15 Most Valuable Visions Cards

"Now Here I Go Again, I See the Crystal Visions...

"Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, Referring to Magic's 1997 Release

Visions, the 1997 follow-up set to Mirage, featured a number of notable cards and cycles. Though no new keywords were introduced in this set, it featured the following:

• The first cycle of lands that forced you to return a land to your turn, lest the lands be sacrificed
• The final card that dealt with poison counters (Suq'Ata Assassin) until they returned, first in Future Sight, then, in force, in the Scars of Mirrodin block
• The first “charms,” or inexpensive modal spells with impressive utility
• Notable creatures, especially at lower rarities, with impactful and useful enters-the-battlefield abilities (e.g., Man-o'-War, Uktabi Orangutan, Nekrataal)

But are any of those cards and cycles among the most valuable cards from this intriguing and oft-forgotten set? Gaze into the crystal ball, and let’s explore these fascinating visions.

Note: All prices come via TCGPlayer’s Market Price History over the past calendar year and are subject to change. Foil cards didn’t exist until Urza’s Legacy, so no cards of that ilk are here.

15. Relentless Assault

Market Price: $4.75

Relentless Assault was the first card that produced an additional combat step for its caster. Due to its originality, plus the brilliant, line-heavy artwork of Geofrey Darrow & I. Rabarot (whose artwork only appeared in Mirage and Visions), it retains a certain cachet among collectors.

A valuation of $4.75 seems about right, as this card has seen a number of reprints, including, notably, in five straight Core Sets from Sixth Edition to Tenth Edition. Still a powerful effect, various different versions of this effect have been unveiled over the years in Magic, but Relentless Assault gets credit for being the first.

14. Breathstealer's Crypt

Market Price: $5.14

An interesting enchantment for that I had frankly never heard of before beginning my research for this piece, Breathstealer's Crypt is a fascinating hate piece for any deck that wants to run lots of creatures. This card can be especially nasty in Commander, where creatures run rampant and playing control strategies often don’t go all that well.

Perhaps it’s this enchantment’s relative impact in Commander that sets its price point above $5, or perhaps it’s the novelty of such a little-known card even existing. Either way, it’s an interesting, flavorful card.

13. Necromancy

Market Price: $7.37

A slightly more expensive Animate Dead that removes one drawback (the -1/-0 clause), tacks an additional to its casting cost, and allows it to be cast at instant speed, though you have to sacrifice it at end of turn (which, of course, kills the creature you reanimated).

These effects are always hot commodities – especially in Commander – and this card’s Visions printing is one of only three that this unusual and powerful enchantment has received. Combine that scarcity with some utterly horrifying, haunting artwork from Magic master illustrator Pete Venters, and you’ve got a terrifically collectible (and pricey) uncommon on your hands.

12. Retribution of the Meek

Market Price: $7.56

One of only two cards that destroy all creatures with power four or greater (the other being planeswalker Elspeth, Sun's Champion), this sorcery halves that card’s mana value— vs. —and features intriguing and colorful artwork from Nathalie Hertz, whose artwork only appears on cards from the Visions expansion.

On that front, cards from this particular era—and Mirage block specifically—boast some of the finest artwork to ever grace Magic cards. The jungle setting combined with the gauzy style of fantasy genre illustrations from this era make for some unforgettable works of art that deserve special plaudits.

11. Goblin Recruiter

Market Price: $8.24

A two-mana Goblin that was more or less ignored until Onslaught released and put Goblins back on the map (or, said another way, “Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys”), this deck-stacking Gobby is eminently useful in any Goblin-based strategy (and a top-flight Goblin Commander card).

Goblin Recruiter is so useful, in fact, that once Goblins returned to prominence in the competitive Magic scene, this card became obscenely powerful and could routinely set up instant-win scenarios with Goblins alongside Gobs that combined the best of both worlds in terms of aggro and combo strategies. As such, this card remains banned in the supremely powerful Legacy format.

10. Teferi's Puzzle Box

Market Price: $9.45

Teferi's Puzzle Box, the card that served as the booster pack artwork for Visions, is an intriguing four-mana artifact that replaces your standard draw during your draw step with an ability that places the cards in your hand on the bottom of your library and replaces them with the same number you just tucked away.

This card more or less forces players to take the game one turn at a time, especially in Commander, as that format’s singleton nature means that you’ll never have duplicates of the same card. It also means players can’t hold on to answers in hand, which could completely negate combo strategies that require specific pieces. Unusual and scarce, a nearly $10 price point makes sense on the secondary market. Also works wonders with Orcish Bowmasters and Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

9. Femeref Enchantress

Market Price: $9.52

Enchantress decks normally ping when you cast an enchantment, or an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control. This beautifully illustrated 1/2 Human Druid instead nets you card draw when an enchantment hits the graveyard, an unusual twist.

