The 15 Most Valuable Ravnica Cards

Farseek | Art by Martina Pilcerova

Hey, everyone! I'm back with more listicle goodness on the most valuable cards from different sets. Today, I'm kicking off coverage of the original Ravnica block with Ravnica: City of Guilds. We've visited the vaguely Eastern-European-flavored eponymous megalopolis many times since RAV debuted in 2005, but I always find the first foray the most charming. Does that mean I've become a 34-year-old Magic: The Gathering boomer? Let's avoid debating whether nostalgia or recency bias is the more powerful force and just get to talking about the sweet, sweet cards!

15. Elves of Deep Shadow

Market Price: $5.58

There are quite a few one-mana creatures that produce mana, but they're all really good, especially when they're Elves. This one doesn't even produce the "right" color, you have to pay life to put a pip in the pool, and it's been reprinted a bunch, yet it still manages to see play in almost 200,000 EDHREC decks. That's the kind of pull mana dorks have in Commander. You simply want as many of them as you can get in decks like Lathril, Blade of the Elves and Maralen, Fae Ascendant.

14. Privileged Position

Market Price: $5.83

There are certainly more privileged spots on this list than 14, but this enchantment is sitting pretty on this list, partly because it's only been reprinted in Double Masters and as a promo in a couple of sets like Marvel Universe. In Commander, it's a useful role-player in enchantress decks running a critical mass of the archetype, ensuring that draw engines, like Sythis, Harvest's Hand and Eidolon of Blossoms, can keep the cards flowing indefinitely or until you stop messing around and assemble a game-winning combo.

13. Concerted Effort

Market Price: $5.83

This is a pretty roundabout way to get an Overrun, but at least this can sometimes do better as a repeatable evasion-granter that can also help your team take down a whole table by doling out that sweet double strike. There isn't an abundance of effects that grant that keyword, as evidenced by this earning a spot on DougY's EDHREC list of best double strike enablers. It was also a member of the Never Been Reprinted Club until it showed up in the Marvel Universe set alongside other reprints with art lifted straight from the comic books.

12. Pariah's Shield

Market Price: $6.21

This is one of those cards that, when you see it for the first time, sends you down a rabbit hole looking for cards that combo with it. Thanks to Commander Spellbook, Shield's hole has already been dug up, reinforced, brightly lit, and pumped with smooth jazz tunes. Stuffy Doll is exactly the kind of creature that wants to soak up all the damage dealt to your chosen pariah, leading to the rare drawn game:

That's only the tip of the iceberg with this card, so check out Shield's Commander Spellbook entry for more shenanigans.

11. Chord of Calling

Market Price: $6.58

The family of cards that lets you fetch creatures from your deck and put them right into play is full of superstars across multiple formats, from Chord to Green Sun's Zenith to Eldritch Evolution, though the latter is more of a cousin.

Aside from Commander, where this sees play in around a quarter of a million EDHREC decks, Chord is a very important part of Modern creature combo decks built around Samwise Gamgee or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.

10. Life from the Loam

Market Price: $7.14

Another multi-format all-star, this can be found powering up graveyard decks from Commander to Legacy. It's basically a one-card engine: dredging this puts cards into the bin that you can either pick up with other cards or target with a future Loam. It works especially well with lands that go into the graveyard from the battlefield or your hand, like Urza's Saga, Wasteland, and Boseiju, Who Endures. Heck, just draw some extra cards with Horizon Canopy or Tranquil Thicket!

9. Dark Confidant

Market Price: $8.55

Like with celebrities, you know Magic cards are a big deal when they have a one-word nickname. Dark Confidant will (hopefully) forever be known as Bob, after Bob Maher, the Magic Invitational winner and old school pro who lent his likeness to this 2/1's original printing. Bob has been reprinted a lot recently, but I'm certain that this edition remains one of the most expensive nonfoil versions because of its iconic art and not just because it's scarcer. The uncluttered modern card frame looks snazzy, too.

