Secrets of Strixhaven precons send Daxos, Gitrog and staples climbing

The Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precons did more than add new decklists, they immediately shoved old synergy cards back into the buy window. Parker Johnson’s May 18 Hot/Cold List put hard numbers behind the shift, and the clearest message for Commander traders was simple: the new shells are already creating demand for forgotten staples, not just the face commanders.

The buy-before-the-next-wave card is Daxos, the Returned. Near Mint copies climbed from about $12 to $16 in just a couple of weeks, with some listings reaching $32. That jump makes sense when you look at Silverquill Influence, which leans hard into enchantment-heavy play and makes Daxos’s Spirit enchantment tokens look a lot better than they did a month ago. Supply is also doing the heavy lifting here. Daxos had not seen a meaningful reprint since a List appearance, so there is not much cheap inventory sitting around to absorb a real deckbuilding rush.

The same pattern is showing up around The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride, which moved from roughly $2 to $6. Witherbloom Pestilence gives the deck exactly what Gitrog wants, disposable bodies that can be sacrificed, saddled, and turned into resources. Once Gitrog is connecting, those Pest tokens stop being chaff and start turning into cards and land drops. That is the kind of commander-driven demand that usually hits cheap cards first, because players can still build around them without feeling the price sting, until the next wave of buyers cleans out the low-end listings.

If there is a real long-term staple in the mix, Sphere of Safety is the card to keep on the radar. It fits the same enchantment pressure that is pushing Daxos higher, and it is the sort of underprinted upgrade piece that quietly gets expensive when a new precon makes the whole shell popular again. The trade-away-on-hype window is already opening on the hottest names, especially Daxos, because once a card has doubled in a matter of days, the market usually needs a pause more than it needs another reminder to buy.

That is the story of this Strixhaven wave in plain terms: the precons are not just selling commanders, they are pulling old Commander role-players into the spotlight and making the right upgrade packages move first. Daxos and Gitrog are already showing where the money is going, and the next cards to climb will be the cheap enchantment and sacrifice pieces sitting just behind them.