This card does not see a lot of play (only 5572 decks on EDHREC), but its scarcity, beauty (the gold borders simply look amazing in Mirage block) and presence on the Reserved List all combine to make Femeref Enchantress fall just under the $10 threshold.

8. Griffin Canyon

Market Price: $10.64

As we’ve seen with other sets, one-off nonbasic lands are often worth quite the premium on the secondary market, especially if they’re quite old, have never been reprinted, and are part of the Reserved List. Griffin Canyon checks all of those boxes.

Beyond that, this card is one of the few “Griffin kindred” enablers that exist (one of the only others, Zuberi, Golden Feather, hails from Mirage), making it even more of a rarity across Magic’s history. The novelty factor combined with terrific artwork from Stuart Griffin (no, really) makes this the first card from Visions with a price point in the double-digits on the secondary market.

7. City of Solitude

Market Price: $13.60

A premier hate piece, this gorgeously illustrated enchantment for locks out all players from not only playing spells during opponents’ turns, but also from activating abilities. That limitation even includes simply tapping a land for mana!

This wildly oppressive ability has, unsurprisingly, never been reprinted, as it more or less shuts down one of the most important aspects of playing a game of Magic: interacting with your foe on their turn. The only other card that approaches this level of oppression/aggravation is Dosan the Falling Leaf from Champions of Kamigawa, and this card is way stronger and even more annoying than that legendary creature.

6. Undiscovered Paradise

Market Price: $14.62

In the same vein as Griffin Canyon, this never-reprinted nonbasic land delivered mana of any color to its user with the drawback of being returned to its owner’s hand during their next untap step. Of course, for many modern Landfall decks, having a land return to your hand is just what you want, so this high-dollar card fits perfectly into such strategies.

Beyond that, Undiscovered Paradise was a major competitive nonbasic land during its heyday, as decks were sorely lacking lands that could produce all five colors. As such, this card was played straight-up despite its drawback. Ah, the wonders of power creep.

5.Natural Order

Market Price: $16.11

This green sorcery is a game-ender when you’ve spent the last few turns accruing tons of little critters (think Elves, Squirrels, tokens, etc.), then you sacrifice one of them to this card in order to rifle through your library and plop Craterhoof Behemoth into play; now that’s a finale (of devastation).

Banned on Magic: The Gathering Arena in both Historic and Brawl, as well as in Oathbreaker, this card remains a brilliant tutor card that can swing a surprise victory if your foe isn’t expecting it. Heck, even if they are, this card’s sheer power can still win you games on the spot.

4. Tithe

Market Price: $24.16

Deck-thinning and land-tutoring are both extremely valuable elements when brewing a Magic deck. This never-reprinted instant for combines both of those elements into an elegantly designed, somewhat boring card that is nonetheless extremely impactful.

Cards with a single word for their names are always cool, and this card’s impressionistic, long-distance artwork from Jon J Muth (who only illustrated five cards during his Magic tenure) also makes this simple yet effective card a real standout from Visions.

3. Squandered Resources

Market Price: $31.91

Now we’re getting to the heavy hitters. Squandered Resources was a major combo piece that helped kick the “ProsBloom” deck into high gear in the now-defunct Block Constructed format after Visions was released.

Sacrificing your lands to double up your mana production was a small price to pay for a long-winded and finicky combo deck like ProsBloom, which won via a huge Drain Life, so this card slotted perfectly into the archetype. For modern collectors, this card was never reprinted and is part of the Reserved List, so couple those factors with this card’s competitive cachet and you’re looking at a $30-plus card in today’s market.

2. Anvil of Bogardan

Market Price: $43.77

A dynamite card-draw engine that also fuels discard and graveyard strategies while simultaneously giving all players no maximum hand size means that this card plays numerous roles when it hits the board at an on-curve mana value of .

No reprints, useful effects, and brilliant, chiaroscuro artwork from Roger Raupp all combine to make this card one of the top chase rares from Visions in particular and the Mirage block more generally (it’s the seventh-most valuable card across Mirage, Visions, and Weatherlight).

1. Vampiric Tutor

Market Price: $64.71

However, no card in Visions can compare to one of the best black tutor cards of all time, and one of the best tutor cards, full stop. In fact, it could be argued that Vampiric Tutor is actually superior to the card that gave the tutor subtype its name (Demonic Tutor). But why is that?

First off, it’s an instant, which are pretty much always going to be better than sorceries. Then, it costs less. Lastly, it places the card on top of your library, which, under certain scenarios, can actually be the preferred place to put a notable combo piece. All of these factors combine to make this incredible tutor card the most valuable from Visions by far and ensures that all four tutors from Mirage and Visions rank highly among the most valuable cards from their respective sets.

Visions of (Undiscovered) Paradise

Both Mirage and Visions are among the most interesting and stylish sets to ever be released, and it’s been a real joy to travel back into Magic’s past to explore these fascinating sets via the prism of their modern-day value. Next up? The final set from Mirage block: the intriguing Weatherlight.