Last week I got into the mythics some, and we’ve gotten the whole set revealed now, including the eleven mythics we didn’t know about last week. So let’s see what’s worth a preorder!

Please keep in mind that I’m talking about the regular nonfoils here, not the Showcase versions or the foils.

Tazri, Beacon of Unity ($3) – Ouch. I think this Tazri is overshadowed as a Commander by the original, which let you go find the Ally you needed most, rather than needing mana to look at the top cards and hope there’s two Allies in there. The ability is good, but $3 in preorder season is a pretty clear indicator that this will be bulk pretty quick, barring some amazing synergies that sets will bring in the next two years.

Ancient Greenwarden ($24) – Currently the most expensive Z3 card, because players are going absolutely bonkers to acquire this for whatever Landfall shenanigans they want. Double Field of the Dead triggers? Don’t mind if I do. Twice the Valakut damage? Seems legit. I don’t think this will hold as the most expensive card long-term, but the combination of value engines that this offers is hard to ignore in Commander.

Forsaken Monument ($12) – This is a Caged Sun for colorless decks, and those are the decks capabel of some truly degenerate things. It’s yet another combo card for Basalt Monolith to generate infinite mana, but mostly this will get used to empower mana rocks all over the place. Please don’t overlook that this card is likely to bump Honor-Worn Shaku again, making that card tap for two colorless per legendary permanent–and this one is legendary! I think $12 is an almost-decent get-in price, but again, I’m being patient and letting the early adopters spend the big money first. I’d prefer to get copies between $8 and $10.

Leyline Tyrant ($14) – It’s a 4/4 flyer for four that’s got two different upsides. Neither is easy to exploit on its own, but the two abilities synergize really well. If they kill the dragon, then they suffer the death trigger for whatever mana you were building up. There’s some neat things to do with this, and I’ll enjoy seeing people try to build around Irencrag Feat, but this is a middling mythic at best and the price will fall by about half. Stay away for a while.

Lithoform Engine ($23) – We know that Rings of Brighthearth has quite a history: 

That history is buoyed by there only being one printing in Lorwyn, and then an Invention. Yes, the engine is restricted to one use a turn (unless there’s an untap trigger being copied) but the flexibility is truly impressive here, even down to copying permanent spells. Those are creatures, enchantments, artifacts, you name it. Don’t go copying legendary things, though. This flexibility is powerful but still requires a focus, and a tax of two extra mana. I wouldn’t be shocked if this was $20 around Valentine’s Day, but I’m expecting it to fall to $15 after the initial rush cools off.

Moraug, Fury of Akoum ($19) – Using a fetchland to get two extra attacks is good, there’s a whole lot of combos you can work out to get a landfall trigger in each main phase you get and I’m expecting a whole lot of Moraug builds to show up on EDHREC soon. That’s not going to be enough to keep this price this high, and a drop to $12 or less is coming.

Scourge of the Skyclaves ($10) – Don’t look at this as a Death’s Shadow that’s been both fixed and upgraded. Think of this instead as an enabler for Nethroi, Apex of Death decks: because this has a negative power, you can use it to bring back a whole lot more with Nethroi’s Mutate trigger. That’s a niche case, but it’s a cool niche case, and Commander players are addicted to such things. This about the right price, given the assorted use-cases, which includes the kicker as a one-shot kill with other ‘half your life’ effects.

Agadeem’s Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt ($8 or so from what I see) – I mentioned last week that I love these modal spell/land cards. It’s hard for me to imagine a card I want more in Commander: It’s either a land early, which Commander decks can never have enough of, or it’s an eleven-mana, reanimate-five-giant-beasts spell. That’s the best kind of modal spell, something that’s good early (the land, can even be untapped if needed) or good as a late topdeck. I’m pretty convinced that these mythic lands have a long-term home in Commander, as they are generally too expensive a spell to be good in Standard, but I’d want the prices to come down a little before I buy in. I’m hoping this falls as far as $5 so I can purchase a large amount.

Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn ($9) – The modes are pretty far apart, but I’d prefer if the spell side was just ‘draw four cards’ or something. As a topdeck, it’s pretty lame, but this is still an improvement over your ordinary Island. This is too high a price, and I expect it to drop to $5 or less, and I’ll have to do a lot of thinking then about buying in.

Shatterskull Smashing // Shatterskull, the Hammer Pass ($6) – If this could hit players, this would be one of the greatest cards ever. As it is now, it’s decent to fair, which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. I’d be happy with this card if the spell side was a five-mana Lightning Bolt, but this X spell is a good grab off the top to deal with several problems on the board. Six bucks feels about right.

Turntimber Symbiosis // Turntimber, Serpentine Wood ($15) – This is instantly a staple in Green Commander decks. You up your land count by one when needed or have a big spell to slam down. The top seven should be good to you, and even if your only hit is a small one, you get an upgrade! There’s almost no feel-bads with this card, which is a rare thing. I won’t be shocked if this starts to go up immediately and keeps climbing from there. I can’t wait to stock up on assorted versions of this 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.

Zendikar Rising previews have started, and goodness me, do we have some cards going on. Landfall is back, we’re now a full D&D adventuring party, and we have modal land/spell cards! Let’s talk about these new cards, any preorder prices I can find, and where these will be good.

Oh yeah, and fetchlands are back, sort of.

First off, let’s talk for a moment about fetchlands. We know that the full ten are in as new Expedition Box Toppers. There’s 30 lands this time around, with no real clunkers like the doublecheck lands from our second trip to Zendikar. However, these are found in nonfoil as a Box Topper in boxes of Set Boosters and Draft Boosters, with a Collector Booster box coming with two Box Toppers. Let’s take a moment and do that math. To get one nonfoil Scalding Tarn, you’ll have to open 30 Set or Draft Booster boxes, or 15 Collector Booster boxes, or some combination thereof.

That’s a lot of boxes to get a Tarn. Foil Expedition Box Toppers have a 1 in 6 chance of appearing in a Collector Booster. So to get a specific one, like a Tarn, you’ll have to open 180 Collector Boosters to get that card, statistically speaking. (If you run the numbers, it’s worse, but I am not statistician enough to explain why it’s worse.) For every foil Tarn that should get opened this way, that’s 15 boxes, and handily that’s 30 nonfoils along the way. Collector Booster boxes should have, on average, the same number of foil and nonfoil Expedition Box Toppers. The nonfoils have the extra juice from Draft and Set booster boxes, which will help subsidize the EV of those boxes and push the price down on everything else in the set. 

What I’m planning on doing is waiting for the initial rush to settle down, and then picking up any fetchland that drifts too far downwards. This is not a full-scale reprint, this is an auxiliary printing in a new frame, with some sort of sweet glossy texture to it. They won’t get as cheap as they did during Khans of Tarkir, we’re not going to see that quantity again, if ever. Plan accordingly, and keep in mind we aren’t done with the reprints either. Modern Horizons 2 is on the, well, horizon for next year and regular-frame fetches would be a nice inclusion.

We also need to talk for a moment about the mythical cycle of spell/lands. We’ve only got one so far, but it’s a sign of what’s to come: 

There’s a rare cycle that is either color of land on each side, and that’s good, but these lands are a really powerful and consistent addition that will have a long time to make an impact in Standard. Cycling and kicker are two mechanics that offer something to do early and something to do late. Morph creatures are like this as well, asking which path you want to take based on your situation. These spell/lands are even more powerful than that, and we’ve yet to see the rest of the mythics, but this one, Emeria’s Call, is even better than the entering-tapped uncommon cycles. If you need it to be your fourth land on curve so you can Shatter the Sky, it’ll do that for you at the cost of 3 life. Planning is key with these lands, it’s a skill tester but it makes your land slots that much better. Remember that this was Tiago Chan’s original Invitational card, a card deemed to be too good and we got Snapcaster Mage instead:

So how much will Emeria’s Call end up costing us, dollar-wise? The initial price is around $8-$10, and that seems about right for me for a card with this level of flexibility. Should it travel down to $5, I’ll be picking up a lot of them. Remember that this set has two years of Standard legality to go, and that seems a reasonable timeframe for in-person events to start again.

