An entire rare sheet of the upcoming set Ixalan was recently leaked. While the image was blurry and only portions of cards were legible, this leak has major implications for the future, and the market has reacted to this early information in anticipation of what is to come in September.

The leaked sheet showed a brand new type of card – legendary planeswalker – which can be found on all of the leaked planeswalkers. The simplest explanation to this is that Wizards is changing the planeswalker uniqueness rule to a normal legend rule. This sort of massive change would mean an errata to all existing planeswalkers to behave the same way, which is a massive shift in how these cards functions and greatly increases their desirability.

Under this presumed rule change, planeswalkers would behave very differently with any cards that can interact with legends, and that significantly increases the playability of many cards. The rules change and the wealth of new interaction will be felt the most in Commander, and the popularity of that format has already increased the demand for many cards and caused some significant spikes.

Reki, the History of Kamigawa now triggers to draw a card when planeswalkers are cast, so it’s suddenly a much more attractive commander to build a deck around. The price has reacted accordingly, spiking from $1.50 to nearly $10, but now settled around $5. The foil was sitting at $15 and has now doubled to around $30. As more players become aware of the changes and Ixalan’s release, I expect these prices to head upwards.

Captain Sisay is another commander that has seen its playability skyrocket with the planeswalker rule change. She can now tap to search for the wealth of quality planeswalkers available to these colors. The original non-foil price had been very slowly trending upwards since 2016, where it entered the year at $3, and the pace accelerated in 2017, where it started at $3.50 and had grown to $5 by the time of the leak, when it spiked to the $20 where it now sits. The foil Invasion price has approximately doubled, from under $30 to nearly $60, while the From the Vault: Legends reprint has tripled from $10 to $30. I imagine the card was already underpriced, and with the new rule change the card will only continue to grow from here.

A very interesting spike from the rules changes is Mirror Gallery. Previously, this wouldn’t have any impact on planeswalkers, because their uniqueness rule was technically different from the legendary rule. Now they function just like other legends, so if a player has two copies of a planeswalker in play, they must sacrifice one. Mirror Gallery turns this rule off, so it opens up the possibility of having two copies of, let’s say, Jace, the Mind Sculptor in play. There’s plenty of casual and Commander appeal here, which explains the nearly doubling of the price to $12. The foil has followed suit, jumping from $13 to $25.

There are some other cards that got a lot more interesting with the rules changes, and their prices may still allow for major gains.

Empress Galina can now be used to steal planeswalkers, which is a big boost to its power and desirability. It’s even a potential Commander, so odds are this is going to see its price grow going forward. Empress Galina has already seen a 10-percent gain since the leak, breaking $5, so there is clearly some interest here. Foil copies can be had for under $20.

Yomiji, Who Bars the Way has become an incredible way to protect planeswalkers, and as a legendary creature it could even be used as a commander in a deck with all of white planeswalkers. At under $1 and $3 for the foils, I like the potential upside here, and I can’t see the price ever really falling from here.

Honor-Worn Shaku becomes supercharged as a mana rock with the rule change. Previously, legendary creatures could be used to untap it, which prevented them from attacking or using other abilities, but there’s virtually no cost to tapping a planeswalker. It has a lot of competition, but it seems like an easy inclusion into a planeswalker-heavy deck, so I see plenty of upside for this card that’s under a quarter with foils under a buck.

Thalia's Lancers got much better being able to search for planeswalkers. It will be out of Standard when the rules change, but it has a bright future in Commander. Now seems like a good time to acquire foil foreign copies at a discount before their prices inevitably spike.

We could go really deep with this. For example, Minamo, School at Water's Edge will untap planeswalkers, but that’s essentially meaningless.

Are there any other cards positively impacted from the rules change?

-Adam
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