Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Print Run Differences Across Editions: Kolaghan Aspirant in Focus

In the grand tapestry of Magic: The Gathering, print runs aren’t just numbers on a box label—they shape the very availability of a card in your deck, your local cube, or a sealed product you keep for a rainy tournament day 🧙‍♂️. Kolaghan Aspirant, a creature from Dragons of Tarkir released in 2015, provides an instructive lens on how editions diverge in supply and price. With a mana cost of 1R and a nimble 2/1 body, this red Human Warrior isn’t flashy in rarity, but it carries the practical heft of a reliable two-drop and a tactile lore that resonates with red’s clutch-and-punish ethos 🔥. The card’s fate across prints often mirrors the broader dynamics of “commons” in a set: plentiful in the booster that first released it, with foil variants that remain skittish, and subsequent reprint pressure that can flatten the market over time.

Kolaghan Aspirant’s oracle text—“Whenever this creature becomes blocked by a creature, this creature deals 1 damage to that creature.”—is the kind of penny-pacer that you either live for in a tight aggro shell or politely ignore in a hyper-optimized control meta. Its record of color identity R, set DTK (Dragons of Tarkir), and rarity common anchors it squarely in red’s fast-forward lane. The card even bears the Kolaghan watermark, a reminder of Tarkir’s clan-wide flavor where dragons and warriors share the battlefield’s spotlight. The flavor text—“She answers the call of the Crave, the desire for battle sated only by bloodshed”—reads like a war drum for red’s relentless tempo, and it’s a small but telling thread that collectors love to tug at when thinking about an edition’s printing philosophy 🎨⚔️.

“She answers the call of the Crave, the desire for battle sated only by bloodshed.”

When you compare print runs, the key distinction for a card like Kolaghan Aspirant is where and how the copies were produced. Dragons of Tarkir shipped a robust distribution for common cards, so you’ll find many nonfoil DTK copies circulating in serendipitous lots, while foil versions—though cherished by collectors—appear less frequently across the same print window. The price data captured on Scryfall reflects that reality: a modest $0.07 USD for the nonfoil print, with foil versions climbing to around $0.87 USD. Those gaps aren’t just cosmetic; they’re the arithmetic of supply, demand, and the perceived prestige of a shining card in a deck that hunts for tempo and bite 🧨💎.

From a market perspective, the card’s EDHREC rank sits around the mid-range for Red cards, underscoring its status as a dependable, if not centerpiece, pickup for many commander builds and limited-rich drafts. This is a classic case where print-run philosophy matters more than flash—an edition-eroded price can be a feature for budget-minded players, while foil enthusiasts chase the glimmer that only a handful of copies can supply ⚔️.

Edition-by-edition lens: what changes for collectors and players

In Dragons of Tarkir, we see the card as a common with both foil and nonfoil finishes. Since there isn’t a widespread reprint in a later set with the same name and a different rarity, most of the “edition differences” you’ll encounter revolve around foil distribution, language variants (not applicable here since this is English), and slight print-run shifts within the same set window. For a card like Kolaghan Aspirant, you’ll likely encounter a broad swath of DTK printings in bulk, with foils appearing in packs less frequently, which helps explain the foil price premium relative to the base card 🧪🧭.

Practical takeaway for players: when building a fast red deck, the Aspirant’s trigger helps you chip away even as block walls form. If you’re chasing copies for a cube or a Pauper-legal build, monitor nonfoil DTK prints first; foils are a nice splash for a rare-tradition look, but they come with tighter budgets in mind. And if you’re a collector who loves the tactile joy of a foil, remember that UD/foil supply across DTK’s print run is finite, which is why the foil price can hover in the mid-range of “affordable but coveted.” 🧡🧊

Let’s not overlook the fun side of this card’s design—its mana cost and power/toughness pair a neat early-unit threat with a compact activation margin. In a deck that wants to push through, the Aspirant’s ability can be your boss-level tempo enabler, punishing blockers and forcing an opponent to overextend. It’s the kind of card that makes “two-drop into attack” feel like you’re playing chess with fire, not checkers 🔥♟️.

Art, lore, and the collector’s eye

Aaron Miller’s art for Kolaghan Aspirant captures a kinetic moment—a warrior’s gaze set against a terraced battlefield where Tarkir’s war drums beat in the background. The card’s watermark and clan identity deepen the lore for fans who like their creature design to tell a story as much as it deals damage. The Dragon of Tarkir set frame, the spice of red’s fast aggression, and the flavor text together create a vivid memory of a block where clans and dragons collided in flavorful harmony 🧙‍♂️🎨.

For collectors who chase a complete DTK experience, the print-run differences across editions offer a subtle thrill: the surge of foil scarcity, the relative abundance of nonfoil copies, and the quiet joy of pulling a well-loved common in a draft night that feels like a pilgrimage back to Tarkir’s chirru of banners and battles. It’s a reminder that even a small creature can carry a big story across editions and decades 💎.

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