There’s a few adages in Magic finance that always made a lot of sense to me:

• Let someone else make the last 10%.
• Sell into the hype.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel.

That last one is especially relevant now, with Double Masters 2022 previews starting up as of yesterday. At least one of the previewed cards is a reprint of a reprint, and so we know how this song goes.

For others, the tune isn’t so clear…

Double Masters 2022 was always going to be a big deal. The first one made lots of people lots of money, especially with the VIP packs predating our Collector Boosters. What’s really going to juice the amount of product opened is not the big-ticket price of packs, but the fact that Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate was not a big deal financially. Yes, a couple of the rarest dragons are expensive, but value-wise, the set is quite underwhelming in the short term.

That’s not going to be a problem with DXM2. Immediately we got told that Dockside Extortionist is in the set, with foil-etched and borderless variants. The hits just kept coming from there, and some of them are clearly going to make us some money.

Let’s start with one of the big reveals from Thursday’s stream: Phyrexian Altar.

We know exactly how good this card is. It’s been registered in 44,000 Commander decks online via EDHREC, and that number is only the serious players who bother to set it up online. Plus, this has had only two printings, Invasion and Ultimate Masters. See if you can spot when the reprint happened:

As an additional bonus to that 44k number, it’s never been in a Commander precon, which can really goose some of the inclusion numbers. 

So yes, I’m telling you to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and buy Phyrexian Altar when it gets cheap. I’m especially telling you to go for the regular, nonfoil copies, as those should get to a wonderfully low price, likely under $20 and maybe as low as $10. This is as straightforward as things get in Magic finance, and it’s advice I would give to anyone who asked me for an example of how all this works. I mean it, too: Buying 20 copies when it was $15 (as the UMA copies were for a few months) and holding for two years would get you $60 a copy before fees. If you held for three years you’re looking at $80-$90!

Granted, there were no reprints of any kind for this card, and that’s relatively rare these days. Between Secret Lairs, special inclusions, and a new set every six frigging weeks, there’s a whole lot of reprinting going on.

Doesn’t take away from the simple truth that putting $100 into plain copies of Altar will double your money in a year, and might go higher. Note that this will be a rare again, meaning there will be a lot of copies to go around.

Let’s look at another Ultimate Masters card, this time a mythic:

Mana Vault is one of those cards that I, as a long-time, very enfranchised player, used to put between the spokes of my bike because I was an ignorant little snot who didn’t know how to do this properly. If that teenage jerk had just saved his cards, I’d have a mansion in the hills!

Anyway, we have here the same pattern: Got expensive, got reprinted, got cheap, and then got expensive again. Given that there will be multiple versions of the Vault again, I would repeat my advice that the best return on your money would be to buy the regular, nonfoil copies and then just wait patiently. Don’t spend all your money on any one of these cards, please be sure to diversify, but Double Masters 2022 is going to offer us a lot of opportunities to put some money in and get a lot more out.

This one I’m slightly less sure about, as there’s complicating factors: 

There’s no question that Bloom Tender is a powerful card. It’s an infinite mana engine with Freed from the Real, it’s an Elf, and in five-color decks, it gets out of hand very quickly indeed. Eventide was a low point in Magic sales, which is why the OG foils are so very expensive. This was in the Mystery Booster, and that put juuuuuust enough copies into circulation as to keep the price from going much higher. Then last year, arriving at the same time as the Phyrexian Praetors, this was in the Secret Lair: Jen Bartel edition. 

Again, that’s enough copies to keep the price from going up, which is notable for a card listed in 40,000 decks online. 

What I’ll be watching for, very closely, is the floor on regular copies. Right now, there’s some optimistic pre-orders for around $20, and that bodes very well for future opportunities. I ignore pre-orders, generally speaking, but remember that almost all cards start out at their highest prices, and drop from there. 

Bloom Tender should be no different, and I’m hoping it gets to $5 when all is said and done and all the packs are finally opened. It’ll definitely get to $10, which is an okay buy-in price, but I’ll be much more excited about it if it goes even lower. Having the Secret Lair copies available for $40-$50 depending on foiling puts a pretty hard cap on what Bloom Tender can do long-term, though I’d be expecting to buy in at $5 and get out when it hits $20-$25 retail in 12-18 months.

This is just a sample of what I’m expecting from Double Masters 2022, and as we get more previews, we’ll also be able to focus on what our long-term plans for the set are. Stay tuned!

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.

Welcome to Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. I don’t know what the cards have to do with the game, or the lore, but I do know that this set is jammed with sweet cards and awesome interactions.

