem concerned about running out quickly. Looking at the rapid growth of EDH, however,  the supply wouldn't last. In 2018, the spread dropped to around 20 percent and prices of the card rose by around that same amount.

There is a real chance that Weathered Wayfarer could be reprinted,  however. The Wayfarer doesn't have any flavor restrictions that would keep it from being in an expansion set down the road. It definitely makes sense in a Commander deck. However, this card would have to be printed on a.major set release to see its value tank in the long-term, however. A lot of players will soak up the supply of it in Commander decks, because most players will just keep their copies.

As far as foil prices are concerned, Weathered Wayfarer is probably a good one to pick up. 9th edition foils push $30 and Onslaught foils about $28. That's not high considering how playable this card is in non-rotating formats and how much rarer foils were with those sets.


Magic Online Cues

With the rising popularity of 1v1 Commander on Magic Online, Weathered Wayfarer nearly doubled in price online. It wasn't really expensive there to begin with, and it had an additional theme deck printing on MTGO. But being around 0.5 tix and jumping to 1 ticket a copy in a few days is obviously a sign of something.

There are Breya, Etherium Shaper decks that play Weathered Wayfarer. She's one of the top commanders in the 1v1 Commander leagues right now. The Wayfarer is good in a lot of 1v1 Commander decks, actually. Obviously, the value is high in multiplayer EDH, as well. But it seems that the 1v1 Commander demand is driving the price online. If Wizards adopts 1v1 Commander as a sanctioned competitive format in paper Magic (who knows, it could happen!) then Weathered Wayfarer’s price would probably spike.


Potential Price Spike and Reprint Risks

Honestly, the multiplayer EDH community in paper Magic is probably enough to make this a $20 card some day, especially if there’s no reprint incoming. But so many people are probably holding their copies right now that if there is a price spike, it could right itself very quickly.

When I think about reprint risk, I’d definitely be investing in a foil copy if I needed one for an EDH deck or if I wanted to try it in Modern Death and Taxes. It’s also a pretty fair deal on Magic Online at anywhere around 1 tix; the supply isn’t great there, either. I really like Weathered Wayfarer going forward, and this is definitely a card that without a reprint will become $18 to $20 very quickly once the current supply runs dry.

If Weathered Wayfarer does get reprinted in the near future, I’d definitely be picking up the new copies. This is just a really, really solid creature that does something that will be good forever.

Ever since he was released, I've been a big fan of Bontu the Glorified. Oketra the True is probably my favorite, but clearly Hazoret the Fervent and Rhonas the Indomitable are the true powerhouses. Rhonas sees tons of play in Standard and has crept into Modern. Hazoret is in not only Standard and some Modern decks, he even pops up in Legacy Dragon Stompy decks! Even Kefnet the Mindful has made some cameos in Control decks in Standard.

But Bontu seems to be vastly underappreciated at the moment, and it's because of how you have to build around him. He can only attack or block if a creature under YOUR control has died in a turn. The best way to do this is to use his ability, which costs 1B - you sacrifice a creature, get to scry 1, then you gain 1 life and each opponent loses one life.

As a 4/6, he can be quite a powerhouse for only 3 mana. But what deck can consistently sacrifice creatures like this? The best example is a Mono-Black Aggro deck like this one at Pro Tour Ixalan. As a one-of, it's not bad in an aggro deck. Since you can use the sacrifice ability at instant speed, you can sacrifice creatures that would have otherwise died to removal or in combat, anyway. Bontu also has great synergies with creatures like Bone Picker, Dread Wanderer, Scrapheap Scrounger and Yahenni, Undying Partisan.

I was able to pick up a copy of Bontu the Glorified on CardSphere for $1.36, which is roughly $0.35 less than his TCGPlayer market price at the time. This sounds cheap, but Bontu's stock is relatively low at the moment. But with his price bottoming out at $2, as a useful mythic rare from a good set, this is a reasonable floor. It's possible for him to hit $4 again during his time in Standard. But, $6 or even $8 is possible if Bontu lands in a top 8 Standard list.

There's so little risk with Bontu, especially as he sees a fair amount of play in EDH; the popular Meren of Clan Nel Toth likes to have him. If he even hits $3, I'm more than happy. You can be happy to be a buyer at $2 and below, as his price is trending in the right direction.

Nimbus Maze is one of those cards that people expected to hit a $20 price for a long time. Why is that? It’s a decent dual land that can give you White mana if you control an Island, and Blue mana if you control a Plains. That sounds kind of backwards, but it is what it is.

