Premodern is Magic: The Gathering for players who look at a retro frame and immediately feel happier. The format covers cards printed from roughly 1995 through 2003, beginning with Fourth Edition and running through Scourge, which means it captures one of the strangest and most beloved stretches in the game’s history replete with busted nonbasic lands, weird artifacts, daring enchantments, and creatures that were not always good, exactly, but were often quite memorable.
That also makes Premodern a fascinating market snapshot. Some of these cards are valuable because they remain absurdly powerful. Others are valuable because they are scarce, iconic, collectible, Reserved List denizens, or some lovely combination therein. Either way, the upper end of the format is not just a nostalgia tax. It is a shadowbox full of Magic’s most dangerous older cards, from format staples like Survival of the Fittest and Ancient Tomb to wallet-obliterating legends like Mox Diamond and Gaea’s Cradle.
Note: All prices come from TCGPlayer. Furthermore, this list only includes the first printing of cards that are currently legal in Premodern, not spectacularly rare copies such as Judge Gift Cards, DCI Promos, or Secret Lair versions.
Here are the most valuable Premodern cards on the market (so far)
15. Lake of the Dead – Alliances
Market Price: $115.66
While this card does eat up Swamps at a relentless pace, the payoff is fairly self-explanatory: sacrifice a swamp (after tapping for mana, of course) to net a staggering four black mana. Now that’s what I call mana ramp!
This card has not been reprinted a single time outside of digital-only versions for Magic: The Gathering Online, leading to its above-$100 price point in today’s secondary market.
14. Null Rod – Weatherlight
Market Price: $124.18
Has your foe ever plopped down an Agatha’s Soul Cauldron smugly, knowing that they have a game-winning combo ready to crack within the next turn or two? Well, if you counter with this two-mana artifact hate piece, you’ll be the one smiling.
Of particular note: this card shuts down all activated abilities of artifacts. So that means if you slam this two-mana artifact on a Commander table early, all of your foes’ Treasures, Maps, Clues, and Foods will simply sit their impotently, staring at their activated abilities with desire in their eyes.
13. Ancient Tomb – Tempest
Market Price: $130.61
One of the most impactful mana-ramping nonbasic lands ever, this over-$130 colorless-producing lands was originally printed as an uncommon in Tempest, though multiple reprints over the years have rectified that mistake and made this powerhouse land a rare—and sometimes even a mythic rare.
Taking two damage at the cost of supercharging your mana production remains a paltry price to pay, even in formats like Premodern, where the Tomb takes away 1/10th of your life total each time you tap it for mana.
12. Metalworker – Urza’s Destiny
Market Price: $182.13
An under-utilized and eminently weird artifact creature from Urza’s Destiny, this three-mana Construct underscores just how powerful a low-to-the-ground artifact deck can be.
Simply draw a bunch of cards, reveal all the artifacts from your hand you just drew, add two mana per artifact revealed, and fuel yet another massive card-draw spell. Rinse and repeat.
11. Gilded Drake – Urza’s Saga
Market Price: $183.34
Another stupendously odd creature that Wizards of the Coast wouldn’t dare print the likes of in today’s Magic environment, this potent Reserved List creature can steal any creature your foe has in play, all at the cost of two mana!
Combine this cheap flyer with something that bounces your own stuff to your hand, like Cavern Harpy or Chain of Vapor, and your foe is sure to concede soon thereafter.
10. Replenish – Urza’s Destiny
Market Price: $186.07
One of the strongest archetypes in Premodern is a combo deck based around three notable white cards: Parallax Wave, Opalescence, and this four-mana sorcery that brings back all enchantments from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Perhaps most impressive about this card’s value is that the usually non-tournament-legal gold-bordered copy of Replenish from the World Championship Decks is often actually legal in Premodern events, meaning even that rendition is worth nearly $60.
9. Phyrexian Dreadnought – Mirage
Market Price: $287.55
The strongest deck in the Premodern format by far is the dreaded monoblue juggernaut dubbed “Stiflenought.” One-half of that deck’s name comes from this one-mana Mirage artifact creature, a 12/12 with trample with one hell of a drawback.
However, Premodern’s card pool is perfectly positioned to cheat the Dreadnought into play and keep it there thanks to cards like Stifle or Vision Charm, bypassing the triggered ability of sacrificing tons of creatures to the ‘Nought.
Boasting some of the best Pete Venters artwork of all time, it’s no surprise seeing this classic beater worth nearly $300 on the secondary market.
