Over the course of this series, the one question I’ve gotten more than any other is about how I go about picking the specific cards to spotlight. I’ve mentioned this in passing in a past article or two but never went into any major detail on it. Mostly because it’s not all that interesting or complicated, really. While I do maintain a rather robust spreadsheet to ensure I don’t repeat myself with specific cards and maintain some relative parity across colors and card types, the actual process of adding cards to my prospective list of future choices is pretty organic.

Throughout the happenings of my interactions with Magic, I make mental notes about specific cards I rediscover in my collection, cards that come up in conversation, or cards I feel don’t get due justice in the Commander format. I specifically leave out anything solely printed in supplement sets (especially those with limited runs), anything reprinted in some of the more recent Commander sets, and in most cases (unless it’s the point of the article), anything from sets than two years old. Other than that, if I feel like it’s something that is worth mentioning for one reason or another, it goes onto the list – a list which never seems to get any smaller.

Then, when the time comes to pick from a specific color / type – either because I want that specific criteria or if I have a specific discussion topic I feel fits well into the narrative – I grab one from that list and off we go. It’s not any more involved than that.

Well…ok. There is one additional criterion I’ve had to factor into my decisions in recent years. It’s not something I did much at the outset of the series all those eons ago, but it’s definitely something I do now. And it’s sort of the diamond-encrusted elephant in the room.

I also have to check the price.

Much as Wizards loves to endlessly pretend with a wink and a nod that the secondary market exists, Magic: the Gathering only has continued to exist all this time because of it, with people buying and selling cards to suit their needs and desires. It’s been that way pretty much since the first sets started showing up in stores more than 25 years ago. Card prices then “naturally” go up or down based on demand, popularity, and scarcity. (In reality a handful of websites really do have outsized control over market prices, so it’s not quite true natural market price equilibrium, but that’s another topic for another day.)

In recent years, however, we’ve started to see the influence of the investor class as well. And that’s had an impact on cards too. Particularly older ones.

Make no mistake: Magic has always had a strong cadre of fans who specifically focus on collecting more than playing. You can argue all you want about the merits of that angle and whether their influence on certain decision-making at WotC vis-à-vis reprints is beneficial to the Magic ecosystem broadly, but it’s not a new argument. Magic is a collectible card game, after all. It’s part of its DNA.

About six years ago, though, additional market forces started to cause a shift.

In the summer of 2016, the Magic community was in a bit of an uproar briefly when the infamous (and soon to be convicted) “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli made waves on Reddit by openly pondering about buying up many of Magic’s older and more valuable cards (specifically Reserved List cards) to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Given the man’s reputation and history, it didn’t go over particularly positively.

The thing is, Shkreli didn’t invent the idea of the Magic entrepreneur – individuals who treat the card market like a business with the intent of making money rather than playing the game. In fact, it’s been speculated that Magic itself was only brought to his attention as a possible means of parking some of his money because of the viral reaction to the reporting of a man named Craig Berry who openly talked about buying out stock of certain cards with the express intent of driving up their value. Famously in his case, Moat and Lion’s Eye Diamond.

For much of the Magic community who actually play the game, especially in eternal formats that rely on those older hard to find Reserved List cards, this idea didn’t sit well. It never has. At best it makes investing in such formats more expensive. At worst, it prices people out of them altogether.

The Magic entrepreneur has also existed in the hobby to some degree for many, many years, albeit in small numbers. What changed after the summer of 2016, however, was that the entire concept was brought to the fore. It made a lot more people aware of how simple (and potentially lucrative) the process could be. Especially in the case of Reserved List cards where everyone knows there is zero chance a reprint can come along and drive prices back down.

Over the next few years, as boutique investor types with extra cash sought new avenues for capital investing, they came across collectible cards. This was initially in sports cards and Pokemon cards, causing certain parts of those brands to skyrocket. At first Magic was largely spared a similar fate, but at least since the beginning of the pandemic many older cards – particularly anything Reserved – has been steadily climbing at an almost alarming rate. Whether this is from outside actors with no attachment to the game or those within the community taking a page from Berry and trying to corner the market on certain cards because it could be financially worthwhile is hard to say, precisely. But it is concerning either way. Not just because of what it portends about the reliability and stability of the market itself, but because it also takes some of the fun out of the Commander ethos. The idea of finding old cards that have been ignored for years, picking it up at an affordable rate, and bringing it back to light purely for the fun of using it. It makes it that much harder.

