It’s become a tradition, and one that tests my limits for going back and redoing things, but here we are, with a new set and a whole new list of things to figure out.

As always, I want to figure out what the rarest of rare things are, and just how rare they are, especially as a historical comparison. Plus, I need to do some calculations about Legends boosters!

Let’s get into it.

The headliners, of course, are the ‘Lost Legends’ that have been added to these packs. One thing they did for us is they said, straight out, that 3% of Collector Booster packs will have one card from a Legends pack. Now that card can be any rarity, so calm yourself down. You have a 3% chance to open a Zephyr Falcon!

For those who want it, here’s the list of cards. We can break this down a little further, and in fact we need to.

	Number at this rarity in the original Legends set	How many are excluded, for one reason or another	Number possible for the Lost Legends
Rare	121	6	115
Uncommon	114	53	61
Common	75	5	70

We have the same distribution as always: 10 commons and 3 uncommons for every rare, so the pool for this slot is 1403. Therefore, your odds for getting a card at each rarity IF you hit a Lost Legend:

Common	Uncommon	Rare
1150/1403 = 82%	183/1403 = 13%	70/1403 = 5%

Remember that these are only in 3% of packs, so we have to multiply each by .03, and so there’s a Common in 2.46% of Collector Booster packs, Uncommon in 0.4% of packs, and a Legends Rare in 0.15% of those packs.

Want a specific card? Buckle up. You’ve got to multiply the above numbers by their number of options. So for example, if you want to hit a Willow Satyr, it’s (3/100) X (70/1403) X (1/70), and now we’re getting into negative exponents.

Rarity of the specific card	% of Collector Boosters that contain that card (approx.)	Packs needed to open one (approx.)
Rare	0.00002138	46,767
Uncommon	0.00006414	15,589
Common	0.0002138	4,677

We can estimate how many of each Legends card is about to enter circulation, too. If we’re using 100 boxes as an estimate for what got opened, that’s 54,000 cards. Divided by the pool, that’s a max of 38.4 copies of any particular rare, 115 of any uncommon, and 1150 of any common.

This number is almost certainly an overestimate, as some cards were just straight removed and new ones weren’t added back in, but it’s a good reference point to know that we’re not getting any appreciable supply of Legends cards added to the mix.

It’s almost as an afterthought that we have some sweet Dominaria United cards to look at and think about! 

Frame/Treatment	# of uncommons	# of rares	# of mythics
Showcase (Stained Glass)	40	28	15
Phyrexian	–	–	2
Textured Foil	20	14	7
Borderless	–	6	5
Extended Art	–	41	5
Legends Retold		10	10

It’s a relief to work with some normal-ish numbers here. Let’s look at how these frames are distributed:

Let’s go over this, from the top down. (If you open the pack this way, it’ll be from the back to the front)

Slot #1: Textured Foil Stained Glass U/R/M

They added uncommons in this slot, and that makes for quite rarer cards. We know that the distribution is 10c:3u:1r:0.5m, or to make it easier, 20 commons:6 uncommons:2 rares:1 mythic. Therefore the pool of cards in this slot is 215.

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card
Uncommon	83.7%	2.8%	35.8
Rare	13%	0.93%	107.5
Mythic	3.3%	0.47%	215

Slot #2 and #3: Foil-Etched or Nonfoil Alternate Border R/M (Stained Glass, Phyrexian, Borderless, or Legends Retold)

This is crazy. Wizards has a history of changing what they collate into different slots in order to get to the percentages they desire, but I can’t remember a slot having such a wide variety of treatments, and in nonfoil, except for the set of Legends Retold which can be in etched foil but NOT traditional foil! They are trying to make me lose my mind.

	Stained Glass	Phyrexian	Borderless	Legends Retold
Rare Nonfoil	28	–	6	10
Rare Etched Foil	–	–	–	10
Mythic Nonfoil	15	2	5	10
Mythic Etched Foil	–	–	–	10

The pool here is 150, and so:

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card
Rare	72%	1.3%	75
Mythic	28%	0.67%	150

Remember that there’s two of that particular slot, so there’s going to be a lot of nonfoil rares from that grouping that get opened. The foil-etched mythics will be 1 per 75 packs, which is pretty common as these things go.

