Intervention Pact - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Price Spike Story

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Intervention Pact is one of the cycle of five (mostly) powerful Pacts from Magic the Gathering's Future Sight set. Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact, and Summoner's Pact are the ones that many Magic players know about. There's the also unplayably bad Pact of the Titan in Red, but Intervention Pact is actually playable. It has seen occasional pay in Modern Eldrazi & Taxes and in Commander. However, in late September of 2016, Intervention Pact went from being a $1 rare to having a TCGPlayer Mid price of nearly $12! What happened!? 

Many price spikes occur due to what are known as "price corrections" meaning that the card's price relative to its demand finally normalizes as supply diminishes. However, many other price spikes occur to the dreaded buyout, as in one or a few speculators buy out the internet of a particular card with low supply that may or may not actually have future demand. In the case of Intervention Pact, it doesn't seem that many people were willing to actually pay more than $5 for this card when the price spike occurred. So in this case, we can assume this was a buyout target.

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October 2016's Kaladesh release could have been a major factor in the buyout's occurrence. Two  cards from the set involve taking damage in order to gain a great effect.

The first card is a powerful Sorcery called Madcap Experiment. The Experiment involves flipping over cards from the top of your card until you reveal an artifact card. Then, Madcap Experiment deals damage equal to the number of revealed cards. Intervention Pact literally not only prevents that damage, but actually gains you that much life. Yes, you have to pay 1WW at your next upkeep or you'll lose the game. However, as a Madcap Experiment deck will likely be playing both Red and White, the latter for other damage prevention spells such as Angel's Grace and Hallow, this is not a bad cost to pay. 

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The other card from Kaladesh making people consider Intervention Pact is Aetherflux Reservoir. This card allows you to pay 50 life in order to deal 50 damage to a target player. This is one of a Madcap Experiment deck's main win conditions, sometimes along with Blightsteel Colossus and its indestructible 11/11 body with infect or beating down with Serra Ascendants. Notably, the Reservoir can come down on turn 4, so you may never need to even play Madcap Experiment in order to get it into play. 

Here are two examples from Tappedout.net of Madcap Experiment combo decks in modern: Aetherflux Experiment and Madpact Experiment. Notably, another card that has seen considerable price gains around Madcap Experiment speculation, Platinum Emperion, is not included in these two examples. However, an 8/8 creature that makes sure your life total never changes is pretty significant, although not in and of itself a win condition. You'd rather hit the Reservoir or the Colossus, I would think. 

Whether this  Madcap Experiment  strategy actually pays off in Modern is going to be a big factor in if Intervention Pact becomes a truly $10+ card. While the brewing has been intense around this Red sorcery, there hasn't been a truly optimized list just yet. Personally, I would stay away from Intervention Pact at anything over $5. It is a low-supply card being from Future Sight, the Tarmogoyf (and Horizon Canopy) set. 

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What about the other damage preventers? Hallow is a common from Darksteel and Angel's Grace is a rare from Time Spiral and Modern Masters. Angel's Grace is definitely a safer investment as it is part of a known competitive combo in Ad Nauseam decks in Modern. Hallow can be found in bulk boxes everywhere. However, Intervention Pact is essentially free, and the drawback doesn't matter if you hit the Reservoir and deal 50 damage to your opponent and win. It allows you to potentially win on turn 4 by just having a copy of Madcap Experiment in hand. Anecdotal playtesting has allegedly proved this to be true. 

Intervention Pact is definitely a wait-and-see card. Considering that Angel's Grace  is an $8 card, it's fair to say that the Pact could be north of $10 if it's truly a four-of in a Madcap Experiment deck. But it's hard to say how competitive the archetype will be. It's definitely a fun combo deck to try out, and if you add in Blue mana to play disruption such as Remand and card selection spells such as Serum Visions, there is a shot that it can do some work in Modern. There is real potential here, but don't throw your money into the ring just yet. 

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