Angel of Destiny – Around $5-$7 right now, and that feels high for such an effect. Everyone gains life, and then you’re sad when this dies and they haven’t lost any life for your efforts. It’s a staple for the lifegain Commander decks though, as it’s an attack trigger to win the game, but then the Angel has to survive to your end step. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild – Currently about $10, and I’m pretty low on this card. It’s a neat effect to build around, and offers a weird form of protection. Suddenly, with all your creatures being lands, they are immune to things like Cyclonic Rift, Oblivion Stone, or Planar Cleansing. I like building around this in Commander, but I’m not preordering any.

Drana, the Last Bloodchief – Also near $10 but offering an intriguing but conditional build-around. A Limited backbreaker but underpowered in Commander, this price is just too high.

Jace, Mirror Mage – You can find this as low as $12 to preorder, and that’s intriguing. I don’t like that he can’t affect the board at all, and the most logical play pattern is to use his scrying/his duplicate to draw lands so as to minimize the loyalty lost. That’s consistency, which control decks love. I have trouble seeing this as a $20 card though.

Nahiri, Heir of the Ancients – In the $8 range because this is too fair a planeswalker. The plus makes a creature, which gets a free equip but it needs to already be in play. Too bad Colossus Hammer is rotating out! I think this price is spot on, as RW equip decks in Commander will keep the demand just high enough.

Nissa of Shadowed Boughs – What’s not clear is where this Nissa fits. Yes, she wants to reanimate something with her minus, but how did the creature get into the yard to begin with? And again, this isn’t global reanimation, but limited to the amount of lands you have in play. Thoroughly deserving of the $10 she’s at, and likely to tumble.

Omnath, Locus of Creation – This is super neat, and capable of some truly nasty turns. Of note, though, is the ‘draw a card’ rider just for playing a 4/4 for WURG. The triple Landfall is great when you resolve it, and resolving the second trigger makes the third a lot easier. Needs a lot of help, though, and while I’m fully expecting this Omnath to cause some spikes in random cards, by itself it won’t be mega-expensive. 

Sea Gate Stormcaller – For about $15, you can preorder a doublecaster mage. This is likely better than Dualcaster Mage, as you have more control and can go double if you’ve got the mana, but the utility of the card is heavily dependent on what your next spell is. Clearly your best-case scenario is Time Walk, but your choices in Standard are going to be difficult. I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of impact this has on other formats, though. Getting a double Thoughtseize seems pretty good, or a double Brainstorm? This doesn’t have flash, which is a drawback, but this is one of the cards I like most in the long term.

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.

Next week, we should start seeing official previews for Zendikar Rising. There have been some unofficial leaks, but I’ve never believed in those speculations and if I write something here, I want to be confident in it, not building a whole cart of cards based on one grainy image.

Rotation is upon us, and in recent weeks, I’ve gone over all the rotating sets and tried to help you pick what’s underpriced. The last one I’m getting to is Core 2020, the last set before Collector Boosters entered our awareness and the first set with an enhanced foil drop rate. Consequently, you’re not going to see any Extended Art/Showcase/Borderless picks here, just the last gasp of foil vs. nonfoil. Ah, those simpler times.

To the cards!

First of all, we need to talk about how cheap the cards in this set are. They are definitely feeling a bit underpowered compared to the ban-fest that was Throne of Eldraine, but the #6 and #8 cards on the list of ‘what’s worth the price of a pack’ are both uncommons. 