Slot #5: Traditional Foil Alternate-Border R/M

Too many options here, let’s organize it with a table: 

	Stained Glass	Phyrexian	Borderless	Extended Art
Rare	28	–	6	41
Mythic	15	2*	5*	5

The asterisk here is for the Phyrexian cards: Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Ajani, Sleeper Agent. Sheoldred has a showcase and a Phyrexian frame, cutting your odds in half. Remember that more versions of a card does not mean that there’s more copies of a card out there. So if there’s 100 Borderless Liliana of the Veil (only one special version), there’s 50 each of Showcase Sheoldred and Phyrexian Sheoldred. There would also be 25 each of each of the Ajani variants.

Textured foil is different, because that’s a special subset put in Collector Boosters only.

Because there’s four extra versions, the pool is 173, and as a result:

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card (except special versions of Sheoldred or Ajani)
Rare	86.7%	1.2%	86.5
Mythic	13.3%	0.58%	173

With all of that calculated, let’s look at some example cards and see how they stack up against each other for a Collector Booster: 

Card with Rarity and Treatment	Number of Collector Boosters needed to open to get one (approx.)
Textured Foil Stained Glass Jodah, the Unifier (M)	215
Foil-Etched Sivitri, Dragon Master (M)	75
Borderless Foil Liliana of the Veil (M)	173
Phyrexian Foil Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (M)	346
Foil Compleated Ajani, Sleeper Agent (M)	692

One foil special Ajani, Sleeper Agent every 692 packs is among the rarest of drops we’ve had in Collector Boosters, except for two very special entrants: Hidetsugu and the Lost Legends. Let’s compare these numbers with a list of other big tickets.

Card/Set	Collector Boosters to open one (approx.)	Card/Set	Collector Boosters to open one (approx.)
Phyrexian Foil Vorinclex (KHM)	256	Foil Etched Food Chain (2X2)	280
Japanese- Language Alternate Art Time Warp Foil (STX:MA)	309	Textured Borderless Foil Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (2X2)	160
Foil Extended Art The Meathook Massacre (MID)	151	Green Soft Glow Hidetsugu (NEO)	444
Foil Fang Frame Sorin, the Mirthless by Ayami Kojima (VOW)	171	Red Soft Glow Hidetsugu (NEO)	1,828
Extended Art Foil Jeweled Lotus (CMR)	400	Borderless Foil Liliana of the Veil (DMU)	173
Phyrexian Foil Urabrask, Heretic Praetor (SNC)	492	Phyrexian Foil Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU)	346
Borderless Foil Ancient Brass Dragon (CLB)	352	Phyrexian Foil Ajani, Sleeper Agent (DMU)	692
Phyrexian foil (or foil-etched) Jin-Gitaxias (NEO)	544	The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (DMU:LL)	46,767

I hope that this breakdown helps you make decisions about what to buy. The biggest takeaway for me is that the special versions of Sheoldred, a clearly busted Commander card, will go for a pretty penny indeed. If Ajani takes off, those twice-as-hard-to-pull versions will hit the stratosphere. And whatever you do, don’t go cracking packs hoping to hit a lottery-ticket-level rare Legends card.

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, our eyes are full of Dominaria United cards, but the August Superdrop is here and this is a much more appealing target. I’m not buying any DMU for a while, but I’m very likely to go wild on these drops.

Secret Lairs are mostly decent value, and occasionally great value. They are really rewarding patience and those who got the short-lived drops, and it’s worth it to look at these drops to see what’s appealing. 

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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.

Yesterday, we got the first sets of teasers and previews for Dominaria United, a set with a heroic name and a story that is very much not that way.

The Phyrexians are back, and we’ve gotten one of the strongest Praetors so far: Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

This is a commander that screams to be built around, and luckily, we’ve already had a couple of commanders who do similar things.

I’m going to do my best to give you some picks that haven’t already been picked clean, but the Internet is a fast-moving place and I can’t make any guarantees. Let’s get to the cards!

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is in a strange place as a Magic set. It got overshadowed pretty quickly by other sets, and didn’t have a lot to keep it going. The set right now is at a really low point, since it’s about to rotate.

Being at a really low point means some great opportunities to buy! Let’s look at some singles from the set itself and the accompanying Commander cards, and determine what we want to buy.

