If you saw Flayer of Loyalties jump from “kinda pricey” to “wait, what?” and assumed the market had lost its mind… you weren’t wrong. You were just watching a normal MTG price cycle in the wild: new commander drops, content creators talk, supply dries up for five minutes, and suddenly everyone is “investing” in cardboard again.
Here’s where the card sits heading into 2026, how Eldrazi is doing more broadly, and what to learn so you don’t end up panic-buying at the top like it’s a personality trait.
What is Flayer of Loyalties doing right now?
As of December 31, 2025, price trackers have Flayer of Loyalties back in the “mid-teens” range for the regular Commander Masters printing:
MTGGoldfish (TCGplayer Mid): ~$15.30
MTGGoldfish (Card Kingdom): ~$21.99
MTGStocks market: ~$14.12 (with low listings around ~$13)
So yes: the “nearly $50” moment was real-ish (depending on which version/market snapshot you looked at), but the card is not sitting there now. It cooled. Hard. Like most hype spikes do.
(And that’s before we even get into the difference between “market,” “mid,” and “the cheapest copy someone listed at 3 a.m.”)
Also worth noting: premium versions can still sit higher than the baseline. MTGGoldfish lists Extended Foil as “cheapest” around $21 (again, this varies by day and platform).
Why did it spike in the first place?
The short version: Commander demand + Eldrazi hype + limited supply channels.
1) It’s an Eldrazi finisher that does “Commander things”
Flayer of Loyalties is not subtle. It’s a giant body and it steals an opposing creature on cast, turning it into a 10/10 trample, haste, annihilator 2 monster for the turn. That’s the kind of swingy, table-warping effect that Commander players love… right up until it happens to them.
2) Ulalek made five-color Eldrazi feel “new” again
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity became a real magnet for deckbuilders. EDHREC shows Ulalek with ~24k decks tracked, which is a big signal that the commander stuck as a popular build. And Flayer shows up in Ulalek’s average lists, which is basically the market screaming “people actually run this.”
3) Supply is tighter than it looks
Flayer of Loyalties was included in the Commander Masters “Eldrazi Unbound” precon decklist (officially published by Wizards). That matters because precon-only supply behaves differently than normal set singles. Fewer people crack precons just to flood the singles market… until prices force them to.
So you get that classic pattern:
deck gets popular
a few key cards get mentioned a lot
copies vanish
the price jumps
sellers and players react
supply catches up
price settles into a new normal (often lower than the peak)
So… are Eldrazi “good” heading into 2026?
Depends where you mean, because “Eldrazi” is both:
a Commander identity (big mana, splashy plays, table drama)
and a Modern archetype family (Temple/Tron/ramp variants, real tournament results)
Eldrazi in Commander: still thriving
Commander is where Eldrazi will always be “good,” because the format rewards:
big mana
huge threats
absurd on-cast triggers
“one turn where everything explodes”
And it’s not just Ulalek. Recent years have had multiple Eldrazi-focused commander products that keep feeding demand and attention, including the Modern Horizons 3 Eldrazi Incursion precon led by Ulalek.
Eldrazi in Modern: not dominant, but very present
Eldrazi isn’t “the” top Modern deck right now, but it’s clearly alive. MTGdecks’ Modern meta snapshot shows multiple Eldrazi variants floating around the ~2–3% range each (Eldrazi Ramp, Eldrazi Tron, Eldrazi Bloodchief Combo). That’s not fringe; that’s “you will face this sometimes, plan accordingly.”
And MTGGoldfish’s Modern Eldrazi lists show consistent league results and finishes—again, not “format overlord,” but definitely not dead.
How much can prices waffle due to hype, sets, and reprints?
A lot. And Flayer is basically a case study.
1) Hype spikes are real, and they overshoot
Low-liquidity cards (especially precon singles) can move fast. If there aren’t many listings, a small wave of demand can push the visible price up hard. MTGStocks even shows an all-time high around $69.99 for Flayer—whether that was a true sustained market or a brief “supply vanished and the remaining listings were silly,” the point is the same: prices can spike far beyond what the card will hold long-term.
2) New sets act like gasoline on tribal decks
When a set or commander product pushes a tribe (Eldrazi, Slivers, Dragons, etc.), old support pieces spike because:
players build the new commander
they copy popular decklists
they grab “staples” they don’t own yet
This is especially true when the deck is a vibe, not just a strategy. Eldrazi is a vibe.
3) Reprints are gravity
Reprints are the single most reliable way to punch a hole in a price spike.
Flayer currently has a limited printing footprint (Commander Masters variants), and it’s anchored to precon supply. If Wizards drops it in:
another Commander product
a Masters-style reprint slot
“The List” / bonus sheets / whatever the next delivery mechanism is
…then you can expect the price to sag, sometimes quickly.
4) Platform differences create “phantom” prices
You’ll often see the same card listed as:
$14 market
$18 “mid”
$22 retail
All at the same time.
That’s normal. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just different data sources measuring different things:
the cheapest available copies
average of recent sales
store pricing that includes overhead and slower repricing
What should we learn from the Flayer spike?
Here’s the practical takeaway list.
Lesson 1: “Up 400% this week” usually means “you’re late”
By the time the spike is obvious, most of the easy value is gone. Buying at the peak is how you end up owning expensive copies of cards that were only expensive because everyone else panicked for 72 hours.
Lesson 2: Commander-driven spikes often settle back down
Commander demand is real, but it’s also trend-driven. New commanders rotate attention constantly. When the community moves on to the next shiny thing, many cards retrace.
Flayer looks like it found a new baseline in the mid-teens (for now), instead of staying near $50.
Lesson 3: Precon-only cards spike fast… then get “fixed” by supply
Precon cards can be scarce in singles markets early. Then, once the singles price gets high enough, people start cracking sealed product and listing copies, which pulls prices back down.
Lesson 4: Reprint risk is always looming
If you’re paying a premium for a non-Reserved List card, you’re always taking reprint risk. You might still choose to buy it (because you want to play it), but it helps to be honest about what you’re paying for: gameplay now, not “value forever.”
Lesson 5: If the price feels stupid and you just want to play… proxy it
For casual Commander groups that allow proxies, this is the cleanest sanity check in the hobby. Test the card, make sure you love it, then decide whether it’s worth real money.
Bottom line
Heading into 2026, Flayer of Loyalties is not a $50 card on the mainline market trackers. It’s more like a $14–$16 card (with some retail listings higher), and its history shows how violently Commander hype can swing prices when supply is thin.
Eldrazi as a whole is doing fine:
very healthy in Commander (especially with Ulalek still seeing huge deckbuilding interest)
present in Modern as multiple real archetypes, not a tier-0 menace
And the bigger lesson is simple: MTG prices move on attention. New sets, new commanders, and reprint waves don’t just change gameplay. They change what your deck costs from one month to the next.
References (all citations)
MTGGoldfish — Flayer of Loyalties price (TCGplayer Mid and Card Kingdom) and version pricing. MTG Goldfish
MTGStocks — Flayer of Loyalties market/low/average and all-time high/low data. MTGStocks