Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is officially released today, so we’re able to buy those cards from vendors. As always, I’m expecting most cards to take a tumble as they become widely available, especially because they seem underpowered compared to other sets currently in Standard.

Underpowered usually means cheap, and AFR has one of the lowest aggregate values I’ve seen at release. As a result, people are expecting less of this set to be opened, and that makes sense, especially with Modern Horizons 2 right there, pouring value into your wallet if you’re buying as a distributor. 

So if a set is under-opened…that means it’s likely under-valued! Time to look at AFR from a long-term perspective, looking for cards that will likely have some casual appeal. What can we get cheaply now, and if stores are reopening and events are happening in paper, what might be good in a few months when Standard rotates?

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter ($10) – Modern Mill is a real thing, and this is a four-of in that deck. It’s not a great card for Commander, as that’s a land where lots of big-mana spells are at, but mill cards have always had their fans. It’s both severely irritating and glorious fun! This is a card that I’m hoping will fall to the $1-2 range, but that’s likely too much hope. Casual and Modern demand will likely keep this close to $5, and that’s more than I want to pay. In three months, when the set is at maximum supply and we’re all drooling over the first of two Innistrad sets, perhaps it’ll be $3, and that’s when I’d like to acquire a lot of this card. I’m going for the basic versions, mind you; a card bought four at a time asks for the regular nonfoils.

Old Gnawbone ($21) – I get why people think this card is awesome. When you hit someone for some damage, you get a bunch of Treasures! What’s not to love? The problem is, if you are hitting someone for a bunch, you’re already winning, you’re already ahead. I don’t need more mana when I’m already getting in for damage! This is very much a win-more card, and Commander is a format that loves to win more. The price on this will drop by at least half, and likely farther for the basic editions. It’s a big green flyer, and there aren’t a lot of those, but the ability is not as good as it seems. I’m expecting this to really fall over the long term, probably to $5 or less.

Circle of Dreams Druid ($9) – This is already great, though the mana cost is a big deal. It’s a fixed Gaea’s Cradle, and the last fixed version of that, Growing Rites of Itlimoc, has a curve that we would do well to anticipate: 

I’m not saying this is a $20 card right now, especially in the basic nonfoil, but it is a card that when it’s cheap (Not if, when!) we want to stock up on. I’m hoping it drops to under $2, but casual demand might keep it higher than that. There’s a chance it shows up in Modern and Legacy Elves, but those decks already have access to Elvish Archdruid, a strictly better card in 100% Elves decks. Not sure how many more they’d want to run, but the kitchen table crowd will keep this from being bulk.

Tiamat ($19) – This is a fantastic card, and one I can’t wait to play with. However, it’s a very specific tribal card (albeit one of the best tribes) and works best as a Commander, or as a member of the 99. The most important detail though is that the basic version has fallen in price, and Thursday night a copy was sold on TCG for $17.50. The fall is real, and ongoing. The borderless foil copies are going to fall some too, there was a copy that sold on Facebook during the prerelease for $150 but there’s copies on TCG right now for $50 or less. That’s the trajectory it’s on, and it will bottom out like every other card, probably at $7-$10 for the basic and $30 for the borderless foil.

Demilich ($18) – The good news is that this is going to be in some of the most popular decks around, the assorted UR spells/blitz/burn lists that are lighting it up in Legacy and Modern. There have been some lists that use this as a four-of, which is the kick a card like this needs, but at least it isn’t legendary. Please keep in mind that its attack trigger isn’t a free cast, you still need to pay the mana. I think there will be enough builders to keep this near $10, but it’s already sliding and it might well end up closer to $5. Arclight Phoenix took a long while to claw back up to $10, and this is nicely analogous.

Teleportation Circle ($1) – This will be a bulk rare, but it’s one that I’m going to go in on once it’s officially bulk. Conjurer’s Closet was $7 before the Double Masters reprint:

Yes, this is not an artifact but it costs one less. Flickering things is already a big thing in white decks, and there will be a time where this card buylists for decent money. I’m not too proud to buy at a dime and sell for a dollar.

Treasure Vault ($8) – I’ve got my eye on this as an untapped artifact land. There’s only two legal in Modern right now, this and Darksteel Citadel. It’s not making waves in decks with Arcbound Ravager yet, but if this gets cheap and then a real affinity deck takes off, this will have a chance to shine very very brightly. 

Granted, I don’t think that happens anytime soon, but I think the Vault will be down to a couple of bucks and at that point, I want to have some copies in reserve.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Yes, with another set comes the need to look at booster pack formulations and see what’s out there. We have an article about how to get the special Monster Manual versions of cards, or the Dungeon Modules, and we’re going to figure out how to get the cards that we want. 

