The 15 Most Valuable Mirrodin Cards

Thirst for Knowledge | Art by Ben Thompson

Hey, everyone! Las time in this column, I wrapped up my coverage of Onslaught with the 15 most valuable Scourge cards. The set I'm writing about today features one of the biggest vibe shifts in Magic: The Gathering history. A new card border design debuted with Mirrodin and its eponymous block!

Just look at how massive a transition this was by comparing two artifacts printed on either side of the change:

I chose to show you two artifacts for a reason: Mirrodin was full of them! This makes sense from a lore perspective, as the plane of Mirrodin, which we now know as New Phyrexia, was created by the artifact planeswalker Karn and was originally called Argentum. Being an artificial world, much of the plane is made of metal, including the iconic razorgrass that often appears on art set here.

But, how many artifacts have made this list? Let's dive in and find out!

15. Scythe of the Wretched

Market Price: $8.10

Artifacts are on the scoreboard for Mirrodin! This one sees some play in Commander, best paired with creatures that can turn their inherent direct damage abilities into a massive blowout. A few commander candidates fit the bill, like Ashling the Pilgrim, Captain America, First Avenger, and Kelsien, the Plague. You should definitely look to throw a Basilisk Collar into the mix for creatures that only deal chip damage.

Scythe is also our first member on this list of the Never Been Reprinted Club (NBRC), making this niche Equipment a bit of a prized possession.

14. Nightmare Lash

Market Price: $8.17

Did you know that Equipment made their debut in Mirrodin? New borders weren't the only thing that shook the game up in 2003. This particular weapon is basically only playable in decks leaning heavily into , like Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or Korlash, Heir to Blackblade in Commander.

If you see this in a Commander deck, there's a pretty good chance you'll also come up against a Lashwrithe, given that the latter is an upgraded homage to the former and that they both power up mono-black decks so well.

One last relevant bit of information: cards with anything but the old borders aren't legal in Premodern! If you've read my previous articles, you'll know that several cards from Odyssey and Onslaught blocks are prized because of their potency in that community-led format. That is simply not going to be a factor for cards in Mirrodin and beyond. I would imagine that Lash makes this list because of its applications in a niche archetype in casual formats as well as its lack of a reprint.

13. Fatespinner

Market Price: $8.52

If there's a Commander deck that looks to mess with what opponents can cast and when they can cast them, you can bet that this 1/2 has a great chance of finding its way into that 99. Fatespinner is a relatively common inclusion in control or stax decks, often led by the likes of Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.

On the other hand, it's held back a bit by being a stax piece that lets opponents choose which phase they're least likely to miss that turn. In the early game it can be a brutal speed bump for your opponents' game plans, but its potency definitely wanes in longer games.

12. Extraplanar Lens

Market Price: $9.70

It's the first card on the list that's been reprinted, first as a Kaladesh Invention with gorgeous art and again in Commander Masters. It's also the most popular Commander card so far, because cards that double mana tend to be pretty good. Of course, Lens' power comes with two drawbacks: it nukes a land the turn you play it, hampering your short-term mana development, and it's really only good in mono-color decks.

Thought these decks often lean aggressive, like Krenko, Mob Boss, others, like Omnath, Locus of Mana, can be very hungry for mana and would run any doubler they can manage. Creature-heavy decks, like Giada, Font of Hope, meanwhile, do want to get into combat but also play a bunch of heavy hitters, making this a great inclusion.

11. Necrogen Mists

Market Price: $10.95

There are a bunch of cards that do what this does, often with upside, too: Bottomless Pit, Creeping Dread, Oppression, and Liliana of the Veil are great examples, and while you may go with an alternative in your kitchen table discard deck, Commander likes redundancy, so you might play Mists alongside its betters.

Like Nightmare Lash above, mono-black decks tend to want this card because of that color's synergies with discard strategies. EDHREC players, for example, run this pretty frequently in Tinybones, Trinket Thief, Tinybones, Bauble Burglar, and Tergrid, God of Fright, all commanders that excel leading decks that aim to whittle opponents down to zero resources as soon as possible.

10. Vedalken Archmage

Market Price: $11.87

It may not be an artifact, but Archmage is a great representative of the many cards in Mirrodin that synergize fantastically with the card type. There are a treasure trove of artifacts that cost zero or one mana, from Ornithopter to Chromatic Sphere, that can turn this into a broken card draw engine.

Over on EDHREC.com, Michael Whelan mentioned this card in his exploration into how "Eggs", a deck archetype with an impressive record in competitive 60-card formats, could work in Commander.

9. Chalice of the Void

Market Price: $13.71

Without Premodern on the table here, I've written mostly about Mirrodin cards' applications in Commander. This won't be the case for Chalice, which, despite playing only a bit part in the 100-card format, is a staple in Vintage and Legacy and even a strong sideboard card in Modern.