What the set lacks, though, is a headliner mythic in terms of value, a card that everyone is chasing. Granted, the first time around, that was a Jeweled Lotus, which set an incredibly high mark for value and for rarity. We didn’t get a card like that, nor a big-value reprint like a Mana Crypt or Mana Drain or anything like that. 

As a result, the value of these cards has to go somewhere, and the first place to look will be the mythics, the most difficult to get. I went over your odds last week, but let’s get into some examples of the cards in CLB and if I’m ready to buy yet.

Ancient Dragons – The key with these five mythics is that each version is twice as rare as other mythics, because they are the only mythics with two special versions. The number of Ancient Gold Dragons in Borderless foil plus the number of Ancient Gold Dragons in Showcase foil is equal to the number of Battle Angels of Tyr in Borderless foil. There aren’t more copies of AGD because there are more versions, there’s just more options for the same number of copies.

As a result, this cycle is probably going to contain the most expensive cards in the set, at least at the beginning. The early prices bear this out, as people move sooner than they should, but it’s entirely possible that one or two of these dragons follows the Old Gnawbone path and just never gets cheap:

Gnawbone is one end of the potential spectrum here, but the other end is this:

My inclination is that while the Ancient Dragons are expensive mana-wise, they will generally be worth it on the board. We might see things like Garruk’s Uprising tick up as Dragon players want to give trample (and draw cards!) but my hunch is that the borderless foils are going to start high and rarely go lower, even after a couple of weeks. 

Kindred Discovery – This is a card that’s had no support but still has been in registered in 18k decks online. Just the Commander 2017 printing and a meager inclusion in The List. We know the card is good, and it’s popular too. As a rare, it’ll be relatively common leftovers after the big operations are done cracking packs, and this is one of my favorite targets in the set. It’s already down to $3 for the cheapest and $20 for the FEA, prices I am content at but I’m waiting a bit longer for hopefully a farther fall. 

Might not go too low, as this is the first foil printing, but we’ll see.

The Allied Battlebond Lands – We have some exact comparisons here, and that puts this on easy mode. FEA versions of the enemy lands from Commander Legends 1 are around $30, and those are about 2.5 times more common. (1/88 for these vs. 1/206 in original CL) Don’t forget that we have Expedition versions to look at too: 

The presence of these cards in a much rarer frame will do a lot to create a price ceiling for these lands, but frankly, let’s look at the graph for the nonfoils:

Battlebond wasn’t as heavily opened as a regular set, but the steady growth of these lands is a sign that the lands might be the safest bet around. I’m going to look for them to fall a bit further, probably to $5 or even $4, and then I’ll want a nice stack.

Cultist of the Absolute – Backgrounds might be useful in the 99 too, especially giving certain abilities. Static, like auras that don’t need to be recast. I’m very likely to wait until the rare and mythic ones find a floor and then pick up a few. Unique effects like this are usually worth speculating on.

Herald’s Horn – Down to $5ish as an uncommon in CLB Precon, and present in 50k decks online, this is another spec I’m all over, except for one problem. Later this year, we’re going to get the first foil version of the card as a year of the Tiger promo coming with The Brothers’ War, and that will soak up a lot of the money to be made.

Buying staples when they get cheap is a basic principle, and Herald’s Horn definitely fits that description. 

Monster Manual – Elvish Piper is good. This is better. I’m not anticipating this being expensive by any means, but I am looking forward to getting in on this at nearly-bulk prices. There’s so many ways to abuse a card like this, and now we have it as an instant-use artifact instead of a fragile 1/1 that has to wait a turn.

Jaheira, Friend of the Forest – NONCREATURE TOKENS COUNT! So your Treasures are now Mox Emeralds, your Food tokens are Moss Diamond, your Blood tokens are some other artifact that hasn’t been printed but would be too good. This might be good on its own or as an amazing addition to the 99 of some other token-themed commander. Another bulk pick that will one day shine so very brightly.

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.

Here we are, the dawn of a new set. Preorders are all over the place, spikes are happening left and right, and we’re one month away from Double Masters 2.

For right now, though, I want to focus on the Collector Boosters from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. Every set since the first Commander Legends I’ve calculated your odds, and I’m glad to bring you this set of data.

Please note that today’s piece is focusing on the Collector Boosters only. Set and Draft Boosters will have to wait, as those require a whole new set of tables and calculations.

Let’s get to it!

First of all, let’s go over what we’re told explicitly. This set has subdivided many of the types and treatments, which helps simplify what can be found where.

One thing I hate about this graphic is that it isn’t in order, according to the box opening videos I’ve watched. Just irks me. 

