The MTG card Wish has shot up in price, thanks to new strategies enabled by Modern Horizons 3. On June 14, when this straight-to-Modern set launched, the card was priced at just 80 cents, going by MTG Goldfish’s price tracker. Now, ten days later, it has blown up with a 1150% price spike, and copies now go for as much as $10.
Wish, from the MTG set Adventures in The Forgotten Realms, is a red sorcery that lets you play a card from your sideboard, but only during that turn. Its usefulness has been pretty limited up to now, but a new mono red deck that wants to play as many spells as possible is driving sales of the card on the secondary market.
That deck, of course, is Ruby Storm, one of the biggest new archetypes to be come out of Modern Horizons 3. We’ve already covered it in detail when talking about other price spikes that originate from this new deck’s popularity, so we won’t get too bogged down in describing the strategy.
Essentially, it chains impulse draw and mana-making cards together, creating a potentially endless turn where you just keep casting spells, before finishing the opponent off with a Grapeshot. The deck makes good use of the new MTG planeswalker Ral Monsoon Mage too, as a cost-reducer and win condition wrapped into one.
Wish’s purpose in the deck may not be immediately obvious, but essentially it gives the deck a ton of flexibility, and makes this otherwise simple strategy very hard to counter. Phlage provides removal and an alternative route to victory, while Static Prison can deal with troublesome permanents.
You can also play your own hate pieces from the sideboard, like Orim’s Chant in the mirror match or against other decks that want to combo off. Current Ruby Storm decks are not even running their win con in the main deck, instead just grabbing Grapeshot with Wish.
The only downside to relying so heavily on this one card, is that it could make the deck vulnerable to Surgical Extraction.
For more Magic content, check out our guide to the best Commander precon decks, or take a look at our guide to the MTG release schedule.