8. Sliver Queen – Stronghold
Market Price: $304.41
The first-ever WUBRG card boasting all five colored mana pips in its casting cost is this 7/7 legendary Sliver from Stronghold, which happens to be one of the most valuable cards from that set as well.
Slivers have long been a beloved creature type in Magic, and seeing as this was the first in a decorated lineup of Sliver “lords,” it’s no surprise that this Premodern-legal multicolored creature is worth over $300 today, nearly 30 years after it was first unleashed.
7. Intuition – Tempest
Market Price: $307.16
An eminently useful tutor card, especially in Replenish decks that wants both cards in your hand and cards in your graveyard.
This three-mana blue tutor originally from Tempest has never seen a single reprint unless you count the Judge Gift Card version from 2003, which I don’t. Why? Because that version will set you back a staggering $1,452.79 if you wanted it!
6. Survival of the Fittest – Exodus
Market Price: $369.79
An incredible useful repeatable green tutor card that plays beautifully with graveyard recursion from cards like Recurring Nightmare, Reanimate, and Animate Dead, pretty much any green creature deck in Premodern that employs creatures should be playing this deck, as it filters out bad draws in favor of potent threats.
Furthermore, it can be an intriguing twist to the popular Madness archetypes that employ cards from 2002’s Torment expansion such as Basking Rootwalla and Arrogant Wurm.
5. Serra’s Sanctum – Urza’s Saga
Market Price: $464.48
Urza’s Saga was an incredibly potent set from 1998 that boasted a plethora of busted cards, ranging from dynamite combo enablers to low-cost artifacts. However, perhaps unexpectedly, some of the most valuable cards from the set were a series of nonbasic lands – one for each color that did something thematically related to that color.
In white’s case, Serra’s Sanctum delivers one white mana for each enchantment you have in play. In Enchantress decks, which are eminently popular in the format, this can turbocharge your mana base to an impressive degree.
Furthermore, this card has never been reprinted and it’s also on the Reserved List, hence its sky-high price point above $460.
4. City of Traitors – Exodus
Market Price: $515.64
While it might not be immediately clear, this card is actually better than Ancient Tomb in decks that care less about long-term mana development and more about doing something game-breaking right away. The lack of life-loss is a huge deal when the plan is to jam a fast threat, power out a prison piece, or accelerate into artifact nonsense before the opponent draws their first card.
The over-$500 price point is also pretty eye-watering. City of Traitors has never had a normal paper reprint, with only World Championship Deck versions and MTGO-only printings muddying the technical count. So, you have a Reserved List-caliber scarcity profile in practice, a brutally powerful Premodern card in function, and one of the cleanest examples of old Magic design looking simple until it starts ruining games.
3. Lion’s Eye Diamond – Mirage
Market Price: $761.24
Wizards of the Coast knew that they had made a mistake a few years after the release of the iconic Power Nine piece Black Lotus, as three additional mana for the low cost of free was something they didn’t want to replicate.
So, they printed this eminently powered-down version of Black Lotus that tacked on the brutal drawback of discarding your hand. Except, in practice, that drawback can often turn into an additional benefit, hence why this Black Lotus knock-off is the third-most valuable Premodern card of all time.
2. Mox Diamond – Stronghold
Market Price: $1,074.71
Any card with “Mox” or “Lotus” in its name is bound to be a pricey one, and that is surely the case for this zero-mana artifact originally found in 1998’s Stronghold expansion.
Boasting iconic artwork from the original “Mox Man,” Dan Frazier, and a plethora of uses in Premodern (from aggro decks to tempo decks to control decks to combo decks), it’s no surprise that the most valuable card from Stronghold is also among the most valuable in Premodern.
However, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of…
1. Gaea’s Cradle – Urza’s Saga
Market Price: $1,417.27
One of, if not the best land of all time hails from Urza’s Saga and nets you a green mana for every creature you control. The level of mana-ramp this card provides is laughably unbalanced, especially when you pair this eminently valuable card with a bunch of mana-producing Elves – as is often the case in Premodern decks that feature this card.
The original version of this nonbasic land is worth over $1,400, and even the gold-bordered copy will set you back close to $300. However, the most valuable version is a nigh-impossible-to-obtain Judge Gift Card version from 1998. The price tag on that one? A cool three grand.
And there you have it. Premodern is a fascinating format that represents “Magic as Richard Garfield intended,” at least according to its most vociferous supporters. Despite the varying power level of cards from this era, the high-value hits from this era are truly wallet-obliterating classics that will surely retain their value, unlike these four Secrets of Strixhaven cards. If only I could pay in Treasure tokens.
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