20-year-old MTG card that can never be reprinted spikes by 330%
The Magic: The Gathering card Tombstone Stairwell has leapt up in value. This very odd card has been sitting at around $22 for the last year, but over the past month, and especially since July 12, it has risen to a staggering $95!
This is a Reserved List card, from the 1996 MTG set Mirage. As a result, it’s never had a reprint, so copies are understandably in pretty short supply. The card also uses rather dated terminology, so you might need a quick translation.
Essentially, Tombstone Stairwell makes zombie tokens with haste at the beginning of every upkeep and destroys them all on each end step. Every player gets a number of zombies equal to the number of creatures in their graveyard, so every turn will generate a hideous but ephemeral horde.
If, like me, you’re looking at this card for the very first time and thinking, woah, that’d be great with Blood Artist, why yes it would, and you’re very close to the mark on the reason for this price spike.
Last month, the Final Fantasy crossover set released an extremely exciting MTG commander, Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, that is more or less Blood Artist in the command zone, and it is the driving force behind Tombstone Stairwell’s newfound popularity.
Sephiroth starts out with the Blood Artist ability, letting you drain an opponent every time a creature dies. You only need four creatures to die in a turn to flip him to his One-Winged Angel form which not only gives you that effect as an emblem, but can also sacrifice any number of creatures to draw you that many cards.
And this is perhaps the secret to why Tombstone Stairwell is just so good in the Sephiroth deck. It’s not just that it gives you loads of death triggers to drain your opponent. It’s not just that it is almost certain to flip Sephiroth the first time it triggers, making that damage guaranteed. It’s also that it gives you the opportunity to draw a ton of cards.
This more than makes up for the big weakness of Tombstone Stairwell: its cumulative upkeep cost. You’re not going to be able to keep this card on the field forever, but you really don’t need to. It’s going to generate tons of value for you while hurting your opponents a bunch. And if they don’t kill Sephiroth immediately, before he flips, there’s almost nothing they’ll be able to do about it.
Plus, the fact that it’s destined to leave soon anyway will make your opponents begrudge spending removal on this enchantment.
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