Card Types · Updated August 2026

Commander Format Staple Foils

MTG · #1 played format · Growing demand · about three years

Appreciation84/100
Liquidity85/100
Accessibility60/100
Risk22/100
Format #1 most played worldwideKey Cards Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe

Commander Format Staple Foils is one of 75 card types scored in The Card Investor, filed under Magic: The Gathering cards.

Both of the upside numbers are strong here — appreciation 84, liquidity 85. That pairing is rare enough to be the reason this entry exists, and rare enough that the price normally reflects it.

Accessibility of 60 means you'll pay somewhat over the sensible number but not absurdly so. Worth watching, because this score moves faster than any of the other three.

Set against the 5 Magic: The Gathering card types scored here, its appreciation of 84 ranks 4th of 5, liquidity 85 ranks 1st, accessibility 60 ranks 1st, and risk 22 is the 3rd-lowest. The closest thing to it on the numbers is Retro Frame / Borderless Mythics, which scores 75 and 70 on the same two axes — if you're weighing one against the other, the difference is in the reasoning rather than the scores.

Three years is long enough that current news is noise. You're buying a trajectory, and the main risk stops being performance and starts being changes in the hobby itself — what people collect, and what they've stopped collecting.

Risk is scored 22, toward the low end of anything in the tool. Low risk in trading cards is still not low risk in any sense your bank would recognise — it means the identifiable ways for this to go wrong are fewer, not that they're absent.

Price range $—–$— · verdict — · full reasoning, entry timing, what would change our mind, and the specific cards this applies to
Three things are behind the login for this entry: the price range we think is fair, the buy, hold or sell call, and the full reasoning — including what would change it.
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How to read these four numbers

Every entry gets four separate scores instead of one grade, because a single grade hides the thing you needed. Full explanation in the guide: what Kabooms, Downtowns and Color Blasts are worth.

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