Granted, Twinblade Paladin was from a Planeswalker deck, but you get the idea…and let’s start there. The Twinblade cannot be had in foil, but it is a $5 card. It comes down as a 3/3 double strike in Commander, given that it says 25 life and not the more recent templating of ‘five more life than your starting total.’ Then it grows with every bit of incidental lifegain you can throw at it, a pretty solid card but the distribution here is key: You’ve got to open a $15-$20 package to get one of these, and that sets a price ceiling. If you can find the deck for $10, it’s hard to lose money, given that you get a booster pack, but the potential is still there.

If you like to play lifegain decks, I’d get your copy now. The ramp to $10 is not a slow one on TCG, and specs like this absolutely depend on never getting reprinted. Most of the Planeswalker deck exclusives are not this good, and are tied to their specific (crappy) planeswalker, so I’d rate the reprint risk as medium to high. It’s been a while since we had a lifegain-focused Commander deck, and this would be a prime candidate for inclusion.

Veil of Summer ($7 nonfoil/$43 foil) – For a card that got banned from Standard in November, the graph looks remarkably healthy, even as the banhammer hit in Pioneer, Historic, and Modern:

I have to say, this is a Commander card with a healthy dose of Legacy love. More than 14,000 decks play this card, including a boatload of competitive EDH builds too. Wizards knows this card was a mistake, and there’s only 12 NM foils on TCG right now. And this is with the increased foil drop rate! As an extra kick, since it’s uncommon, there’s no prerelease foils out there!

I wouldn’t be shocked if one day we got Secret Lair: Banned and this was one of the cards. I also wouldn’t be shocked if this was a $60 foil in three months. Given that the reprint risk has never been higher, I feel like you should at least get foils for the decks you use. This is one of those ‘they can’t reprint everything’ specs because they really don’t want to reprint a card that’s been banned in so many formats.

Vivien, Arkbow Ranger ($5/$11) – Picking up this version of Vivien is basically placing a bet on the future of Pioneer in paper. There’s a mono-green planeswalker-focused deck that loves going big with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and assorted delightful Karn, the Great Creator targets in the sideboard. If you think Pioneer is going to come back in a big way, this is a card you want to stock up on. Mythic, summer set, it’s a four-of…it checks all the boxes you’d hope for in a big spec. 

Has to be said, though, that we’re in an uncertain timeline. If the pandemic were not happening, this would be a lock. But if the pandemic wasn’t happening, this wouldn’t have gotten so cheap in paper. One of the indicators I look for in this regard is that online, she’s nearly 9 tickets. That’s a noticeable gap and it means something is happening online that isn’t happening in paper…yet. I do think Pioneer will be back in person eventually, but the uncertain timeframe has me leery on this.

Lotus Field ($6/$12) – There’s a few fun decks in Modern and Pioneer that will tap and untap this a whole bunch, play Omniscience, and then win with Enter the Infinite/Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. That’s awesome. It’s also in 6k Commander decks online, which is a high enough number that I want to have a few foils in reserve for when they hit $20.

Icon of Ancestry ($1.50/$3) – Go look around at what’s in stock on this and you’ll see that a surprising number of places don’t have this in stock. It’s a tribal enabler, which is good, but it’s also quite likely to be reprinted in a future Commander product. Foils are where you want to be here, and won’t take much to hit $10, given how quickly the ramp goes up into the $6 range for foils on TCGPlayer.

Gargos, Vicious Watcher ($1.50/$4) – Gargos caught a minor bump when Zaxara, the Exemplary came along in Commander 2020:

Yes, Hydras just got all the love with this new Commander but this has a clear place and it’s one of the first cards people will reach for on Hydra builds. I love tribal payoffs, and this is clearly one of them. Plus the buylists offer a pretty safe haven: foils are being bought around $2 in store credit, so time your purchases well and you’re insulated from things going wrong.

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.

Our attention has been focused on the new thing, Double Masters. It’s about to be focused on the next new thing, Zendikar Rising. But with so much attention of the rising or the falling of Box Topper prices, I’ve seen a lot of prices for Masterpieces as examples. Some of these cards have fallen quite low from their peaks, and it’s time to consider picking a few up.