It’s a bit painful to say, but in terms of rarity, there’s only two slots we’re going to focus on here. The nonfoil, regular frame cards rarely carry a huge price difference from nonfoil showcase or foil regular frame. 

For instance, the slot for Extended-Art Commander rare/mythic. There’s 40 exclusive cards, 12 of them mythic. You’ll have a 1/67 of getting a particular EA mythic or 1/33.5 for a particular EA rare. (Artificer Class does not have an EA version.) Given the volume that’s going to be opened, that’ll be a LOT of cards. The prices on other EA rares/mythics from previous sets backs that up.

The Etched Foil (Legendary Rare/Mythic) slot in Collector Boosters is pretty straightforward. There’s 30 rares and just a pair of mythics. That means only 1/62 CBs will have a particular mythic etched foil, and you’re 1/31 to get whichever etched foil rare you wanted. This pool includes the five rare Backgrounds, which will not show up in the next slot. The other 27 cards are all the rare and mythic Legendary creatures.

Now, the last slot in the Collector Booster, traditionally where the biggest money and the rarest cards are found.

Let’s set up with the basics: When you get to the this slot in a Collector Booster, you’re going to get a Showcase (In this set, that’s the Monster Manual), Borderless, or Extended-Art treatment in foil. We’ve got 72 eligible rares and 22 eligible mythics. Since mythics are half as common as rares, we need to double the number of rares, but keep the same mythics. 

As a result, we get a pool of 176 cards. Two of each rare, one of each mythic. That means we have a 1/88 chance (reduced from 2/176) for any version of a particular rare, and a 1/176 chance of pulling any version of a particular mythic rare.

The short version is that you look up a card, see how many options you have. All rares and mythics in this set have one alternate frame, with the exception of the five Ancient Dragons. Those have a Borderless treatment and a Showcase treatment, and therefore will be the rarest cards in the set.

Rare with 1 alternate	Mythic with 1 alternate	Mythic with 2 alternates
1/88	1/176	1/352

Rares with only Extended Art (47) Chances: 1/88 Collector Booster Packs

Altar of Bhaal // Bone Offering Archivist of Oghma Ascend from Avernus Astarion’s Thirst Baldur’s Gate Barroom Brawl Basilisk Collar Blade of Selves Bountiful Promenade Call to the Void Caves of Chaos Adventurer Descent into Avernus Displacer Kitten Earthquake Dragon Elder Brain Eldritch Pact Elturel Survivors Firbolg Flutist Fraying Line Gale’s Redirection Horn of Valhalla // Ysgard’s Call Illithid Harvester // Plant Tadpoles Intellect Devourer Jaheira’s Respite Kindred Discovery Lae’zel’s Acrobatics Luxury Suite Mighty Servant of Leuk-o Mirror of Life Trapping Monster Manual // Zoological Study Morphic Pool Owlbear Cub Ravenloft Adventurer Reflecting Pool Robe of the Archmagi Sculpted Sunburst Sea of Clouds Spire Garden Tomb of Horrors Adventurer Traverse the Outlands Undermountain Adventurer Wand of Wonder White Plume Adventurer Windshaper Planetar Wizards of Thay Wrathful Red Dragon Wyll’s Reversal

Rares with only Monster Manual Frame/Art (Showcase) (25)  Chances: 1/88 Collector Booster Packs

Alaundo the Seer Astarion, the Decadent Baba Lysaga, Night Witch Bane, Lord of Darkness Bhaal, Lord of Murder Duke Ulder Ravengard Dynaheir, Invoker Adept Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy Gluntch, the Bestower Gorion, Wise Mentor Jaheira, Friend of the Forest Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter Jon Irenicus, Shattered One Lae’zel, Vlaakith’s Champion Mazzy, Truesword Paladin Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm Myrkul, Lord of Bones Neera, Wild Mage Nine-Fingers Keene Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss Raphael, Fiendish Savior Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar The Council of Four Wyll, Blade of Frontiers Zevlor, Elturel Exile

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Given these odds, a full 80 percent or so of rares will be in Collector Boosters’ last slot. Please note, though, that the Legendary Rare Backgrounds are not in this list. Those are in regular foil and etched foil, and therefore are not included for this slot.

