Top 10 Most Expensive MTG Cards from Ravnica: City of Guilds

Can a Remaster set tank these prices?

Ravnica Remastered is just a few days away, and with it comes a ton of old favorites from one of Magic’s most beloved planes. I, like so many people, started playing Magic around the time it had a huge surge in popularity with Return to Ravnica, and both before and after that our visits to Ravnica have resulted in many fond memories and associations for boomers and zoomers alike. However, this one’s for the boomers as we’re going all the way back to 2005 and the release of the original Ravnica set to look at the most expensive cards from back then. There are plenty of familiar faces coming your way today – let’s get to it!

10. Copy Enchantment

Copy Enchantment

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

With a name like this, I expected Copy Enchantment to be a reprint of a weird Alpha card with 15 lines of rules text: “While playing Copy Enchantment, declare an enchantment in play on either side. Copy Enchantment acquires all normal characteristics, including color, of the declared enchantment; Copy Enchantment retains these characteristics even after the original enchantment is destroyed.” But no, Copy Enchantment is a Ravnica original, and still seems a good amount of play even today in various enchantment-themed Commander decks. Not all enchantress decks play blue, but those that do are usually more than happy to run a cheap and efficient clone effect like Copy Enchantment. If we’re talking cheap, however, you might want to look at the Enchanting Tales version of Copy Enchantment, which at $.50, is one-tenth of the price of the original.

9. Hunted Horror

Hunted Horror

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Hunted Horror is a lot better in multiplayer, compared to regular two-player games. You do someone a favor by giving them two 3/3s, then attack the rest of the table with your two-mana 7/7. As a Horror, this card is a staple of Captain N’ghathrod, but its stat line makes it absurd in decks like Varolz, the Scar-Striped or Lazav, the Multifarious. Like Copy Enchantment, however, cheaper copies can be found in more recent reprints: while the original Ravnica version is over $5, the Baldur’s Gate Commander version is under $.50.

8. Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

An ancient and iconic card, Birds of Paradise dates all the way back to Alpha and is one of the most famous and powerful mana dorks that has ever been printed. While nowhere near as played as it used to be (it was, at one point, one of the most common turn-one plays in Modern), Birds of Paradise has maintained a respectable cost reflecting its status as a veteran of more or less every format in which it has been legal: around $6. Today, outside of the odd inclusion in a Modern deck like Yawgmoth, you’ll find Birds of Paradise in cEDH decks, as well as mana-dork-focused lists like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy.

7. Breath of Fury

Breath of Fury

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

One of the more interesting extra combat effects, Breath of Fury can either be played straight in a regulation extra combat deck, or can be used to cheese out infinite combat steps. With cards like Otharri, Suns’ Glory or Goro-Goro and Satoru, you can set up situations where you keep chaining reattachments of Breath of Fury – it pairs extremely well with cards like Fervor to keep chaining attack steps over and over again. Breath of Fury is a very weird card that has only been reprinted once, in Commander 2016, which has helped to keep its price reasonably high, at around $7.

6. Life from the Loam

Life from the Loam

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Life from the Loam has had its ups and downs over the years as a mainstay of graveyard-based decks of all kinds. When Dredge was good enough for Modern, Life from the Loam became a format staple and surged as high as $30 or so. These days, you’ll generally only find it in Legacy and Commander, as one of the most important utility cards for decks like Lands or The Gitrog Monster. Life from the Loam has been reprinted a ton of times, but if you want the original Ravnica version, it’ll cost you just under $11 – compared with the current $6.50 price tag from Ravnica Remastered.

5. Chord of Calling

Chord of Calling

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Another constructed staple, Chord of Calling sees widespread play across multiple formats, principally Pioneer and Modern. In Pioneer, it’s important in decks like Amalia Combo, while in Modern you can still find it in decks like Yawgmoth. Outside of a year or two around 2013 and 2014, Chord of Calling has remained very consistently priced, hovering at or around $10 – and that’s exactly where you’ll find it today. This version is $11, and more recent reprints aren’t a whole lot cheaper: the best you’ll get is an M15 copy, at $11.

4. Dark Confidant

Dark Confidant

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Dark Confidant is one of those cards that is invaluable in a game of Spot the Magic Boomer. Mention this card to a Magic player and see what their response is – either they’ll dismiss it as underwhelming and underpowered, or go all misty-eyed for the halcyon days of Modern, 10 years ago, when this was one of the most terrifying two-drops you could face off against. “Bob”, as this card is affectionately known, has completely fallen off in recent years. Despite being an iconic part of Magic’s history, it just doesn’t see play anywhere any more, and while a copy might have cost you $80 back in 2014, today you can pick up this relic of a bygone era for just $12.

3. The Shocklands

Market Price: $20.66

Market Price: $13.99

Market Price: $12.86

Market Price: $15.16

Unsurprisingly, amongst the most expensive cards in the original Ravnica are the four shocklands that were included in this set. All 10 were printed across the whole block: Guildpact and Dissension – but it opened with Sacred Foundry, Watery Grave, Temple Garden and Overgrown Tomb. There’s not much to say about these cards: multiformat Constructed all-stars, they’re the best of the best when it comes to non-original-dual mana fixing. Despite plenty of reprints, they’re still between $15 and $20, they hold value like crazy, and are worth having due to just how useful they are across any non-Standard format. Shocklands are great; buy them, play them, love them.

2. Cloudstone Curio

Cloudstone Curio

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Here’s a weird one. Cloudstone Curio is, as I’m sure you’ll guess by reading its text, a combo enabler. It would take far too long to list all the stuff it enables – here is a list of over 400 potential combos – suffice to say that you can do a lot of different things with its triggered ability, from generating infinite storm count to winning the game on the spot. Cloudstone Curio’s price is in a bit of a nosedive at the moment – in 2022, this was a $60 card, while now it’s just $25 and set to fall further with the release of Ravnica Remastered. I would stay a long way away from this card at the moment, as its price is still not truly reflective of demand, and just let the dust settle on Ravnica Remastered before picking up a copy.

1. Doubling Season

Doubling Season

Ravnica: City of Guilds, Rare

Doubling Season is a massively popular card in Commander, where it’s played in all sorts of different decks: +1/+1 counter decks, token decks, planeswalker decks, the list goes on. It’s only recently that the price of this card has started to come under control – a year ago, it was over $90 due to just how sought-after it was. It’s less than half that now, but even with years and years of reprints, this card remains extremely expensive as a more or less mandatory inclusion in any deck that generates tokens or counters. Unfortunately, it wasn’t included in Ravnica Remastered, but hopefully the price continues to come down all the same so Doubling Season is more accessible for more players.