MTG Salvation

I was curious to see what the most expensive commanders around are, and since I did the work I thought maybe other people would find it interesting.

1) Angus Mackenzie
TCG market price: $235.96
2) Sliver Queen
TCG market price: $169.20
3) Hazezon Tamar
TCG market price: $166.99
4) Lady Sun
TCG market price: $127.98
5) Rasputin Dreamweaver
TCG market price: $125.67
6) Sliver Legion
TCG market price: $115.47
7) Gwendlyn di Corci
TCG market price: $99.54
8) Adun Oakenshield
TCG market price: $80.49
9) Dong Zhou, the Tyrant
TCG market price: $72.60
10) Tetsuo Umezawa
TCG market price: $65.96

Legends: 6
P3K: 2
Stronghold: 1
Future Sight: 1

Sliver Legion is the real weird one here - the only modern-frame card, and it manages to take 6th place. The next closest modern-frame card (excluding judge-promo Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed) is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds at only $40, and the next closest modern-legal card is Rhys the Redeemed at $35.

Not making the list but also inexplicably expensive imo is Sakashima the Impostor who misses to Rhys by a nose.

The legends generals only top this list in english printings. Legends was famously reprinted with much more quantity in Europe a year later in 1995, just like p3k saw a longer print run in Asia.

So if you want cheaper legends or p3k, consider Italian or chinese simplified printings, respectively.

Well this might do something to one of those at least

Quote from TheAmericanSpirit »

The legends generals only top this list in english printings. Legends was famously reprinted with much more quantity in Europe a year later in 1995, just like p3k saw a longer print run in Asia.

So if you want cheaper legends or p3k, consider Italian or chinese simplified printings, respectively.

Yeah sorry, I should have clarified - this is going for the cheapest english printing of the given card. Otherwise I think Tahngarth might actually crack top 10, in promo form.

Make a list for modern printed cards

https://scryfall.com/search?q=t:legend t:creature&order=usd&unique=prints

This one has all the unique printings.

Why is Lady Sun so expensive, though? I know she's low on prints, but she's not particularly powerful without haste.

Yeah, Lady Sun is another oddball. She's really rare on EDHrec (9 decks built). She's honestly probably among the more powerful options in p3k simply because, with haste, she is actually pretty good (compared to the power of, say, dong zhou who sorta sucks but is more popular on EDHrec).

Mostly I think it's just the P3K problem - of the commanders who are more popular, all of them have been reprinted except Dong Zhou and Lu Bu. Why Lu Bu is less than 1/6 the price and has more than twice as many decks I'm not sure. Maybe it's just that they're misrepresented on EDHrec, the numbers are too small to be a good representation really.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Why is Lady Sun so expensive, though? I know she's low on prints, but she's not particularly powerful without haste.

Because everyone wants a legendary Coastal Wizard that costs one less mana. Clearly that one mana should drive Lady Sun's price through the roof.

Honestly. you've got me. Portal prices are always wacky. I sometimes wish they would just reprint every Portal card, whether it's good or not, just to deflate the prices. Not that they can, with the Reserve List (stupid Zodiac Dragon - it's one of the only dragon arts I don't own), but most Portal cards are at minimum ten times the price they would be in any other set.

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Make a list for modern printed cards

Hmm, depends if you mean "printed since 8th" or "legal in modern". I'll assume the former. In which case, it's:

Sliver Legion: $115.47
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: $40.47
Sen Triplets: $37.94
Sliver Hivelord: $36.27
Rhys the Redeemed: $34.96
Urza, Lord High Artificer: $34.74
Sakashima the Impostor: $34.17
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: $33.30
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: $32.26
Araxa, Praetor's Voice: $32.22

*so yes, I was wrong earlier about rhys being the 2nd most expensive modern legend

As you can see, it's a much tighter pack, especially at the bottom. Idk wtf is going on with sliver prices, though. I mean seriously.

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Make a list for modern printed cards

Hmm, depends if you mean "printed since 8th" or "legal in modern". I'll assume the former. In which case, it's:

Sliver Legion: $115.47
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: $40.47
Sen Triplets: $37.94
Sliver Hivelord: $36.27
Rhys the Redeemed: $34.96
Urza, Lord High Artificer: $34.74
Sakashima the Impostor: $34.17
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: $33.30
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: $32.26
Araxa, Praetor's Voice: $32.22

*so yes, I was wrong earlier about rhys being the 2nd most expensive modern legend

As you can see, it's a much tighter pack, especially at the bottom. Idk wtf is going on with sliver prices, though. I mean seriously.

New ones got spoiled and in the background they jumped a bit as it looked like someone with some information bought them out like a month earlier and with the spoiler they all basically doubled in price.

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Make a list for modern printed cards

Hmm, depends if you mean "printed since 8th" or "legal in modern". I'll assume the former. In which case, it's:

Sliver Legion: $115.47
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: $40.47
Sen Triplets: $37.94
Sliver Hivelord: $36.27
Rhys the Redeemed: $34.96
Urza, Lord High Artificer: $34.74
Sakashima the Impostor: $34.17
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: $33.30
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: $32.26
Araxa, Praetor's Voice: $32.22

*so yes, I was wrong earlier about rhys being the 2nd most expensive modern legend

As you can see, it's a much tighter pack, especially at the bottom. Idk wtf is going on with sliver prices, though. I mean seriously.

JESUS CHRIST!!! Why is Selvala so expensive? Wasn't aware she was this crazy played in commander(i have a Selvala deck tough)

All the mythics in Conspiracy 2 are creeping up there because it wasn't played that much.

Quote from Taleran »

All the mythics in Conspiracy 2 are creeping up there because it wasn't played that much.

It's really not that bad except for selvala and expropriate. Recruiter is a decent amount and so is queen marchesa, but then kaya is only 17 and it drops off pretty quickly from there (plus it's a bunch of boring reprints).

I was surprised to see original CNS has a $32 regular rare in exploration. Now I kinda want to crack those packs, I could use another exploration. And I don't feel like dropping $30+.

Yeah I guess that would also work better if Leo wasn't banned.

Yeah he was getting expensive before banning. I'm betting he'd be at least in the $40 range too, if he hadn't been (plus he got reprinted, so double whammy).

Pre banning Leo was like $80. He's dropped a lot since then obviously, but apparently he still sees some play in other formats here and there.

With a relatively short print run, the Conspiracy 2 legends kind of all got up there at least a little. I remember picking up Queen Marchesa for like $6 initially and now she's close to $40 NZD. Selvala is probably the only one with a significantly skewed supply/demand ratio post Leo banning, purely because she's crazy good and there's not a lot of copies of her around, but the others there's not really a lot to justify their price.

I was surprised to see original CNS has a $32 regular rare in exploration. Now I kinda want to crack those packs, I could use another exploration. And I don't feel like dropping $30+.

It's where I picked up my 2 copies of Vedalken Orrery too. There were some great reprints in that set.