The Maze is actually rather similar to the dual lands from Battle for Zendikar in that it cares about what basic land types you already control. But it’s a unique land in that it was one of those one-of oddities from Future Sight. Another land from that set, Grove of the Burnwillows, became widely successful and very expensive. So why not Nimbus Maze?

Why not, indeed? It’s a valuable land in EDH, where people play Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream, and other lands with the basic land types Plains and/or Island. But as far as competitive play is concerned, especially Modern, you just never really see it. So why did this once $5 land slowly creep up to $8 over the course of 2016, and suddenly spike to nearly $40 (before settling around $25 for a bit) in late June of 2016?

Copies of Nimbus Maze were slowly trickling off of the internet for some time. Usually it’s one at a time, which is why the price increase has been so slow, but steady. A few speculators have bought multiple copies over the past few years, which has eaten up some of the supply. But these sales are rare enough that it’s made the card widely unavailable. It’s not a card that’s in high demand. Still, there is enough of a desire to have it available for Commander decks that people have been hoarding their copies.

What is a fair price for Nimbus Maze? Clearly, $25 is most certainly not. This simply isn’t a sustainable price for this card. The race to the bottom on TCGPlayer would be fairly quick. By “race to the bottom,” I mean sellers continuously undercutting each other until a price equilibrium is found.

At best, Nimbus Maze is probably a $10 card long-term. We saw the market price of this card fall to around $8-12 by June 2017, depending on condition. What made this a fair price is based mostly on the card’s overall scarcity. It was doubtful that this land would be reprinted as there is really no expansion set that it makes sense to include within. There was once speculation that it would be included as part of a new land cycle in Theros. But nothing ever came of that.

However, it would be reprinted in Iconic Masters, a set that sort of came out of nowhere... and that spelled the end of this card's steady rise...

Still, if Wizards of the Coast decides to create a cycle of lands similar to it, which is totally possible, Nimbus Maze would definitely become a lot more valuable. Vendor buylists weren’t willing to pay much more than $4 to $5 after the spike, with the outlier being high as $7. In mid-2017, the buylist price was closer to $8, which was a good sign for the future of this card.

While the market did regain some sanity in regards to Nimbus Maze, and there was a fairly substantial reprint, there may yet be another spike in its future. For quite some time,  there weren't a bunch of near-mint copies left on the open market. The reprinting led to quite a sell-off, though. Still, with this spike in its price history, we can take away a few things from  this event which can tell us a lot about what people think about this card.

Clearly, lands that are unique in some way are going to be worth something. White & Blue is a popular color combination, especially in Control-type decks. It’s actually a bit surprising that we don’t see Nimbus Maze more often in Modern. This may be due to the fact that the filter land, Mystic Gate, is much more playable in Modern. Being able to fix your mana by filtering the color you don’t need is very, very valuable when you need to cast cards that require 3 White or 3 Blue or some other tricky combination of colors.

Another factor that's still holding back this card is Mystic Gate. That’s about a $20 card as of November 2017, about the same price as Nimbus Maze was post-spike. So if you want to put your $20 into a good dual land, I’d put it on the "strictly better" Mystic Gate. It’s already been reprinted as a foil Expedition in Oath of the Gatewatch, and it’s unlikely we’ll see these filter lands reprinted again soon. Filter lands in general seem to be a pretty solid investment. Nimbus Maze is a cool land, but the reprint really cratered it as an investment.

Clearly, Nimbus Maze’s price spike was due to a buyout. Yes, it was due to hit $10 eventually. But as the market sometimes does, there’s an opportunity seen by a few people who have the cash to buy out a ton of copies at once. Oddly enough, this usually benefits those who are holding onto single copies more than it does those that actually initiate the buyout. It also benefits those who had the foresight to stash away copies in anticipation of a price jump. There are a lot of happy people right now, and you have to give them credit for their foresight.

This is a card that simply wasn’t widely available any more. Anytime that happens, silly price spikes can occur. While the story of this Nimbus Maze price spike has come to an end, it may not be the last for this unique land. However, having been reprinted in Iconic Masters has really put a damper on this card's price ceiling.

But for all those that have called this card a great investment over the past few years, it wasn't a bad idea. Congratulations on your crazy gains if you sold out at the right time and bought back in when it came back to earth. If you wait to let the Iconic Masters versions bottom out, you may have a chance to make a bunch of money again eventually.

