Movers and Shakers - Breath Weapon

Breath Weapon | Art by Adam Vehige

Ugh, dude... your breath stinks...

Welcome back to Movers and Shakers, the series where we use Cardsphere's trade data to examine ongoing trends in card pricing. Today, we'll be taking a look at a staple for draconic decks (and a card that's quite popular among Magic players with halitosis): Breath Weapon! Let's see why this card's price is rising.

What Does Breath Weapon Do?

For , this spell is an instant that deals two damage to all non-Dragon creatures. There's actually lots of cards that have similar effects out there. Caught in the Crossfire is a neat typal sweeper, Fiery Cannonade is great in Pirate decks, and even the new Desolation of Smaug works well in some decks.

Breath Weapon works very well alongside Dragons. It's in nearly 7,000 decks on EDHREC, and it's seeing heavy play in decks themed around those notorious flying lizards. This spell is in 4.3% of Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm decks, 28% of Lozhan, Dragons' Legacy decks, and a full 27% of Skanos Dragonheart + Dragon Cultist decks. In these Commander decks, this spell can wipe out the little guys on opponents' boards while leaving our creatures largely unscathed.

Breath Weapon is also reasonably popular in Hansk, Slayer Zealot lists, finding a home in 15% of them. Here, the spell is likely aimed at wiping out all of the Walker tokens created by our commander, allowing us to refill our hand and perform a mini-sweeper for just three mana.

Outside of Commander, Breath Weapon sees a good amount of usage in Pauper. This commons-only format doesn't have a lot of board wipes available, and it lacks instant-speed sweepers. Importantly, Pauper also doesn't have many Dragons. Just 39 of them are legal in the format, with a very small number of those being even remotely playable.

Combined, these two factors mean that Breath Weapon is a great inclusion in Pauper sideboards. It's one of the only ways available for players to deal with wide boards of creatures at instant speed, and its caster doesn't need to worry about unintentionally leaving an opponent's Dragon standing after the dust settles.

Breath Weapon has been a part of Jund Wildfire lists, Gruul Ponza decks, and even a few madness lists. It's not difficult to cast, so any deck that can produce reliably may look towards this card as an emergency button to keep in their sideboard.

Why Is Breath Weapon's Price Rising?

The first set of the year, Lorwyn Eclipsed, included 17 changelings in the main product. While changelings are nothing new to Magic, this set gave us even more creatures that are unaffected by Breath Weapon's burn. Among the best Shapeshifters from this set are Omni-Changeling and Mutable Explorer, both of which can ignore the effects of this spell entirely. This set even saw the release of Spinerock Tyrant, a Dragon that wants us to cast removal spells. While the Tyrant doesn't synergize perfectly with Breath Weapon, we can use this spell to set up and more easily wither away larger creatures.

Then, Secrets of Strixhaven brought us two Elder Dragons that synergize extremely well with Breath Weapon. Lorehold, the Historian lets us cast the spell for less than we typically would, while Prismari, the Inspiration can turn the spell into a much more powerful sweeper. Because both of these legends are Dragons, they'll emerge unscathed when the stack clears.

Now, we're in the middle of Hobbit spoiler season. We've seen some super powerful legendary Dragons, including Smaug the Magnificent and Smaug, Wicked Worm. Both of these creatures provide us with access to , and won't be affected by the damage dealt by Breath Weapon. There's another version of Smaug in this set, Smaug the Impenetrable, that's super close to being a perfect commander for Breath Weapon. This Dragon works well with Caught in the Crossfire and Fiery Cannonade, but sadly doesn't work quite as well with our focal spell.

How Hard is Breath Weapon Spiking?

With all the Dragon-centric releases this year, this card's price has climbed slowly. There's been significant trade volume for the last six months, too. From the end of January until the beginning of April, this card's average price sat at $1.81. Lorwyn Eclipsed's release didn't do much to move the needle, it seems.

As Secrets of Strixhaven season began in April, and the power level of the Elder Dragons became apparent to many players, Breath Weapon's price took an upward turn. In fact, its price went up to $2.98! That leap represents a 65% increase in just a few short months. There were even a few individually high trades that sat around the $4 mark, perhaps foreshadowing what was to come.

Finally, as Hobbit previews have descended upon the Magic playerbase, the card's sale price has jumped even higher. From July 9th to July 30th, the average sale price of Breath Weapon was a whopping $4.65. That number is a 156% increase from its price in January, and a 56% increase in its price since April.

This is a very high price point for a common. In fact, Breath Weapon is now the 36th most expensive Pauper-legal common in all of Magic! For those of you that are curious, here's the list I'm referencing (note that prices may fluctuate between time of writing and time of publication).

What Might be Next for This Card?

I'd hazard a guess that this price point is not sustainable. Breath Weapon may be reprinted in The Hobbit, which could drive its price way down. However, even if Wizards of the Coast chooses not to nab that easy flavor win, we're not getting many Dragon-centric sets for a while. Star Trek and Reality Fracture are unlikely to have big, scaly, flying lizards, and Magic's 2027 schedule doesn't seem ripe for Dragons either. We may get a few in Kamigawa Titanbreach, but without advance knowledge of the Universes Beyond release slate it's hard to say that Breath Weapon will get more synergistic pieces.

Have you gotten in on the Breath Weapon craze? If so, what Dragons are you playing this spell alongside? Let me know in the comments, and I'll be back soon with another Movers and Shakers!