15 Most Valuable Urza’s Legacy Cards

While It’s a Far Cry From the Immense Power Level (and Dollar Value) of Its Predecessor Urza’s Saga, Urza’s Legacy Still Features Plenty of High-Dollar Cards

Hello all, and welcome back to Revel in Riches, a series of articles related to the wild and wooly world of Magic: The Gathering finance. In this edition, we’re taking a look at Urza’s Legacy, the 1999 release that sought to curtail the utterly obscene power level of its predecessor, Urza’s Saga.

Where Urza’s Saga was chockablock with completely bonkers and highly valuable cards that could be easily abused, such as Tolarian Academy

, Yawgmoth’s Will

, and Time Spiral

, Urza’s Legacy features only a handful of cards that can be deemed as “busted.”

Funnily enough, despite this set being far weaker than Saga, it featured a card (Memory Jar

) that received the first-ever emergency ban in Magic’s history after it was proven that the card could lead to consistent first-, second-, and third-turn wins in Standard.

Urza’s Legacy also introduced foil cards to Magic, and while those cards are worth an absolute boatload, this list will be ranked by the market price of the non-foil versions, for consistency’s sake. So start your tinkering and let the goblins weld as we explore the most valuable Urza’s Legacy cards.

15. Mother of Runes

Market Price: $4.71, Foil: $69.99

Urza’s Legacy marked the debut of Mother of Runes

, a beloved card that can grant the invaluable “protection from” ability every turn to one of your creatures for a specific color. This ability is eminently impactful both offensively and defensively, as it can be activated before combat to make your creature unblockable by a specific color, or it can be activated in response to one of your creatures being targeted by a specifically colored spell to make it invulnerable.

This has been reprinted a number of times, but its original Urza’s Legacy printing retains a certain cachet, what with the cozy atmosphere of the art from Scott M. Fischer as well as the retro frame.

14. Karmic Guide

Market Price: $5.58, Foil: $136.50

Karmic Guide boasts the echo ability, which forces you to pay its casting cost the following upkeep in order to keep it around the next turn. In this case, the ability to return a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield is the reason why an echo cost is needed on such an under-statted creature.

Of course, Karmic Guide itself can be cheated into play through any number of reanimation spells or cost-reducing abilities, so this card is more often employed as a combo piece rather than as a straight-up five-mana Angel Spirit. It also showcases the immense difference in price between the regular printing of some Urza’s Legacy cards and their foil variants.

13. Second Chance

Market Price: $5.91, Foil: $49.99

Before getting into this card, let’s turn on some mood music:

There we go, much better.

Cards in Magic that grant extra turns are often among the most valuable and sought-after among players, as that ability is quite rare throughout the game’s history. In this case, Second Chance grants you a bonus turn if your life total happens to fall to five or less.

Sure, you have to sacrifice this card in order to get that extra turn but combine this with some enchantment or permanent recursion/reanimation, and you’ve got the makings of an easy infinite turn loop.

Second Chance

Hall of Heliod's Generosity

+1 other prerequisite

Infinite turns

Skip your draw step

Commander Spellbook

12. Phyrexian Reclamation

Market Price: $6.10, Foil: $50.19

A Commander favorite, Urza’s Legacy marked the first printing of this one-mana black enchantment that provides an impressive level of recursion for the low, low price of and two life as often as you’d like (as long as you can afford it).

Featuring flavor text that sounds like a standard corporate slogan and strong artwork by rk post, it’s no wonder that this printing of Phyrexian Reclamation retains a price point above $6. In fact, the cheapest copy of this card is its most recent printing – from the Child’s Play-themed Secret Lair Drop from 2024.

11. Multani, Maro-Sorcerer

Market Price: $6.87, Foil: $78.99

One of three “Maro-Sorcerers” in Magic’s history – Molimo

and Greensleeves

being the others – Multani was the first that riffed on the Elemental creature Maro

(itself an homage to stalwart Magic designer Mark Rosewater, aka “MaRo”), and it remains an impressive legendary creature in its own right.

Especially in Commander, Multani’s power and toughness can grow to obscene heights, and it features prebuilt imperviousness thanks to holding the shroud keyword ability, which protects it from all targeted spells or abilities (even if you’re the owner of Multani).

10. Defense Grid

Market Price: $7.69, Foil: $73.50

A premier Stax piece, this three-mana artifact forces everyone to play at sorcery speed, unless they want to tack on an additional to everything they cast on an opponent’s turn.

While this card has seen a few reprints over the years (Eighth Edition, Ninth Edition, The Brothers’ War Retro Artifacts), the only ones that have unique artworks are the “blueprint” version from The Brothers’ War as well as the high-dollar Kaladesh Inventions bonus sheet printing. The Urza’s Legacy version retains a fairly high price point – in this writer’s opinion because of the Goblin-insulting flavor text.

9. Radiant, Archangel

Market Price: $7.71, Foil: $160.00

Radiant, Archangel was an important character in Magic’s story during this era, so it's somewhat surprising that Wizards of the Coast has never reprinted this card (other than in the Magic Online-exclusive Vintage Masters set).

Perhaps power creep has simply made this card obsolete, as a five-mana 3/3 Angel flyer with some upside is just not cutting it by today’s standards. Or perhaps they want to keep this card tied to the set it debuted in, making it an intriguing curio for collectors and fans that will set them back close to $8 on the secondary market.

