Movers and Shakers - Dwarven Recruiter

Dwarven Recruiter | Art by Ciruelo

Far over the Misty Mountains cold / To dungeons deep and caverns old...

As much as I love The Hobbit, this isn't sing-along time. This is Movers and Shakers! Today, we're talking about a particularly plucky Dwarf who's seen their price rise recently. With the upcoming Hobbit and Hobbit Commander products, and some recent Dwarven spoilers, it's not shocking that some staples for decks built around this creature type are spiking! Let's see what's happening in the mountains and why Dwarven Recruiter has had its price leap recently!

What does this card do?

For , Dwarven Recruiter is a 2/2 that, when it enters the battlefield, we get to search our library for any number of Dwarf cards and put them on top of our deck in the order of our choosing. This creature is reminiscent of Goblin Recruiter, although the Dwarven version is admittedly associated with a worse creature type and costs more.

Although Dwarves don't have access to Conspicuous Snoop to make use of the top of the library as effectively, this three-drop packs a real punch. There's 147 Dwarves available to play in paper Magic. A good few of them are playable in Commander, and others see play across multiple formats!

Determining what each of our next few draws will be is extremely potent, allowing us to put neat removal spells (Duergar Hedge-Mage), hate pieces (Tataru Taru), and even rituals (Blazing Firesinger) on top of our deck. This allows us to adapt to almost any game state with ease.

Dwarven Recruiter even sees some play in cEDH! When placed in the 99 of a Magda, Brazen Outlaw deck, this creature puts in work. We can use this tutor to grab a "robo-dwarf" (artifact creature that happens to have Dwarf in its typeline) to kickstart a Clock of Omens combo! We've got great choices on that front, like Three Tree Mascot, Barkform Harvester, and Universal Automaton. While the most optimized builds of Magda may not find a home for Dwarven Recruiter, it's still a great selection for slower, more creature-combo-based versions of the list.

Why is This Card's Price Rising Now?

Those of you who've read or watched The Hobbit know just how big of a role Dwarves play in the story, and those of you who don't are about to get an introduction! This novel follows Bilbo Baggins and his cadre of bearded buddies through Middle-earth as they try to steal their treasure back from a dragon. Because there's 13 Dwarves traveling with Bilbo, and the book focuses heavily on stolen dwarven artifacts, there's bound to be a ton of Dwarves in these sets.

In fact, we've already seen some powerful Dwarves! Even though the set won't release for about a month, we've seen nine cards that have the word "Dwarf" somewhere in their rules text. Bifur, Melodic Rider is a Dwarf-doubler, letting us increase the effectiveness of our board dramatically. He'd be a great commander to pair with Dwarven Recruiter, letting us fetch up precisely the creatures whose abilities we'll be triggering! Fíli and Kíli, Joyous is another great legend, focusing more heavily on Equipment. We could use the Recruiter to grab another card from this set, Thorin, Mountain-king, to bolster our battle badassery.

As of writing, we've only seen four of the thirteen named Dwarves from Bilbo's party. This might be a leap in logic, but I assume that the other nine will each receive their own card! Given the power level of the legendary Dwarves we've already seen, I'd be extremely excited to see what else becomes available for Dwarven Recruiter to tutor for.

So, Dwarven Recruiter's price changes are partially due to excitement over the already-spoiled cards from The Hobbit and partially due to anticipation over what else this product drop could have to offer. I can understand the excitement! If the rest of the set is anything like what we've seen so far, Dwarven Recruiter will be able to fetch up enough Dwarves to kill Smaug all over again. Sorry for the spoilers, but The Hobbit has been out for some time now...

How Has This Card's Price Changed?

In the first half of this year, Dwarven Recruiter was trading for less than a dollar. Average prices at this time barely crested over the dollar mark, in fact, with the average sale from January 30th to June 15th settling at a sale price of just $1.04. This figure was buoyed up a bit by some individually high trades having sale prices close to the $2 mark. This Dwarf's price was pretty stagnant!

But, as Hobbit spoilers started coming through, this card's price began to jump. The index price of Dwarven Recruiter is now $2.73, compared to an average of just $1.11 prior to the start of reveals! That represents a 146% increase, more than doubling the asking price of this three-mana creature.

What Might be on The Horizon for This Card?

The influx of short, hairy, axe-wielding men to Magic's card pool is sure to have some impact on this card's price. This card's price may rise even further if The Hobbit does create cards for each of the Dwarven party members, and perhaps even dives into some deeper cuts. If we see more Dwarves that care about Equipment, specifically, Dwarven Recruiter may become a staple in the 99s of each of the new commanders we've seen!

Maybe Dwarven Recruiter will get reprinted in this set, and this whole write-up will be for naught! It would be fitting for the set's theme, and Wizards of the Coast is known reprint older cards that have only seen one or two versions in these sets. In our first trip to Middle-earth, we got Ancient Tomb and The Ozolith reprinted in limited quantities. Maybe Dwarven Recruiter, along with Dwarven Bloodboiler and Dwarven Armorer, will find their way into some bonus sheet.

What's your Dwarven Recruiter pile? Are there any creatures that you find yourself tutoring for again and again? Let me know in the comments, and I'll be back soon with another Movers and Shakers!