Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Tracking print frequency across expansions
In the sprawling multiverse of MTG, no card lives in a vacuum. Each print run, each expansion, and each set type writes a tiny chapter in a card’s life story. Wildsear, Scouring Maw offers a compelling lens for examining how a single mythic creature can travel through time, or in some cases, travel only through one shimmering foil. With its {3}{R}{G} mana cost, this Legendary Creature — Elemental Wolf wades into the red-green space with undeniable menace: trample on a 6/6 presence, and a groundbreaking second ability that bends enchantments into a cascade machine. The current official print in Bloomburrow Commander (blc) arrives as a foil-only release, a data point that makes collectors and players sit up and take notes. 🧙♂️🔥💎
Why foil-only prints? The phenomenon isn’t universal, but it happens enough to matter. A mythic like this in a commander-setting can become a stress test for supply—and a highlight reel for price volatility, even if the current USD foil price sits modestly low (about $0.52 on Scryfall’s current snapshot) while the Euro foil reads higher (around €1.33). Those numbers aren’t just trivia; they reflect supply discipline, regional demand, and the way players value premium stock in a format where foil aesthetics, collector portals, and playability intersect. The EDHREC rank around 3804 hints at a dual life: beloved by some players pursuing spicy enchantment synergy, and delightfully niche for many others who chase a broader color-mana curve. 🎲
Card profile at a glance
- Name: Wildsear, Scouring Maw
- Set: Bloomburrow Commander (blc)
- Rarity: Mythic
- Mana cost: {3}{R}{G}
- Type: Legendary Creature — Elemental Wolf
- Text: Trample. Enchantment spells you cast from your hand have cascade. (Whenever you cast an enchantment spell from your hand, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
- Power/Toughness: 6/6
- Colors: Green, Red
- Color identity: G, R
- Release date: 2024-08-02
- Print history: Foil only in this release; nonfoil printing not listed.
- Artist: Campbell White
- Rarity/Price snapshot: Mythic; USD foil ≈ $0.52, EUR foil ≈ €1.33
What Wildsear’s print history tells us about expansions
From a data-collection standpoint, Wildsear is a clean case study. One primary printing in a dedicated commander product, with foil finishes only. That means a couple of key takeaways for trackers and players alike: limited nonfoil availability often translates to heightened secondary-market visibility and a stronger pull for foil-focused collectors. It also highlights how a card designed with cascade for enchantment spells can signal a strategic niche in commander circles, where enchantment-heavy builds and mana-turbulence strategies frequently surface. The card’s mythic status amplifies its visibility, even if its practical play in edgy EDH decks remains a topic of nuance and playgroup preference. With a reasonable EDHREC rank and a spicy ability set, the card sits at an intersection of “underrated contrarian pick” and “foil-chasing collectable.” 🧙♂️🎨
Tracking across expansions requires a structured approach. Start by cataloging the set, rarity, and finish for each print. For Wildsear, Scouring Maw, we can confirm a single foil print in Bloomburrow Commander, with no listed nonfoil counterpart in the same or other sets. From there, observers can widen the net by checking reprint histories in standard-carrying supplemental products, judge’s kits, or special editions—though in this case the data suggests a clean, single-print footprint for the card so far. That clarity is invaluable when you’re building a long-term tracker for how mythics migrate through time, and how foil distribution interacts with commander-culture demand. 🔥
Going data-first: a practical methodology
- Collect official print data from sources like Scryfall, with a focus on set name, set code, rarity, and finish. For this card, the Bloomburrow Commander entry confirms foil-only printing within a single set.
- Cross-reference secondary markets (TCGPlayer, Cardmarket) for price trends, availability, and volatility cues tied to new printings or reprint rumors.
- Note EDH relevance by checking EDHREC rankings and deck-building discussions to gauge how often players reach for the card in real games.
- Track a timeline of announcements and releases—especially in commander-centric products—to identify potential future reprints or alternate borders/finishes (etch, extended art, or commander-specific variants).
- Visualize print density by color identity and mana costs to see how many cards in similar colors and costs get multiple prints versus single-appearance foils. This helps forecast future print runs for cards with similar mechanics or formats.
- Share findings with a community of fans and collectors to refine patterns and add qualitative insights about card desirability, art changes, and mechanical resonance with players’ strategies.
“The cascade-on-enchantments mechanic makes Wildsear feel like a wild frontier—every enchantment spell is a roll of the dice, and the top of your library is your treasure map.” — a seasoned commander player 🧙♂️
Deck-building implications and cultural resonance
For players who relish a chaotic, rainbow-rich mana base and a splashy commander shell, Wildsear, Scouring Maw offers both flavor and function. Its cascade on enchantments invites misdirection and tempo plays that reward players who lean into enchantment-based engines—think aura-heavy or enchantment-focused strategies that care less about pure tempo and more about explosive potential when cascaded nonland spells appear. The 6/6 bodies with trample ensure that your early investment translates into late-game pressure, aligning with commander’s love for big, memorable creatures. In this print reality, the foil-only distribution adds an extra layer of prestige; every time you pull this card in a trade, you’re not just exchanging a creature—you’re trading a piece of a single-print legend whose glow shines brighter in a world of multi-print cycles. ⚔️🎨
From a cultural vantage point, this card embodies the commander ecosystem’s appetite for synergy that merges creature value with spell-based engine effects. The interplay between red’s aggression and green’s ramp and resilience resonates with players who enjoy bold, high-variance plays. It’s a card that sparks conversations about how “print histories” shape deck-building decisions, price trajectories, and the thrill of discovering a hidden corner of the multiverse where enchantments become the main event. And yes, we all want to see more layered cascade triggers in future sets; the balancing act between power and fairness remains a constant dance in MTG’s long-running design dance. 🧙♂️💎
Looking ahead, the best way to approach Wildsear, Scouring Maw is to treat its print history as a microcosm of how expansions shape collectible value. When a card is foil-only in a commander product, it nudges players toward prioritizing foil acquisition and creates a narrative around scarcity and beauty. If future sets echo this pattern for similarly themed cards, we’ll see a visible lift in foil-centric markets, especially for impact-heavy, color-mueled powerhouses that reward thoughtful spell sequencing. And for fans following the data, it’s a delicious reminder: the magic of MTG isn’t just in the cards themselves, but in how we track, discuss, and celebrate their journeys through the expansions we love. 🧙♂️🔥💎