Even if this card never enjoys a second spike, Nimbus Maze was definitely worth a $10 price tag before it was reprinted. Maybe it will get there again one day.

Another day, another price spike on a Magic the Gathering Reserved List card from Arabian Nights... but, WAIT! This card ISN'T on the Reserved List! Ebony Horse has reprintings in Revised Edition and 4th Edition. So why did this humble beautiful horsey go from $3 to $8 overnight???

Let's blame Old School Magic and their love of old black-bordered cards... I mean, Ebony Horse isn't a terrible card by early Magic standards. This 3-mana artifact has a 2 mana ability that allows you to remove one of your attacking creatures from combat. It's a nice way to save one of your creatures from being destroyed in combat.

But why the crazy price movement on a card of which there's plenty of copies out there? The simple explanation is that the other versions are white-bordered and the black bordered version looks a lot better. The artwork is classic and gorgeous. This is an Old School Magic card if I ever saw one. And apparently, this isn't the first price spike our equine artifact friend has enjoyed. Ebony Horse hit $6 back in September '17.

Plain and simple, Ebony Horse is an awesome collectible Magic card and while it's not on the Reserved List, they don't print cards like this anymore. So if you find a good deal on one of these and you like horses, I'd grab one just out of appreciation for the Old School MTG.

With the printing of Modern Masters 2017, there will be plenty of cards often played in the Modern format that will see huge drops in price due to their being reprinted in the set. One of the cards that will obviously not be in Modern Masters 2017 is Matter Reshaper. This rare creature from Oath of the Gatewatch is probably one of the more underrated Eldrazi, in my opinion. Sure, he sees a good amount of play in a variety of Modern and Legacy Eldrazi decks. But with many copies still available under $2.50 as of October 2017, he's rather underpriced for an Eternal playable.

The Matter Reshaper only costs 3 mana to cost, but one of those must be a true "colorless" mana. In Eldrazi decks, this is really never going to be a problem. Best of all, when the Reshaper dies, he either puts a free permanent onto the battlefield or draws you a card. Either way, he can easily replace himself. Sure, if he gets exiled by a Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares, you won't get the ability. But more often that not, you'll make sure that he dies. Keep in mind that he can also put a land into play, which is a nice gain in tempo.

Matter Reshaper was $6 in February 2016 at the height of his popularity. After dropping considerably in price, he was still $4 back in July & August 2016. But then, after basically disappearing from Standard play completely, his price cratered. However, in early March 2017 there was a mini price-spike to about $2.50, and after a slight dip afterwards back under $2, he's been on a slow, but steady rise again.

As part of a smaller set that was opened a lot, there are a lot of copies out there. But in a couple of years, with his consistent play in Modern, he could easily be a $4-5 card again. This is a card I definitely want a play-set of on-hand. Eldrazi is his best deck, and while you never know where else he may pop up, that's an archetype that's not going anywhere.

I don't know about you, but I haven't seen many Magic: the Gathering players tripping over themselves to build Legacy Enchantress decks. The once very popular archetype ran four copies of Enchantress's Presence, a rare from Onslaught, in order to speed up their draws. Well, it's late May 2017, and suddenly the price has jumped from $6 to over $13 on TCGPlayer and the card has all but disappeared entirely from Amazon. What caused this strange and sudden buyout?

 The last time that a deck with four copies of Enchantress's Presence topped a tournament was in March of 2017. This has been a $5-ish card for a very long time, despite how clearly good it is. So this is a price correction of sorts. Did a bunch of Magic financiers suddenly decide, hey we can afford to buy these out? Maybe. It's a good card in Commander, but there's no new Commander that's demanding this card.

So I guess this is a buyout/price correction. If you have any copies of this card laying around that you're not using, I'd happily sell into the spike. There's just no real demand for this card to stay this high.

Welcome to our first installment of the MTG Stock Market report, with your host, RGFoxx! Today, we have three Magic the Gathering cards that are of particular interest. Two of these price jumps are easily explained. One of our big winners, on the other hand, is a bit more of a mystery.

Our biggest winner today is a card that's been reprinted several times.

Winds of Change is a card that mostly sees play in just one Commander deck: Nekusar, the Mindrazer. Not only is this a nice way for the Nekusar player to refresh his or her hand. But it also has a nasty way of causing a good deal of damage to the Nekusar player's opponents, especially if Nekusar himself is in town.