8. Iron Maiden

Market Price: $7.81, Foil: $20.19

No, not that Iron Maiden. Magic’s Iron Maiden

is an homage to the original torture device based on cards in hand, Black Vise

. This release from Urza’s Legacy can deal three damage per turn to players who keep their hands full – punishing control players for hanging on to all those counterspells.

While your foe might not run to the hills when they see this card, it can still be a notable trooper for players looking to deal some minor chip damage to foes who are holding on to answers in hand. Pair this with Multani, Maro-Sorcerer for some enjoyable shenanigans.

7. Defense of the Heart

Market Price: $9.70, Foil: $75.56

A pretty sweet way to cheat creatures into play, the only issue is that you have to be behind on board to make this effect happen. Of course, in Commander, only one of your foes has to be ahead creature-wise, making this card far more of a threat in that format than in others.

With gorgeous watercolor artwork from amazing Magic artist Rebecca Guay and scarce reprints of this card (a Secret Lair Drop, a Judges Gift Card, The List and Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales) it’s no surprise to see this tricksy green enchantment thoroughly entrenched in terms of most valuable Urza’s Legacy cards.

6. No Mercy

Market Price: $15.16, Foil: $48.84

A Commander staple, this black enchantment kills any creature that dares deal damage to you – full stop. This is an immensely powerful effect, especially in a black control deck (be it Commander or otherwise) that cares about dealing with any threat your opponent might have – in their hand, on the board, in the graveyard… anywhere.

This card has only one see one non-bonus sheet reprint, and that was with the upgraded rarity of mythic rare in the compilation set Dominaria Remastered, so it’s not shocking to see this reasonably costed protective enchantment sit above a price point of $15 roughly 25 years after it released.

5. Goblin Welder

Market Price: $19.83, Foil: $277.21

Now we’re starting to get into the heavy hitters. Goblin Welder

is a classic artifact-enabling Gobbo that swaps an artifact in play for one in your graveyard – no questions asked. So if you’ve managed to toss a top-tier threat artifact creature into your graveyard and you have a zero-cost artifact in play… you can see where this is going.

As long as your Goblin Welder

doesn’t have summoning sickness, you can simply tap this pesky little critter, sacrifice your Zuran Orb

, Fountain of Youth

, or Claws of Gix

, and pop that beefy threat into play extremely early in the game, putting you well ahead of your opponent. Of course, if you have a black, gaping hole where your heart should be, you could always recur Mindslaver

every turn for maximum “fun.”

4. Palinchron

Market Price: $30.19, Foil: $350.00

The series of “free” spells that debuted in Urza’s Saga continued in Urza’s Legacy and somehow got even better – with a top-tier bounce spell, Snap

, a continually popular loot spell, Frantic Search

, and this oddly shaped, seven-mana Illusion creature.

While the other two spells have gone on to critical acclaim – with Frantic Search

, in particular, being banned in both Pauper and the high-powered Legacy format – it was Palinchron

that made the most waves when it first released. This spell’s extremely hard-to-parse artwork (Where is this creature’s head? What’s going on with its neck?) belies an eminently rare card that has never once been reprinted, leading to a market price above $30.

3. Memory Jar

Market Price: $32.12, Foil: $235.00

Yet another card on this list with extremely scarce reprints – this one only coming in the now-defunct From The Vault series – Memory Jar

is an extremely broken five-mana artifact that allows players to set aside their hand, no matter how many cards are in it, and draw a full slate of seven new cards.

As expected, this level of value from simply tapping and sacrificing an artifact is highly problematic, and the card is banned in Legacy and restricted in the ultra-powerful Vintage format as a result. This was the card that forced the first pre-ban in Magic history, its historic power level and relative scarcity means a copy will run you a hefty sum on the secondary market.

2. Deranged Hermit

Market Price: $59.14, Foil: $336.08

Who doesn’t love Squirrel typal decks? Fans of this creature type – and the real-life, bushy-tailed rodents themselves – were thrilled to see Bloomburrow fully embrace the Squirrel creature type, as it had been relegated to tokens for years. For example: the first official Squirrel creatures in Magic didn’t release until the Odyssey set in 2001.

For the longest time, cards like Liege of the Hollows

had been the best way to produce Squirrels until this echoey Elf arrived on the scene. Glossing over the fact that it seems this fellow has no clothes on, Deranged Hermit

is a powerhouse Squirrel “lord,” and it has never been reprinted in an actual expansion – meaning the Urza’s Legacy printing at close to $60 is the most cost-effective way to obtain this card in today’s market.

1. Grim Monolith

Market Price: $295.74, Foil: $2,000.00

Unsurprisingly, the most valuable card from Urza’s Legacy is a top-flight mana rock whose drawback (not untapping during your untap step) can be mitigated by any number of corresponding cheap artifacts – such as one that debuted in the set prior to Legacy, Voltaic Key

Wizards of the Coast just couldn’t stop creating extremely powerful artifacts during the Urza’s block, a fact that led to a complete overhaul to the company’s R&D processes. Seeing as Grim Monolith

is legal in all formats where it can be, it’s no surprise that this exceptional mana-producing artifact is worth close to $300 for a non-foil and a cool $2,000 for a foil copy. Like many of the cards on this list, Grim Monolith

has never been reprinted.

The Legacy of Urza’s Legacy

While Urza’s Legacy lacks the punch of its predecessor, it's still littered with classic cards. The fact that this set introduced foils to the collecting scene of Magic means that it will always hold a special place in the community.

Thanks for reading and join us next time for a deep dive into the final set from Urza’s block: the high-powered and intriguing Urza’s Destiny.

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