Mythics with only Extended Art (19)  (Includes the Commander exclusives) Chances: 1/176 Collector Booster Packs

Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer Balor Blood Money Burakos, Party Leader Captain N’ghathrod Clan Crafter Durnan of the Yawning Portal Elminster’s Simulacrum Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald Firkraag, Cunning Instigator Folk Hero Font of Magic Haunted One Majestic Genesis Nalia de’Arnise Pact Weapon Passionate Archaeologist Storm King’s Thunder Zellix, Sanity Flayer

Mythics with Monster Manual Frame/Art (Showcase) (2)  Chances: 1/176 Collector Booster Packs

Karlach, Fury of Avernus Volo, Itinerant Scholar

Mythics with Borderless Alternate Art (8) Chances: 1/176 Collector Booster Packs

Battle Angels of Tyr Bramble Sovereign Elminster Legion Loyalty Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes Nautiloid Ship Tasha, the Witch Queen Vexing Puzzlebox

Mythics with Borderless Alternate Art OR Monster Manual Frame/Art (Showcase) (5) Chances: 1/352 Collector Booster Packs (per version)

Ancient Brass Dragon Ancient Bronze Dragon Ancient Copper Dragon Ancient Gold Dragon Ancient Silver Dragon

Point of clarification here: This set has less overlap in versions than the last few did. No mythics have three special versions, and no rare has two. An interesting choice from WotC here, but it makes my life simpler.

Generally speaking, things are as rare in this set as they were in previous sets. Let’s have a couple of comparisons, handily from my own research.

Set Name	Odds of a specific foil treatment rare	Odds of a specific foil treatment mythic
CL: Battle for Baldur’s Gate	1/88	1/176 to 1/352
Streets of New Capenna	1/82 to 1/164	1/164 to 1/492
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty	1/136	1/272 up to 1/544
Innistrad: Crimson Vow	1/74	1/171
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt	1/75.5	1/151
Forgotten Realms	1/63	1/126
Strixhaven	1/154.5	1/309
Kaldheim	1/64	1/128
Modern Horizons 2	1/126.5	1/253
Commander Legends EA Foils	1/204	1/400

Or for specific cards, the rarest from each set:

Card/Treatment	Set	Odds of pulling it from a Collector Booster (approx.)
Phyrexian Foil Vorinclex	Kaldheim	1/256
Japanese-Language Alternate Art Time Warp Foil	Strixhaven (Mystical Archive)	1/309
Foil Extended Art The Meathook Massacre	Innistrad: Midnight Hunt	1/151
Foil Fang Frame Sorin, the Mirthless by Ayami Kojima	Innistrad: Crimson Vow	1/171
Extended Art Foil Jeweled Lotus	Commander Legends	1/400
Phyrexian foil (or foil-etched) Jin-Gitaxias	Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty	1/544
Blue Soft Glow Hidetsugu	Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty	1/219
Green Soft Glow Hidetsugu	Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty	1/444
Red Soft Glow Hidetsugu	Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty	1/1828
Phyrexian Foil Urabrask, Heretic Praetor	Streets of New Capenna	1/492
Borderless Foil Ancient Brass Dragon	Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate	1/352

That stacks up well, and while Wizards loves to mess with things and change around numbers to make my life miserable, it’s worth noting that the rarest cards in this set are about 25% more common than in Streets of New Capenna. Opening 140 less Collector Boosters is certainly good news for the biggest vendors.

I hope that this helps inform your decisions about what to buy and not buy, as well as manage your expectations when you’re opening these packs. 

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.

We’ve got the full list of Commander Legends: Battle of Baldur’s Gate, and there’s a lot of amazing cards in here. 

Not a lot of heavy reprints (yet, we’ve still got the precons coming) but there’s a whole lot of really sweet cards out there. This set is more expensive than previous sets, and that’s surprising to see without some kind of headliner, like a Jeweled Lotus or a Dockside Extortionist to anchor the value.

Granted, we’ve got Double Masters 2 on the horizon and that should be *stuffed* with value.

However, for right now, we’ve got some amazing things to deal with and I want to plan out what to buy and when, so come along!

The Ancient Dragons – The main thing I’m looking at here is the casting cost. These are all very good cards, and while some are clearly more powerful than others, All of them should see their share of Commander play. The Bronze one (the green one) is clearly the weakest, adding counters when you’re already getting damage through is good, and maximizing a roll requires something else to put counters on.

We’ve got a recent example of a cycle of Dragons: The Dragon Spirits from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. Those five tell a story, financially speaking:

So Junji is among the most popular, and Ao is the least so. We’re looking at $30ish for Junji in borderless foil, and $12 for Ao the same way. The NEO cycle is less powerful, but lower on mana costs. I’m expecting to see these Ancient dragons do something similar, in terms of opening up very expensive and dropping pretty fast. Not as many people will want these cards, just from the mana cost.

I’ll be very tempted to buy all of these Dragons right away, but more likely is that I’m going to wait a few weeks for things to calm down, and then I can get what I want for a more decent price.