The other versions of this card (Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition) haven't really moved, so this is just the original Legends version on the move. It's hit an all-time high price of nearly $14, although the other versions remain around $2.50. I'd invest in those versions first, even if they are white-bordered.

The other major winner today was Mistbind Clique. This is a great card in Faeries for a couple of reasons. First, it has Flash, so it's a 4/4 flyer that can come into play at instant speed. Secondly, even though you have to Champion a Faerie, you get to tap all lands target player controls. (You get the exiled Faerie back when the Clique leaves play, too, so it's not as bad of a drawback as it sounds. Unless of course it's a Bitterblossom token.) By casting this at the beginning of your opponent's turn, you can prevent your opponent from being able to do much of anything at all.

The mystery to me is why this card doubled in price over night. Is it just a random buyout? This is a very good card in Faeries, and often sees play in that deck when it pops up in Modern from time to time. Perhaps the market was thinking that $7 was too low for this card. It did see a slight bump three days ago, after all. Anyway, while I don't expect it to stay at around $14 for long, it's good for you all to know that if you have any laying around, you could cash in.

The other two price jumps today are very easily explained. Chandra, Flamecaller is excellent against what has become the "best deck" in Standard, Mono-Black Zombies. This is due to her -X ability to deal X damage to all creatures on the board.

The other two abilities are pretty good, too. Of course, Chandra isn't relevant if you can't get to cast her before the Zombie onslaught kills you... Still, she's gone from $4 to $6 in just a few days, and that's a big reason why.

The last of our winners today is Iroas, God of Victory from Commander 2016. This is what I'd like to call a "price correction" as $2 for this God was much too cheap. The original Journey into Nyx printing  is still $5, so  this price hike just brings it on par with previous versions.

This seems to happen quite a bit with Commander products in particular, with the newer printings lagging far behind their original printings in price for awhile. Considering how massively popular Iroas is in Commander, especially in the 99, it's a bit surprising to me that it took this long for his Commander 2016 price to stabilize.

Speaking of Commander reprints, Black Sun's Zenith is seeing a rise in price due to all the awesome -1/-1 counter stuff in Amonkhet. The Mirrodin Besieged version has seen a bump, but the Commander 2014 printing (while it's going up) is still only $2 where as the older version is almost $3.

Another card we're watching is Bontu the Glorified. He's still between $4-6 and this is a guy seeing some real Standard play. He's far too good to be in such a low price range.

What cards do you feel are currently under-valued or over-valued? We'd love to discuss them with you on the MTG Stock Report!

Magister Sphinx has been a favorite of EDH players for quite some time. When he comes into play, he makes a target player's life total go directly to 10. This is extremely powerful in a format where players start with 40 life. In February 2017, the Sphinx has been seeing a steady rise in price, including a 40% jump in its low-supply Archenemy printing within a week.

The Magister Sphinx has always seen a lot of play alongside Sharuum the Hegemon and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. The price jump may have to do with new copies being bought to slot into Breya, Etherium Shaper decks. The 4-color Legendary Creature from Commander 2016 is very artifact friendly, so its not a surprise that the Sphinx has become a good member of her 99. Breya's ability to deal 3 damage to a target player by sacrificing 2 artifacts becomes a lot more relevant when you can put a player down to just 10 life!

With Amazon's price on Magister Sphinx shooting over $6, it's clear that there's a real casual demand for this card. There aren't a ton of copies of the original Conflux printing of Magister Sphinx left on the Internet, either. If you're looking for this card, you'll want to get it while it's still $2 or less!

Quietus Spike quietly enjoyed a rise in price from around $2 to $4 over a couple of years. However, with a reprint in Commander 2017, the original printing has fallen to around $2. Quietly, it's been a very solid Equipment for quite a long time. Appearing in Shards of Alara, and also included in a Planechase pre-constructed deck, the Spike is a 3-drop Equipment that gives a creature deathtouch. Not only that, whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, that players loses half of his or her life, rounded up.

Voltron strategies, those that involve loading up one creature with a bunch of Equipments and/or Auras, are extremely popular in Commander. This would explain why a great many Kemba, Kha Regent decks have included this equipment. A card like Quietus Spike is especially good on a Commander like Rafiq of the Many, who much of the time has double strike. That means the effect of Quietus Spike activates twice, which means a ton of life lost.

Quietus Spike is also fun on any creature that has trample or otherwise gains trample. This is because when you assign damage on a trampling creature, only 1 of that damage has to be dealt to a defending creature. Now, not only can you deal more damage, but greatly sap your opponent's overall total, as well.

