The 15 Most Valuable Torment Cards

Hey, everyone! Last time, we looked at the most valuable cards from Odyssey. Today, it's time for Torment!

It's actually been a while since Magic has released sets this way, so it's important to mention that Torment was a small set and was part of the Odyssey block, which also includes Judgment, which I'll cover next. Sets in the same block usually drew from the same lore and were often tied together mechanically.

Torment did in fact continue ODY's graveyard theme with mechanics like flashback, threshold, and madness, but it also did something unconventional: it printed more black cards than cards of other colors. While this seemed like a good idea at the time and was certainly cool and novel, it also made the color black more prominent, especially in competitive play, which may have made Magic a little less fun for a period for players who enjoyed the balance and variety that the color pie offers.

How has it held up in terms of value over the years? Let's find out!

15. Mesmeric Fiend

Market Price: $2.40

Standard players: have you enjoyed playing a turn-two Kitesail Freebooter or Deep-Cavern Bat and ruining your opponent's carefully crafted plans? Thank Mesmeric Fiend, one of the OG hand disruption effects on a stick. The 1/1 is so iconic that it was a representative of Torment in Masters 25, that set reprinted cards from each of the previous Magic expansions.

It's also a Nightmare, giving it some utility in Commander decks led by Umbris, Fear Manifest or Captain N'ghathrod.

14. Nostalgic Dreams

Market Price: $2.42

Me when I remember that I used to be decent at playing Magic.

Kidding aside, Nostalgic Dreams has only been reprinted once, in Vintage Masters, and it apparently has Premodern applications. Turning dead cards into action sounds like the perfect use case, though I've seen this be used in a deck that tries to go off with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Greater Good, with some Replenish action, too, hence the two-dollars-and-change price tag.

13. Overmaster

Market Price: $2.45

This does a pretty neat impression of Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast, even drawing you a card, so Overmaster sees a decent amount of play in red Commander decks. The fact that it cycles makes it attractive in spells matters builds, led by four-drop commanders Ashling, Flame Dancer, Urabrask, or Kuja, Genome Sorcerer, and featuring payoffs storm payoffs. It's cheap, it's flexible, and it replaces itself. What more could you want?

12. Mutilate

Market Price: $3.48

An emphasis on the color black in Torment led to cards like Mutilate that really want you to play a lot of Swamps and black cards. This is a bread-and-butter effect for the color black, hence its reprinting many times. It's still a rare, and it's still great in mono-black Commander decks alongside more common sweepers, like Damnation and Toxic Deluge, so it remains one of the most valuable cards in the set.

Who can forget Eric Peterson's disturbing, hyper-realistic art?

11. Nantuko Shade

Market Price: $4.38

It's unsurprising that the set that sought to highlight the color black gave us a bunch of staples in that color, and I must be getting on in years, because I remember playing against Nantuko Shade in Standard when it was legal after being reprinted in Magic 2011. Shades as a creature type have been utilized a lot more frequently than in recent years. Getting +1/+1 for each black mana you paid was the type's signature ability, and we most recently saw a competitive Shade in The Brothers' War with Misery's Shadow. Nantuko sees a smattering of Commander play, though the Shade market in that format is dominated by Nirkana Revenant, who doubles your black mana.

10. Parallel Evolution

Market Price: $4.50

I love how doing these articles teaches me new things about the game. I thought that Second Harvest was the first nonenchantment (Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, of course) spell that doubled tokens. Not so, and this has flashback, too, as long you're okay with your opponents getting twice their tokens as well! The global effect makes this a uniquely splashy card, and it hasn't been reprinted save in The List, so expect to shell out a few bucks if you want to rain down token mayhem at the kitchen table!

9. Mortal Combat

Market Price: $4.55

Alternate win conditions are some of the most unique cards in the game, and they tend to evade reprinting. I believe this is true regardless of how difficult they are to trigger, but emerging from Mortal Combat victorious seems like a breeze in a format like Commander where you can mill yourself to your heart's content with commanders like Grist, the Hunger Tide, Iname, Death Aspect (the mill comes from dumping your creatures into your 'yard on ETB), and Zask, Skittering Swarmlord.

Of course, you still have to wait a whole turn cycle and ensure that your graveyard or Combat isn't removed, but Commander is for dreaming big, isn't it?