Bramble Sovereign (currently $15 nonfoil) – This isn’t a very common card on EDHREC, where people choose to upload their decks, but it was only available as a mythic in Battlebond four years ago. Just under 6,000 people have listed this as a card, though there’s likely a lot of decks out there that have this card. Remember that you can give someone a token copy if you want to, making this more political than it might first appear.

The trick with reprints of expensive or semi-expensive cards is to let it get cheap and then buy a lot. I’m expecting this to travel down into the $7 range. 

Karlach, Fury of Avernus – Note that the attack trigger doesn’t require Karlach to attack, so you can just sit him back and let other creatures do the work of getting in there twice. There’s a few creatures that can trigger more attack steps, but this one can’t combo off with Delima, Wild Mage or other such things because you only get an untap if it’s the first attack. I want this to get cheap, like under $5, because while this is good it lacks synergies with most things but it does have a Background.

Legion Loyalty – Eight mana! Sure, it’s capable of doing great things, especially with something Sundial of the Infinite, but barring effects that cheat the enchantment out, I don’t think this is very good. Myriad is broken when there’s still four people in the pod, but when you’ve eliminated two other players, myriad does stone nothing. I’m looking forward to buying this as a cheap brick, hopefully around $2-$3, hoping for something to come along to make it jump back up.

Altar of Bhaal – Recurring Nightmare is banned in Commander, and this is the fixed version. Exiling means you can’t recur the same creature back and forth, and now only once per turn. This is capable of doing some very disgusting things, especially with a fun little adventure built in. I’m anticipating being able to get a lot of these near $2, hopefully $1 just for the future buylist out.

Ascend from Avernus – If you like Agadeem’s Awakening, you’ll like this more. It’s not a land, and yes, that is a drawback, but the thing is, that’s just how good a MDFC is. AfA is a mere rare, and can do a great job as a mass reanimation spell. Being able to bring back planeswalkers is a huge bonus, one that only Eerie Ultimatum can compete with. Eerie is better, but it’s also three awkward colors. The cheapest version of Eerie has come down to just about $2, so we’re unlikely to see Ascend from Avernus go much under $3-$5.

The Allied Battlebond Lands – These never really had a chance to get cheap. Instead, they started cheap, and then started climbing upwards. 

Now we’re going to get FEA versions to compete with the Expedition versions, but again, I’m more likely to focus on waiting until these are at peak supply and then buying them up. Getting your good lands cheap is sound advice for Commander in general, but the inevitable rise of these lands will give wonderful returns. I’m more likely to be patient on the regular versions and then go deep on those, hoping to buy around $5 and buylist for $10+. FEA versions are probably going to be expensive for a while as people upgrade from Battlebond foils.

Gale’s Redirection – I love this card. I dig Spelljack, Desertion type effects, where not only do you not get your card, now I get it. Note that this gets around ‘cannot be countered’ effects, and if you exiled something big and huge and can’t be countered, then it’s that much more likely you’ll end up playing this for free! It’s also a way to just keep something exiled forever. I suspect regular and FEA versions of this will be delightfully inexpensive.

Kindred Discovery – (currently $19 in nonfoil only) – This was only printed in Commander 2017 and a few iterations of The List. As a result, it’s only in 17k decks online, because people who bought the deck had a tribal deck that wanted the card. (It’s as good as advertised, btw.)

The price on this is mostly due to the low supply, and we’ll see how many people add it this time around. We’re getting a FEA version, and that’s probably where I want to be, especially if it gets under $10.

Reflecting Pool – (currently about $21 for the cheapest version) – It’s been reprinted a few times, and has been listed in 50k decks online. We can check the graph, and yep, we’re due for a reprint:

Again, this isn’t complicated. Buy at the low, probably around $7, and then be patient. Reflecting Pool will recover, it’s too handy not to. We’ve got ample evidence that every printing hasn’t affected the price too much in the long term.

Vexing Puzzlebox – I love this card for taking something that we’re doing and adding a strong bonus. This is a broken card, letting you tap it and go get any artifact and put it into play. Every dice-rolling card wants to have the Puzzlebox in play, and there are a LOT of cards that can add up the charge counters. Delina, Wild Mage is one example, but everything with a d20 is fair game. Plus, at some point in the future, we’re going to get a multicolor commander whose focus is rolling dice, and that’s when I’ll want to have FEA versions in stock. Vexing Puzzlebox is a mythic, as an such I doubt it would ever hit bulk pricing. Instead, I’m going to focus on FEA versions that will push as low as $5, and simply wait.

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.