8. Overgrown Tomb

Market Price: $13.09

The first of four "shock lands" — so called because you can Shock yourself to get these into play untapped — on this list, Tomb fixes mana for a wide range of combo, midrange, and even ramp decks in competitive 60-card formats like Modeern, Pioneer, and Standard. Shocklands are among the best lands that produce two colors of mana available ("dual lands"), because they carry basic land types on top of coming into play untapped. This means you can find them with fetchlands like Flooded Strand.

7. Cloudstone Curio

Market Price: $13.36

This is one of those cards that goes off for infinite something or other when you look at it the wrong way, especially in combination with Aluren, Animar, Soul of Elements, and other ways to get creatures into play for free. Just check out its Commander Spellbook page! It started creeping up in value in 2020, when enablers Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh and Kodama of the East Tree released, even reaching nearly $70 before settling here.

6. Birds of Paradise

Market Price: $13.36

If a dork that makes the wrong color gets into 200,000 decks, then how much play does a mana creature with evasion that produces any color of mana see? The answer is, it's in a whopping 1.29 million EDHREC decks. That makes it the 7th most played card in Commander. BOP also shows up in numbers in 60-card formats, so, despite being reprinted practically into the ground, it continues to retain value.

5. Temple Garden

Market Price: $13.96

I've probably written this about 30 times over on my EDHREC column: dual lands are awesome. They tend to show up near the top of my most played card lists from various Commander sets, and they're also absolutely essential inclusions in Modern, Pioneer, and Standard when they're legal, which they are as of this writing. Garden shows up in a huge range of these 60-card decks across multiple formats, so it's extremely worthy of a top-five spot.

4. Sacred Foundry

Market Price: $14.87

The Boros () is a must have in competitive Burn decks, because you care much more about untapped lands than losing two life. After all, your opponents should be dead soon anyway. Foundry is also a staple in Modern combo deck Ruby Storm and in Pioneer and Standard playing Jeskai (), Mardu (), and even four-color.

3. Watery Grave

Market Price: $15.86

Dual lands that produce always tend to see more play and command a higher value than perhaps less azure counterparts. The effect isn't very pronounced here, but Dimir's () member of the cycle nonetheless props up various competitive 60-card decks from Esper Goryo's Vengeance in Modern to Dimir Excruciator in Standard, with regular appearances in Legacy, too.

2. Breath of Fury

Market Price: $17.40

Cards that give their wielder additional combat steps are so popular there's even a Commander deck archetype built entirely around that mechanic! In those lists, which can utilize tons of commander options like Isshin, Two Heavens as One, Xenagos, God of Revels, or Storm, Force of Nature, Breath is actually one of the less common variants people tend to run. Aggravated Assault, Seize the Day, and Savage Beating are all played more than this, possibly because it's risky to slap an aura on a creature and hope it deals combat damage.

Still, it's a combo engine like many of its extra combat kin, combining with Loyal Apprentice, Goblin Rabblemaster, and other token-generating creatures to ruin your opponents' days. It helps, too, that it's only been reprinted in a Secret Lair and Commander 2016.

1. Doubling Season

Market Price: $38.97

It's fitting that this is worth twice what the 2nd most valuable card is, and there's a great reason for that! Doubling Season is in almost 500,000 EDHREC decks, and it features in infinite combos with cards from Springheart Nantuko to Walking Ballista, and a whole host in between.

It also opened the floodgates for cards that double things in Magic, with Parallel Lives, Second Harvest, and even Panharmonicon tracing their lineage back this enchantment. It's iconic.

Looking back on the Guilded Age

Ravnica: City of Guilds is the first set since Onslaught to feature non-utility lands in its most valuable cards list. Unlike the prized five original fetchlands, which were all more valuable than the rest of that set, only three shock lands made the cut here, in a set that doesn't exactly break the bank. Aside from seeing more reprints, Watery Grave and company also aren't Premodern-legal.

While I'm not sure exactly how much that that format influences card value, I will say that I personally prefer that some of the game's most important competitive tools be accessible to all kinds of players. And, looking at Grave's Cardsphere page, it's great how we can choose between picking up the Edge of Eternities version at under $10 or blinging out our Dimir () Commander deck with a Borderless Galaxy Foil from Unfinity.

And finally, don't forget to join me next when I do this all again for Guildpact!