For once, this is pretty straightforward, and I appreciate Wizards giving us a break from the wacky things they’ve done in sets to make certain things more scarce than usual. First, the basics: We have 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 60 rares, 20 mythic rares. That’s for the nonfoil, basic frames, and that’s what you’re opening and drafting if you’re doing this in paper.

Let’s start with the Showcase variants for this set, of which there are two: Monster Manual frames and the Classic Module treatment.

The Monster Manual is meant to be a throwback to, well, the Monster Manual from days of yore: 

Apparently these really pop in foil, but we will see. There are 16 commons with this look, plus 18 uncommons, 15 rares, and two mythics.

Then we have the Classic Module, which is only for lands: 

Since this is a lands-only treatment, it’s on one common, one uncommon, and seven rares. 

To go with the Showcase treatments, we get what we’re used to: Borderless cards with different art than their original card (5 uncommon dragons, one rare dragon, and eleven mythic dragons/planeswalkers) and Extended-Art cards (30 rares, seven mythics) to round out the set. Interestingly, the seven rare class cards don’t have any special treatments.

It’s pretty neat that there are four different treatments, but pay special attention to the lack of etched foiling here. We’ve got four treatments, and it’s either foiled in the traditional method or not foiled at all. No in-between of the etched versions to worry about.

Let’s take a moment and reflect on what you can find in a Draft Booster or a Set Booster. You will not find Extended Art cards, but you can get the other three treatments, in foil or nonfoil. Your odds are pretty terrible, though. 

We were told that 10% of Draft Boosters will have a rare or mythic with a different treatment. We also know that 33% of Draft Boosters will have a foil of any rarity replacing a common. Your odds of pulling an alternate-frame rare or mythic aren’t just 3.3% though. 

First, your odds of getting a foil rare or mythic in a Draft Booster are pretty bad. One in three, multiplied by the collation of rares/mythics to commons/uncommons gives you 5.3%. That’s the drop rate for foil rares and mythics, about one in every 20 packs. 

To get the variant foil frame in rare or mythic will be .53%, or roughly one in 189 packs, and that’s for any rare or mythic with a non-EA frame, of which there are 36 to choose from. So that Borderless Foil Tiamat will appear in one out of every 6,804 Draft Boosters, give or take.

If you want another way to talk about these numbers, you’ll get a foil rare or mythic rare in a variant frame about once per case of Draft Boosters.

When it comes to Set Boosters, your odds are improved, but I’m sad to say that I don’t have enough information to give you a percentage. You start with a guaranteed foil, but they haven’t yet published enough information about the collations for me to know how they got the 27% for two rares, 3% for three rares, and less than 1% for four rares. 

If more information gets published, I will update this section. 

Collector Boosters are the main event, though. First of all, it’s the only place to get Extended Art versions of cards, though as we’ve seen, the foil versions of the Showcase frames aren’t plentiful either.

The big draw is going to be that first slot. A foil rare or mythic of anything special, and this we can indeed calculate:

Given that rares are twice as common as mythics, your odds of any specific rare from these four categories is 1/63, and for a particular mythic it’s going to be 1/126.

This is in line with the ratios from Standard sets, but keep in mind that there are often special cases, like a Mystical Archive or a foil Phyrexian Vorinclex messing with our perceptions of scarcity. Let’s do some comparing:

I don’t want to compare TSR here (no Collector Boosters) or Commander Legends (see gimmick below) but you can see that Forgotten Realms is going to play out a lot like Kaldheim did, only without the Vorinclex to be the chase card.

Also, the way that the Mystical Archive skewed the heck out of Strixhaven bugs me. Just a whole lot of rares crammed into one spot. Should have been 1/159 for mythics and 1/79.5 for rares. 

I’ve talked in other recent articles about how this set is going to fall fast, given the lack of truly chase/powerful cards, and I haven’t seen anything in the distribution of the set to make me think otherwise. Commander Legends had a gimmick where in one slot, your Collector Boosters had only a 30% chance to contain a Foil Extended Art card. They have upped that ratio considerably, thank goodness. 

However, keep in mind that if a set is viewed as underpowered or low value, then less people will open it, making it more scarce. That’s a fine line to walk, and I think we will have our chances at buying AFR at very low prices. Just be aware of the complications, which we will address with individual cards as we go forward.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

There’s a whole lot of hype around the cool things that are being revealed with Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, and we can do some preordering already! Some of these look like fantastic deals, and some are definitely traps to avoid. Let’s dive in, shall we?