I’m going to be summarizing current prices given TCG and eBay, so if you see one cheaper than the price I’ve listed, feel free to grab it for your collection. I’m also going to be listing the highest price I can see on graphs for the card, so we know how far it’s come down.

Lightning Greaves (Currently about $90, off from a peak of $150 in March 2019) – I’m really big on the Box Topper version of this, which can be had for $15-$25 depending on where you are and if you like foils. But when I was comparing the most premium versions, I remembered the time in 2019 where this spiked, from pure scarcity. They just announced another premium version in the Secret Lair with dog-based art, and clearly that will have the Corgi market locked up.

Even with all that, you can get this version with the sweetest frame for under $100, and that is enough to have me trawling Facebook for people selling their copies. If it came down another $10 with the two premium versions coming out this summer, I wouldn’t panic. Inventions are more about personal use than heavy speculation, they deserve to be shown off with this gorgeous frame.

Solemn Simulacrum (About $80, off from near $200 in July 2017) – While I’m not a huge fan of how the art tends to lean into the ‘Sad Robot’ nickname, I can’t argue that this is clearly the most premium version to be had. There’s no other version that cracks $20, which is pretty amazing given that it’s in 20% of all EDH decks built online. This summer’s EA foil is just $10, which also feels incredibly underpriced.

Still, being able to get this under $100 would feel quite nice, and represent a pretty safe place to park value. In addition, there’s not a lot of copies out there, and the ramp on TCG is about two pages deep before you’re in $120-$150 pricing.

Gauntlet of Power (about $55, from $150 in April 2018) – Yes, it’s strictly worse than Caged Sun, and that’s why there’s been no reprints of this card since Time Spiral. Still, this is super powerful in mono-colored Commander decks and there’s not a huge inventory out there. 

Planar Bridge ($60, down from $140 in April 2018) – There was indeed a time when there was a run on Inventions, and later on, a run on Invocations. I fully expect that in a couple of years there will be a run on Box Toppers in the same way. Planar Bridge is a great way to utilize mana in a combo turn, and being this cheap is something that won’t stand. Even the original was a mythic in a small set, with no reprints at all yet. 

Steel Overseer ($40, down from $100 in July 2017) – You can’t convince me that this is as good as Ornithopter. The 0/2 flyer is MORE expensive than this Tempered Steel payoff. It’s only in about 4000 Commander decks, and that’s surprising to me. This effect is super-powerful, though, and scales out of hand incredibly quickly in most artifact decks. I feel like this should be at least $20 higher, and that means you should at least grab this version for your deck while it’s cheap.

Champion’s Helm ($35, down from $75 in April 2018) – First of all, let’s take a moment and assess that this card has been printed twice. First in Commander 2011, and then as a Masterpiece. The nonfoil from ten years ago is $17, and this is the only other printing. Currently there are 11 copies TOTAL on TCGplayer, only two of them nonfoil. Despite being in such super-limited quantities, it’s still in 3300 decks online. It’s overdue for a reprint, and when it happens, you’ll want to have this version ready to sell into the mega-hype.

Vedalken Shackles ($45, down from a high of $90 in April 2018) – While it’s only in 2300 Commander decks, this is a Cube staple all on its own and there’s only 15 copies total on TCG. This is another one that has not been printed that much: Fifth Dawn, a third set in 2004, and Modern Masters 2013, and this promo version. It’s not going to take much for this to rise $25, and as time passes, it’s just going to get more scarce.

There’s one more thing you need to know about the Inventions: They are almost all cheaper in Europe. The Commander demand is not as strong there, and if you’ve got the connections then you should make use of them. On average, Inventions are about 15% cheaper in Europe because of that decreased demand. I think these are good prices here in North America, and worth picking up. Understandably, if you can get in even lower, then you should. That’s basics but sometimes it helps to hear it again.

If you don’t have a friend in Europe, then may I suggest heading over to our ProTrader Discord channel and making a new friend? We’ve got a lot of international friends, and this is one of the best ways to maximize value.

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.