Mostly I prefer to stick to the more premium versions of cards, especially as Commander specs, because they are more resilient in case they are reprinted. However, sometimes the siren’s call of more basic versions at super cheap prices cannot be overlooked.

To the cards!

Wand of Orcus ($3.50 for the cheapest version, $7 for the most expensive, 8700 EDHREC decks) – It’s necessary to caveat the EDHREC numbers for two reasons: One, cards that come in the precon decks are just uploaded to the database and then given very small tweaks. That gooses the numbers for inclusion, and makes it look a bit more popular than it is. The other thing to remember is that the database is self-selecting. Only the people who care enough to build the deck and then upload it bother to do so. I’ve had all my Commander decks at least two years, and never gotten around to uploading the list to EDHREC.

That said, the Wand of Orcus has quite a history. It had a jump to over $15 for both versions, and has the potential to do some incredibly broken things. What it could do again is up for discussion, but there aren’t a lot of ‘deal X damage, get X tokens’ cards out there. The creature type and the deathtouch is also very relevant; we have a very similar card in Scepter of Celebration and only the super-rare foil version of that is even over a buck.

I think $3.50 is a great price to get in at, especially if you already bought cheap and sold high once. If nothing else, it’ll be a candidate every time a new Zombie commander comes along.

Grim Hireling ($3 to $14, 25,000 decks) – It’s in the precons, yes, but it’s an amazing card in Treasure decks and I’ve seen this knock down a whole board with Mayhem Devil out. This got expensive and has trickled downward in the time since, and the reprint in Baldur’s Gate has really driven the price low. I can’t imagine it goes below $2, and I’m more than happy to get a stack of these in anticipation of the next amazing Treasure interactions.

Treasure Vault ($6 to $10, 34,000 decks) – While the Treasure interactions are great, what you can never overlook here is that this is an artifact land that comes into play untapped. There’s blessed few of those that are legal in Modern and/or Pioneer. Such a narrow gap between the basic nonfoil and the Module frame in foil is a surprise to me. I’m definitely bigger on the special version, because this is a frame that I doubt they’ll go back to, except perhaps for one Secret Lair. 

Hall of the Storm Giants ($2.50 to $10, 7600 decks) – The Module frame here is much more expensive, but the base version is quite attractively cheap. This has a smattering of copies across assorted control decks in Pioneer and even occasionally in Modern, where it’s a win condition inside of a land, something control decks crave like nothing else.

The drawback of coming in tapped is a big deal in Commander, but 7 is a good amount of damage for tapping seven lands.

Wizard Class ($1.50 to $2.50, 27,000 decks) – Yes, it’s uncommon, but it’s super popular and those foils are drying up fast. One or two vendors have big walls, but I’d be all over the foils here, as we’ve gotten nonfoils in The List already. 

These foils had a spike up high and have come back down, with enough copies selling to keep it from going too far. Now’s a great time to sweep up some copies and be ready to sell at 2.5x what you paid.

Oswald Fiddlebender ($1 to $2.50, 13,000 decks) – I love this card, and having a brick of copies makes me feel good about the inevitable combos that will pop up. Every artifact that can go into a white deck makes Ozzie that much better, and I want to have copies in stock when the next combo piece comes out.I don’t know when that’ll be, but it won’t take much. Please note that he’s besties with Replication Specialist, a card that feels criminally underplayed.

Circle of Dreams Druid ($5 to $9, 30,000 decks) – Yup, it’s ready. I’ve been patient on this card for the longest time, and the graph shows how delightfully it’s fallen:

There’s a lot of FEA copies still on TCG for under $10, but there’s a whole lot more people patiently waiting for their copies to get to the $20 or even $30 range, and it won’t take too long. A couple of foils a day being sold adds up really quick!

Old Gnawbone ($42 to $80, 30,000 decks) – The Borderless foil is up about $20 from three months ago, mostly due to how good this is with Miirym, Sentinel Wurm:

I think that if you haven’t gotten a personal copy yet, you’d better do so soon. There’s going to be one wave of the Beadle and Grimm dragons in the Monster Manual style, but that’s probably not going to affect this price too much. If you had sticker shock when the set first came out and you didn’t want to spend so much on the most expensive card in the set, well, it’s come down a lot in price but it’s started to go back up. Time to get what you need, plus some extras.

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.