Sadly, the Spike's ability doesn't trigger Gisela, Blade of Goldnight's double damage dealing ability. This is since the Spike's ability is life loss, not damage. The Spike also doesn't grant you additional combat damage when totaling the 21 Commander damage (also known as general damage) necessary for an invididual Commander to take out a player. It also doesn't double infect damage, which is a good thing, because 10 Poison Counters to kill a player is a low enough total to begin with.

The Spike was also quite good in the short-lived but massively popular Tiny Leaders format, the 50-card Commander variant in which you can only play cards with converted mana cost 3 or less. With how prevalent Voltron strategies are in that format, and the lack of lethal Commander damage, having an Equipment like this can end games quickly. Your opponent only starts with 25 life in Tiny Leaders, so it won't take much for any creature equipped with this to land a heavy blow.

The Tiny Leaders format didn't last all that long, but a lot of people bought Quietus Spike that didn't have use for them before. The price has been on an even steadier rise since then. It took a big jump from $3 to almost $4 between February and April of 2016 and the price has been wavering between $3 and $4 since then.

Even without Tiny Leaders, Quietus Spike sees play in a wide variety of Commander decks. Interestingly, the Commander who utilizes it the most is not one with Double Strike. It's actually Olivia Voldaren. Olivia is usually a Vampire Tribal Commander who is definitely focused on life loss, so you could see the Spike fitting into that strategy quite well. Another Commander bent on life loss is Vela the Night-Clad, so it's little surprise that the Quietus Spike shows up in some of her decks, as well.

Also, both of these decks have access to an Enchantment called Wound Reflection. This card has a player-killing combo with Quietus Spike, since it causes each opponent to lose  life equal to the amount of life lost that turn at the end of each turn. It's probably the best combo available with Quietus Spike.

Quietus Spike is a fairly valuable equipment in a wide range of Commander decks. While it hasn't become a staple in the format, it's widely played. You can't really go wrong picking this card up if you're fond of Equipment-based decks.

The Pact cycle from Future Sight is pretty good for the most part. Technically, they are all "free" spells. While they have a pretty big drawback of having to pay a certain amount of mana during the next upkeep or you lose the game, they are usually worth it. Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact, and Summoner's Pact are all cards that see play in Modern and other formats.

Even Intervention Pact sees occasional play and saw a spike when Madcap Experiment decks began to be brewed. But the red Pact, Pact of the Titan, hasn't seen much play since being a part of some Hive Mind Legacy lists back in 2011 to 2013.

What Hive Mind does is make a copy each instant or sorcery spell that a player casts for each player. With the Pact spells, if you cast a Pact that the opposing player can't pay for during his or her upkeep, that player instantly loses. All the Hive Mind player had to do was cast the Pact that the opposing player had no way of being able to pay for. It's a mean way to win. While Pact of the Titan wasn't close to the best of the 5 pacts for this purpose, it did see play in some lists.

Hive Mind decks aren't really much of a part of the Legacy metagame anymore, so Pact of the Titan went by the way side. It's easily the weakest of the Pacts. While creating a 4/4 creature at instant speed for no mana sounds awesome, having to pay 4R at the next upkeep is rarely worth it. However, when Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact and Summoner's Pact were reprinted in the original Modern Masters sets, Intervention Pact and Pact of the Titan were not. This meant that their supplies have remained relatively low.

So it was only a matter of time before Intervention Pact's price spiked. But while that spike make some sense, when Pact of the Titan was bought out on TCGplayer on 10/29/16, many heads were scratched. The TCG Player mid price hit almost $7 before falling to about $6 a couple days later. But no one is really biting at this price, which means it's pretty clear that this was an intentional buyout for speculative purposes.

Is this card ever going to be good enough to justify more than its original price of about $1? It's doubtful. This was really just a case of someone buying out a card that had low supply that may see play again at some point. This card is fine for what it does, but it's not something that most decks want. Some Commander decks will play it, but it's not something that you're going to see on a regular basis. This is one I'd sell high on if you happen to have any copies laying around. There should be a race to the bottom sooner or later, but this card will now always be worth more than it was before.

June 2017 Update: Pact of the Titan still has a market price of almost $5 on TCGPlayer. I would still recommend selling this card, as I can't see it maintaining this high of a price long-term. Although, after being at this price point for a long time, it's not anything you have to sell in a hurry.