We’re not even talking only about high profile cards already worth hundreds of dollars or even some that started off relatively affordable but now have an additional zero attached to them. This trend includes many obscure, overlooked, or underappreciated cards valued at or under $5 at the time I jotted them now going for $10, $20, or even $30.

This week’s card I wanted to be a noncreature artifact. In checking some of the 10 or so potential cards I wrote down as possibilities (none of which have been there more than 2 years), I had to remove 4 because they’ve gone over that budget threshold I try to stick to here.

So, in a case of getting one in while we still can, let’s look at a token-generating card I’ve long had Thoughts about.

Today we have: Phyrexian Processor

Name: Phyrexian Processor

Edition: Urza’s Saga / Phyrexia v Coalition / FTV: Lore

Rarity: Rare

Focus: Token Generation

Highlights: As Phyrexian flavored cards go, Phyrexian Processor has been around quite a long time, with the Urza block really fleshing out (so to speak) the look and threat of what Phyrexians were capable of. Due to the plane of their origin, most of these cards were Black or artifact in nature, with this particular card thematically embodying both. Overall, it’s a straightforward token generator…but as with all things Phyrexian it came with a catch.

During its heyday, and indeed for many years afterwards, Phyrexian Processor was a gamble a lot of players weren’t willing to take. For four mana, it is a cheap enough artifact to cast. However, it states that as it’s entering the battlefield you must also pay some amount of life. This amount can be any amount you wish. But it’s still a life payment.

The amount of life you pay is directly tied into its sole activated ability, which says that for 4 mana and tapping, you get an X/X Black creature equal to that amount. And therein lies the dichotomy.

If you pay too little life, say 1 or 2, it makes it hard to justify the card’s usage. Barring other antics, you’re having to invest four mana to make a creature once per round, and that effort for a vanilla 1/1 was flat out not worth it. A 2/2 was borderline. Even during the time of the Urza block The Hive was seen as prohibitively expensive to use, and in the decades since, the ratio of mana to tokens – even in repeatable form – has become even more true.

On the other hand, if you really wanted to get good usage out of Phyrexian Processor, something like 6 life would be well worth it. The catch is that spending nearly 1/3 of your life total in a normal game (especially in multiplayer) was a pretty risky move. That’s a good chunk of life to set aside, for one. For another, unless you had 8 free mana to cast and then immediately use, there was always the fear that the Processor will be destroyed before you could activate it even once. Meaning that if you wanted to guarantee its effect you either needed to wait until later in the game (when you’d paradoxically have splashier creature options) or you’d have to roll the dice.

It is for that reason that in the pre-EDH multiplayer era, I stopped playing with fire after being burnt several times. I tried, but it was rarely worth it. Even at a modest 4 life, it was simply too irresistible for my opponents to destroy the Processor before I got out one token. I’d be out 20% of my life total for no reason, and they’d be out some inconsequential artifact removal card. So it was shelved for many years.

When Commander came around, its temptation for power became much more amenable. With 40 life rather than 20 and a format already awash with high damage cards, the prospect of spending 4 mana for a repeatable 5/5 creatures is much more palatable. Especially, say, in colors that don’t always have easy and repeatable access to token creatures of that size. You could safely pay 4-6 life without much fear rather than have that be its upper level cap, and your new risky thresholds are more like massive 10/10s. Sure, the danger of it being destroyed scales with the size of the minion you’re making, but so too are the potential rewards. Having it in a deck currently I can attest to its redemption. Even just a couple activations for a medium sized creature is generally going to be far less detrimental to your chances of survival and still be worth your mana investment.

All of which may make it worth investing in a copy while it too is still easy to obtain. Because who knows what it’ll go for in another two years…

Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.

You can discuss this article over on our social media!