15 Most Valuable Urza's Destiny Cards

From a Better Necropotence to Powerhouse Combo Pieces, Urza’s Destiny Bids Farewell to the Urza’s Block In Style With Some of the Best Cards of All Time

Urza’s Destiny was the third and final set in the beloved (and overpowered) Urza’s block. This Magic: The Gathering set delivered a plethora of high-powered cards that have stood the test of time, with many of them holding impressive values over 25 years after this set was released.

From powerhouse creatures, to board-wiping artifact staples, to notable enchantment recursion and tutoring spells, Urza’s Destiny continued the thread of supremely powerful cards that began with the first Urza’s block set, Urza’s Saga.

While Urza’s Legacy, the middle set in the block, seemingly lowered the power level a bit compared to the thunderously strong brethren that sandwiched its release, Urza’s Destiny remains a notable – and iconic – set from Magic’s past with a bevy of high-dollar cards that will set you back a pretty penny on the secondary market even today.

Let’s check out the most valuable Urza’s Destiny cards.

Note: All prices come via TCGPlayer’s Market Price History over the past calendar year and are subject to change.

15. Donate

Market Price: $6.28, Foil: $65.80

The first card of this ilk (that is to say, a card that gives your opponent a card) was the backbone of a strong combo deck that paired this sorcery with Ice Age enchantment Illusions of Grandeur, forcing your opponent to deal with the steep cumulative upkeep cost of per turn as well as the punishment for not meeting that requirement – losing 20 life.

While other cards since have played with this effect, such as Harmless Offering and Coveted Falcon, and this spell archetype even has its own beloved commander, Zedruu the Greathearted, the original is still the best, as the highly amusing Jeff Miracola artwork makes it stand out among the normally super-serious artworks found on Magic cards.

14. Carnival of Souls

Market Price: $7.97, Foil: $77.13

Not to be confused with the 1962 cult classic horror film of the same name, this Carnival of Souls hails from Urza’s Destiny and is a black enchantment that costs and gives you the nice boon of gaining whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control. Of course, it also costs you one life, so there is a notable trade-off.

Now, when this card released, notable gaming magazine InQuest Gamer rated this card the worst one across the entire set. But times have changed, and when placing this card in an Aristocrats shell, it can be the star of the show. In fact, multiple combos with this card exist alongside life-gaining cards and creatures that can be self-recurred. As such, a near-$8 price point seems right.

13. Masticore

Market Price: $8.84, Foil: $208.25

One of the most iconic creatures from this era of Magic, Masticore broke the mold in terms of value for mana cost related to creatures. A 4/4 colorless creature for is already ahead of the curve for most cards from this era. Sure, it has a drawback, but if your deck is built correctly, it shouldn’t pose too much of a risk to your game plan.

Its two activated abilities were the real kickers, as being able to ping creatures for one damage at the cost of was a tremendous boon, and even if your Masticore was about to head to the graveyard, you could simply regenerate it for . Sure, Urza’s Saga might’ve had Morphling and Urza’s Legacy had Mother of Runes, but Masticore was likely the most impactful creature of its era upon release.

12. Attrition

Market Price: $12.36, Foil: $45.63

Another black enchantment enters this list – and with good reason. With a strong activated ability with a minimal activation cost, this card remains a premier option when building a Commander deck, especially when paired with the far more available yet equally valuable Grave Pact.

Sacrificing a creature used to be a major drawback for decks, but in the modern game, with token creation aplenty, sacrificing a creature and paying to kill a foe’s nonblack creature is a straight-up bargain, especially when you can simply sack some lowly token that you can immediately create another one of.

As such, this card’s impressive utility and supreme scarcity (only reprinted in Commander 2011 and as part of the Amonkhet Invocations bonus sheet) means it will cost you over $12 on the secondary market.

11. Phyrexian Negator

Market Price: $15.19, Foil: $146.66

As opposed to Masticore’s relatively trivial drawback, here’s a drawback that truly stings.