In the latter, it's most often played in Eldrazi Tron as a combo and aggro hate piece you can fetch up with Karn, the Great Creator. Meanwhile, "stompy" aggressive decks in Legacy run this in the main as potent disruption in a format where everything seems to cost one mana. City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb ensure opponents stare into the void as early as turn 1.

8. Isochron Scepter

Market Price: $14.53

Appearing in nearly 200,000 Commander decks on EDHREC, Scepter is our new format front runner out of Mirrodin. It's so playable because it's so easy to assemble a game-winning combo with it, from Dramatic Reversal giving you infinite storm count to Narset's Reversal and something like Alrund's Epiphany netting you infinite turns.

I'm also seeing it played with Orim's Chant and other controlling spells in grindy Azorius () and Jeskai () Modern decks from time to time, enabling control players to lock their opponents out of their turns.

7. Seething Song

Market Price: $15.71

This is banned in Modern but it still sees play in Commander, to the tune of over 300,000 decks, as well as in Pauper. It's also a great option for combo strategies in Vintage Cube. My experience with the card has often drafting a terrible combo pile and having to somehow assemble the win, while my opponent mutters under their breath about how long I'm taking. Look, I'm a midrange player!

I'm glad to learn from Commander Spellbook, then, that there a multitude of three-card combos involving Song that win the game without forcing one to keep a close eye on storm count and on which color pips you have in the mana pool.

6. Krark's Thumb

Market Price: $16.43

You're not going to see this too often in Commander, but the relative handful of coin flip decks that do exist will rarely thumb their noses at the chance to ignore a bad flip. These chaos agents include Yusri, Fortune's Flame, Setzer, Wandering Gambler, and the duo of Okaun, Eye of Chaos and Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom.

Nicholas Lucchesi put it best in his ranking of best legendary artifacts in Commander when he called it the weakest card, yet the one that's most crucial to the game plan of the decks that do want it.

5. Confusion in the Ranks

Market Price: $19.29

Another member of the NBRC, this is one of those cards that can throw an entire table of Commander on its head. Whether that's a good thing or not, I'll leave it up to the reader, but having games progress and end in improbable, redundancy-ignoring ways sounds pretty delightful to me. This is best paired with Scrambleverse, Thieves' Auction, and Whims of the Fates for the messiest games you'll ever play.

4. Sword of Kaldra

Market Price: $20.55

This was the first in a three-card cycle that was continued in Darksteel and Fifth Dawn. Well, it's actually a four-card cycle, if you count Kaldra Compleat as a phyrexianized mashup of Sword, Shield of Kaldra, and Helm of Kaldra.

While Helm has been reprinted on The List, the three original pieces of Equipment have only appeared outside their main sets as prerelease promos. As for where Sword appears in Constructed decks, Captain America, First Avenger seems to be a great home for expensive and clunky heirlooms with two abilities that synergize with high-cost Equipment.

3. Mesmeric Orb

Market Price: $20.69

This is played enough in Commander mill decks that I'd call it a staple, though not to the same degree as Krark's Thumb powers coin flip decks up. The upside is that Orb can also go in decks that want to mill themselves for value, like Muldrotha, the Gravetide and Teval, the Balanced Scale. You can turn your deck over with cards like Basalt Monolith, Aphetto Alchemist, and Seeker of Skybreak.

In Modern, on the other hand, Orb is a bit too ponderous in a deck that seeks to flip a large chunk of opponents' decks into the graveyard with spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Archive Trap.

2. Quicksilver Elemental

Market Price: $21.35

This is another combo card, working with Vivi Ornitier to generate infinite mana, copying his ability again and again to get around his "once per turn" clause. It's this interaction that likely maintains the 3/4's place near the top of this list, especially considering that this was bulk before Final Fantasy and Vivi were spoiled.

Elemental's circumvention of rules text also comes in handy with Mairsil, the Pretender, who features an interesting copying ability himself that is unfortunately gated behind that onerous phrase

1. Chrome Mox

Market Price: $159.45

What earns a card a price tag of $100 or more? Multi-format appeal helps a lot! Though Chrome Mox is banned in Modern — and it will likely continue to be banned, in spite of some interesting recent unbans, because free mana is busted — it sees play in over 500,000 Commander decks on EDHREC and is a staple in aggressive Legacy initiative and stompy decks and in powerful Cubes. The "Mox" name commands a certain respect in Magic: The Gathering, respect that the steep drawback of losing a card from your hand will do very little to tarnish.

Mirro-didn't Disappoint

Even without Premodern to prop up these cards' values, the artifact delivered a ton of powerful gray-bordered cards that are worth a pretty penny today. It's pretty notable how many staples worth around $6-7 price point I had to leave out, from Lightning Greaves and Fabricate to Krark-Clan Shaman and Mindslaver. What's your favorite card from Mirrodin?