8. Radiate

Market Price: $4.84

While doing my research, I found a hilarious and very rarely played combo involving Radiate and Part the Waterveil. Sure, you get many, many extra turns, but you also need 14 mana available and opponents that are asleep at the wheel. Maybe you have Grand Abolisher in play!

Still, this effect is iconic enough that it was reprinted on a stick in Radiant Performer, and it lets you do some pretty nasty things with Imodane, the Pyrohammer. It's a niche card for Commander, but one that can lead to great stories or bad beats, depending on which side of the table you're on.

7. Transcendence

Market Price: $5.24

We all know about alternate win condition cards, but how about alternate lose conditions? Transcendence is a funny one that can actually punish white decks for doing what they do best, gaining life. Of course, if you're putting it in your deck, it means you've taken that into account and are probably running it in decks that look to Donate it to opponents with cards like Zedruu the Greathearted, Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant, and Iroh, Tea Master.

With Fractured Identity targeting your own Transcendence, you even cause all your opponents to lose instantly, as long as they have at least 20 life. Sounds doable in Commander.

6. Circular Logic

Market Price: $6.18

Logic is a competitively costed Counterspell variant that thrives in Premodern alongside its classic madness archetype buddies Psychatog and Wild Mongrel, depending on which deck you're running it in. Being a format staple alone is enough to help it retain its price, especially when the old border and art look so lovely together.

5. Retraced Image

Market Price: $7.76

I had never heard of this card before doing research for this article. I figured this wouldn't see play in Commander because you need more than one permanent of the same name for it to be good. Then I checked EDHREC and realized, as you probably already knew, dear reader, that Commander players will go to great lengths to put extra lands into play, even if it means using a card to ramp your Islands. Thanks to Philomène Gatien's great piece on building a mono-blue aristocrats deck, I also learned about another blue ramp classic, Mitotic Manipulation. For when Solemn Simulacrum and other good cards just aren't enough.

Ramp is great and this effect is unique at a measly one mana, so it doesn't surprise me that it's nearing $10, jokes aside.

4. Insidious Dreams

Market Price: $10.13

Another one that hasn't been reprinted, Insidious Dreams can help you set up a big turn by stacking the top of your library. This works especially well in Commander, which is replete with legends that care about your topdeck. Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow and Gwenom, Remorseless both let you cast whatever your put on top, with the former doming your opponent for what is hopefully a ton and the latter acting as a Bolas's Citadel on a stick, essentially putting into play everything you tutored with Dreams and potentially assembling a game-winning combo, like this one, maybe?

3. Grim Lavamancer

Market Price: $15.14

This is another one I remember playing with and against in Standard around the time I started playing in 2010. In 2026, it's only in a few thousand Commander decks and it's no longer what it used to be in competitive Constructed formats. Enter Premodern, where Grim is an absolute staple in decks from classic mono-red sligh to more midrange builds.

I only see Premodern gaining in popularity as more and more Universes Beyond cards flood players' brainwaves; you can even play Challenges on Magic: The Gathering: Online! All signs point to this beloved one-drop continuing to see play, including in potentially lower-powered Cube lists.

2. Cabal Ritual

Market Price: $12.41

From Premodern to Commander staple, Cabal Ritual is currently in over 200k EDHREC decks. Aside from being an effective accelerator in all manner of decks playing the color black, it also generates infinite storm count and enters triggers with Eternal Witness and Saw in Half:

It even continues to perform in Premodern, figuring into the classic storm combo deck. The deck is apparently called Iggy Pop. Can someone tell me why in the world that is the case?

1. Cabal Coffers

Market Price: $27.42

Commander players wanting to run this card will need to cough up almost $30 for the original Torment printing of this land, which is in nearly 400k EDHREC decks. It's truly a staple in the sense that decks playing a lot of black cards will want to run Coffers because the upside is huge and the cost is next to nothing, especially when paired with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, leaving nothing up to chance in terms of how many Swamps you'll have in play. You can play riffs off Coffers like Cabal Stronghold and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, but nothing beats the original when you've built your deck correctly.

Now You Know Cabal

Torment is the set showcasing the color black, and I'd say it did so very successfully given how the most valuable cards from the set are from that color. Join me next time when I look at the final set in Odyssey block, Judgment.