Imagine you’re on the play. You’ve played a Swamp, you’ve resolved a Dark Ritual and then cast this beefy 5/5 on turn one and told your opponent “go.” Then, they cast Shock or Lightning Bolt or any two damage-dealing burn spell on this and your entire board goes bye-bye. Not great! Still, the scarcity of this card coupled with nostalgia means its median value is above $15.

Surprisingly, this card saw notable tournament play as part of “Suicide Black” decks due to its sheer size and speed when paired with the aforementioned Dark Ritual (which was reprinted in Urza’s Saga). Of course, by modern standards, this drawback is simply too much to bear. As such, Wizards of the Coast printed an upgraded version in 2011’s New Phyrexia set, Phyrexian Obliterator, which forces the player that dealt damage to it to sacrifice permanents instead. Much better!

10. Powder Keg

Market Price: $17.63, Foil: $99.99

Like many cards on this list, effectiveness coupled with scarcity make Powder Keg a rather pricey two-mana board-clearing artifact. After the rotation out of Standard by cards such as Nevinyrral’s Disk, control decks seeking out colorless board wipes found their new standard-bearer with this card, though it was far more situational than the cards it replaced.

Still, with great Goblin-themed artwork from Dan Frazier as well as impressive utility and freedom to destroy what you want, when you want, Powder Keg remains a notable artifact from Magic’s past, likely leading to why the card’s median price point is approaching $20.

9. Urza’s Incubator

Market Price: $19.50, Foil: $174.47

As a Magic player/fan, I’m a bit of a sucker for typal/kindred cards. Perhaps it was truly beginning to explore the game during the Onslaught block, which was thoroughly focused on typal synergies, or perhaps it was being gifted a heavily played copy of this artifact that first debuted in Urza’s Destiny during the early days of my Magic journey.

Reducing any creature type’s mana value by is a pretty huge discount, and when paired with colorless creatures, this nifty little mana-reducer can help you go infinite fairly easily, like in this Sliver-based shell:

While this card’s price point took a hearty hit recently due to being reprinted in both Dominaria Remastered in 2023 and Modern Horizons 3 in 2024, the original still boasts the highest price point for the card – likely due to its striking Pete Venters artwork as well as the original retro frame.

8. Yawgmoth’s Bargain

Market Price: $22.87, Foil: $298.96

Necropotence was one of the strongest cards of all time, and its release led to a surge in monoblack decks during competitive tournaments of the era. This “Black Summer,” however, didn’t curtail Wizards of the Coast’s interest in delivering black enchantments that can give its caster tons of cards at the cost of paying life.

Enter Yawgmoth’s Bargain, a enchantment that allows its owner to pay one life to draw a card. This removes the limitation of Necropotence (having to wait until your end step to get the cards) with the “drawback” being that it costs double the mana value of the original Ice Age enchantment. That’s not a steep cost, and, as such, this card is banned in Legacy and Commander and was only unrestricted in Vintage in 2018. Expectedly, this card is worth a fair bit, especially in graded copies.

7. Opalescence

Market Price: $27.92, Foil: $247.88

Urza’s Destiny has a strong enchantment-based theme that’s located mostly in white, and Opalescence is a headlining part of that focus. It was legal in Standard at the same time as Humility, which created a rulings headache for anyone that didn’t want games to come to a screeching, laborious halt.

While other cards over the years have featured effects similar to this (mythic rare Zur, Eternal Schemer from Dominaria United comes to mind), Opalescence was the first to do it en masse for enchantments, and, due to its novelty and being first on the scene, it clocks in with a price point approaching $30.

6. Treachery

Market Price: $39.32, Foil: $371.01

Concluding the “free spell” series that begin in Urza’s Saga with Rewind and Great Whale (one of the most valuable cards from that set) and continued in Urza’s Legacy with Frantic Search and Snap, WotC saved the best for last with this five-mana blue Aura (back when it was simply an “Enchant Creature” card) with an incredibly powerful effect. Being able to untap five lands after casting it was simply gravy on top of an already immensely strong card.

Any card with just one word in its title is usually going to be an elegantly designed card, and Treachery is no exception. Featuring unsettling artwork, a game-swinging effect as well as upside on top of that, its median value approaching $40 is far from a shock. Seeing as this card – and many others herein – are on the Reserved List (meaning they can’t be reprinted) its value will likely only go up.

5. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Market Price: $42.85, Foil: $330.46

This card would surely be among the best Elf cards for Commander, but, not unexpectedly, it's banned in the format due to being able to essentially double up the amount of Forests you have on the battlefield – which is a rather strong ability. Even with being banned in Commander, this card has a price point on the secondary market over $40, likely due to the sheer novelty factor as well as the attraction collectors have to any rare card from Urza’s block.

With jovial, colorful artwork from prolific Magic artist Michael Sutfin and no other printings – save for the Magic Online-exclusive Vintage Masters set – this card being a chase from Destiny makes perfect sense.

4. Academy Rector

Market Price: $50.37, Foil: $619.99

Academy Rector, Opalescence, and another card still to come on this list, Replenish, formed the backbone of a combo deck from this era of Standard that revolved around milling tons of enchantments, seeking out Opalescence with Academy Rector and returning all enchantments from your graveyard to the battlefield with Replenish. It sounds simple enough, especially since synergies like this are baked into almost all avenues of Magic these days, but this gameplay loop was still fairly novel when Urza’s Destiny released.

Academy Rector is also part of a spicy Commander combo that involves having it on the battlefield when you play Kaervek’s Spite, which allows you to search your library for Barren Glory. If you can make it to your next upkeep (that’s a big “if” when you don’t have any cards in hand or permanents on the battlefield), you simply win the game. Fun stuff!

3. Yavimaya Hollow

Market Price: $66.09, Foil: $390.51

The regeneration mechanic is more or less defunct in modern Magic (especially in Standard), though a few cards printed solely for Commander have been produced of late that feature the ability (including Wolverine, Best There Is from the Marvel Secret Lair Drop). It certainly is a slightly clunky and outdated form of protection, especially when compared to something simple like indestructible or hexproof.

Still, this legendary land from Urza’s Destiny with great, naturalistic artwork by Douglas Shuler – always good to see a hippo in Magic (or a Phelddagrif for that matter) – employs the ability to brilliant effect; simply pay and tap it to regenerate any creature you’d like. Having this ability on a land is supremely useful, hence why Yavimaya Hollow’s price point is nearly $70 over 25 years after it released.

2. Replenish

Market Price: $86.71, Foil: $599.99

A supremely powerful card, Replenish features an effect that we’re unlikely to ever see again. Even cards with effects similar to this, however situational, such as Second Sunrise, are exceedingly powerful and have won tournaments in the past (Second Sunrise, in particular, is still banned in Modern).

Being able to return all enchantments from your graveyard to the battlefield is eminently strong, and, like many cards on this list, Replenish has never – and will never – see a reprint. That scarcity as well as the paucity of supply on the secondary market makes this a big-time chase rare from the set and the second-most valuable card from Urza’s Destiny.

1. Metalworker

Market Price: $112.82, Foil: $899.99

Seeing as the most valuable card from Urza’s Legacy was an artifact, and Urza’s Saga was home to broken artifact-focused legendary land Tolarian Academy, it’s no surprise to see that the most valuable card from the final set in the block is also an artifact; more precisely, it’s the artifact creature Metalworker. This Construct allows players to reveal artifacts from their hand and add to their mana pool per the number of cards revealed.

In concert with ways to untap artifacts, mana-producing artifacts such as Grim Monolith, Thran Dynamo, Worn Powerstone and others from Urza’s block, Tolarian Academy, blue’s milling-focused finisher Stroke of Genius, and Metalworker, the artifact deck from Urza’s block was simply too strong to ignore. The synergies were utterly bonkers, and this set – and the block in totality – was so strong that Wizards of the Coast had to rethink their R&D for years to come after its release.

So, What’s Next?

I hope you enjoyed this exploration into one of the most powerful Magic blocks of all time. We certainly went out with a bang, as Urza’s Destiny remains a fan-favorite set littered with iconic cards. But what happens when Wizards of the Coast decides to actively make cards weaker in response to the obscene power level seen in Urza’s block? Why, the Masques block happens.

Tune in next time as I delve into the most valuable cards from the first set of that block: Mercadian Masques.