First of all, we need to get something out in the open: This set, so far, does not have a chase card. The most expensive card is going to be a cool Commander, and do a lot of work for Dragons in general, but we haven’t yet gotten the “HOLY HELL TAKE ALL MY MONEY” reveal that we’ve had: Ragavan/OBF fetches, the Mystical Archive, Phyrexian Foil Vorinclex, and so on.

None of the cards previewed are very expensive as yet, which speaks not just to the power level of the cards, but the artistic choices Wizards has made here. We aren’t going to do anything too amazing…yet. There’s still a week of previews to go, though!

Tiamat ($25) – This is currently the most expensive card you can preorder from the set, at twenty-five bucks! It’s hard to argue with what this card tells you to do as a Commander: Play lots of Dragons (Changelings!) and go find five of them every time you cast Tiamat. That’s hard to argue with as card advantage, and if you want to play some kind of five-color Dragons strategy, you’re either getting these cards or you’re playing The Ur-Dragon for the mana advantage.

I don’t think this price will hold, though. The formula for expensive cards involves being in demand across a lot of formats/decks. The commander is almost never the expensive card, and that doesn’t bode well for Tiamat’s future price. This will fall to $15 easily, more likely $10.

Demilich ($15) – This has real potential in decks that want to play lots of instants and sorceries, though you’ll never pay less than four mana all told. Theoretically with some free spells you can get there sooner, but Gitaxian Probe isn’t legal anywhere and you’ll have to work pretty hard. The ability to recur this card is a big plus for it, and it seems best suited to play with Arclight Phoenix decks. Please note that this doesn’t have flying or haste or anything. It’s just a 4/3 durdle on the ground, easily blocked and killed. This should drop in price by at least half, sadly.

Circle of Dreams Druid ($5) – This is a lot more than an auto-play for Elf decks in any format. It’s a fixed version of a totally busted Reserved List card. We have another fixed version of Gaea’s Cradle to compare with, though: Growing Rites of Itlimoc.

I don’t think I want to buy the Druid at $5, though. Everything has to go downwards, generally speaking, but the value in this set has to go someplace. Long-term, I think this card has fantastic potential and I want lots of copies in my spec box, I just don’t want to buy at this price. I will be watching this closely to see what happens early on–this could be one of the fastest risers in the set because it goes so well into a range of decks and formats.

Sphere of Annihilation (75 cents or so) – Honestly, this is a card that various flavors of control decks have wanted for a long time. I genuinely think this is underpriced, given the flexibility it offers. It’s going to get a lot of use at an X-value of one or two, and if they go over the top at three, that’s what your targeted kill spells are for. Opponents also won’t play into it, giving you that much more time. Control decks crave time, as they have the resources and per-card power to win the long game. I’m a big fan of what this offers, and while I’m not yet ready to buy in, this is another card that I’ll be watching closely.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter ($4) – If you think Modern Mill is a viable strategy now, here’s your happiest of days. Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks are all over the place in Modern, and while their spells are not costing two or less, Modern as a format is really getting faster and faster. Everyone wants to cost less, to get under the competition. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter is the punishment for embracing that mindset.

Again, I’m not buying yet, but we’ve seen the legs that some mill cards can have, and this is a spell that will be very popular for people who like to do that. I’d prefer to buy in at a buck or less, but this is a spell that puts stars in peoples’ eyes about what it ‘could’ be, not what it is. Note that it’s ‘each opponent’, for those of you who like to use this strategy in Commander games. Godspeed.

Cave of the Frost Dragon ($1.50) and the other new creaturelands (less) – This has been a banner year for creaturelands, I don’t think we’ve ever had so many in Standard before. Crawling Barrens, then Faceless Haven, and now a cycle of five that are all good at what they do. The white, blue, and black ones all make sense, the red one is great in an all-in attacking deck, and we haven’t gotten the green one yet. Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit are still the best around given their pedigrees, but what’s surprising to me is that neither of the colorless lands have made a big impact on Standard. Is it just because control decks aren’t great right now, and we need rotation to make them good again? We shall see. 

You’re going to be able to get these lands for near-bulk prices, and that’s going to be very tempting. Problem is, it’s difficult to predict which of these five colors will be the one that’s played a lot after rotation in the fall. If you feel confident that you can pick the winner, go for it. With seven creaturelands, I don’t think I can snag the one, and the return isn’t worth picking up a brick of each. If they are all a dime each, and you buy 7 bricks of 100 each, the one that hits needs to be bought for 70 cents each for you to just break even. Plus, we’re talking rares, not mythics, and there will be a whole lot of these out there. It’s not worth it, I advocate staying away.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.