The MTG Land card Elegant Parlor has seen a huge increase in price in the last few weeks. In mid-June, before Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, it was the cheapest of the Karlov Manor surveil lands, costing around $4 (according to MTG Goldfish). Now it’s the most expensive. The card was priced at $19.30 on July 11, after rising 383%.
The Murders at Karlov Manor lands are played in Modern more than Standard right now. Their main selling point is that they have the basic land types which means they can be fetched up with the ever-popular fetchlands.
It’s obvious why Elegant Parlor would start out less valuable than the other MTG lands in this cycle. The surveil lands enter the battlefield tapped, which makes them far less useful for aggressive decks. And, of course, red and white are the most aggressive MTG colors.
But recently, Modern has seen a huge increase in red-white decks off the back of the Pro Tour. What’s more, Boros Energy is more midrange than aggro, and Jeskai Control can easily afford to play tapped lands, so Elegant Parlor slots in perfectly.
Just as popular as these two archetypes, Ruby Storm also runs a single copy of Elegant Parlor. It’s a slightly different situation, since this is mostly a mono-red deck, where the fetchlands are mostly included for deck thinning. However, the deck sometimes sideboards in copies of Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury, so it still has a use for this surveil land.
It’s kind of funny seeing these decks get so much play, after Bant Nadu was by far the breakaway star of the recent Modern competition – easily crushing all other archetypes. However, everyone’s pretty much taking it as read that Nadu will soon be banned, and then these will be the best decks in the format.
While it’s Modern that’s driven this price spike, we do wonder if the Karlov Manor lands will start to see more Standard play sooner rather than later. After all, we’re losing quite a lot of valuable land cards when rotation happens at the end of this month.
For more stories about expensive MTG cards, check out this Pioneer combo deck that’s driven a price spike and these Assassin’s Creed cards that are getting surprisingly expensive. And for other great Magic content, take a look at the surviving MTG Arena codes.