Reserved List cards and more, for your viewing pleasure.
Old sets are filled with diamonds in the rough – you trawl through sets like Visions and find powerful and iconic multiformat staples hidden away. You also, unfortunately, find a ton of weird, narrow and straight-up mediocre cards with absurdly inflated prices thanks to the Reserved List. Visions has a mix of both: it’s interesting to see the way in which the Reserved List has skewed prices, and how non-Reserved List cards still manage to fight their way towards the top. Let’s have a look at the 10 most expensive cards from Visions, those both on and off the Reserved List!
10. Griffin Canyon
Griffin Canyon
Visions, Rare
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For a long time, Griffin Canyon was little more than a bulk rare, and a copy wouldn’t set you back more than a couple of bucks. Then, in early 2021, there was a buyout that saw the price skyrocket to above $20, and since then the price has pinged between $10 and $20. Its most recent rise in price, to $15, was no doubt spurred on by the release of Zeriam, Golden Wind, one of the two total legendary Griffins that have been printed (the other being Zuberi, Golden Feather). After all, this card is only played in one deck – EDH Griffins – but that combined with its status on the Reserved List is enough to keep it at its current price of $11.
9. Femeref Enchantress
Femeref Enchantress
Visions, Rare
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It’s the same story with a lot of Reserved List cards: they’re cheap and unremarkable for years, then fall afoul of a concentrated buyout which results in an unsustainable price spike, the price comes down (but never as low as it was before), before eventually hitting another spike, rinse and repeat. Femeref Enchantress isn’t commonly played in most “enchantress” decks – only about five percent of them, according to EDHRec – but there is one EDH list that really wants this card: Satsuki, the Living Lore. Satsuki is all about putting enchantments, specifically Sagas, into the graveyard, and so Femeref Enchantress offers a nice little payoff there – although it’ll cost you almost $14 to unlock it.
8. Necromancy
Necromancy
Visions, Uncommon
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One of only a handful of cards in today’s article that isn’t on the Reserved List, Necromancy is a very powerful reanimation spell back from the days where reanimation spells were actually, you know, good. While it’s not a top-tier option like Reanimate or Animate Dead, it’s still included in most reanimator decks in Commander, because three mana to bring something back from the graveyard is still a terrific rate. Necromancy reprints can be found here and there thanks to its inclusion on The List, but it’ll take a proper, large-scale reprint to bring this card’s price down from its current position at around $14.
7. City of Solitude
City of Solitude
Visions, Rare
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The price history for this card tells a very similar story to the other Reserved List cards we’ve already talked about: spike, fall, spike, fall. This pattern has been enough to land City of Solitude at a price point of $17, which is baffling to me as it’s only really played in one extremely specific Commander deck, and even then only sometimes: Yurlok of Scorch Thrash uses City of Solitude to force people to float and then burn mana on other players’ turns. That doesn’t feel worth it to me, but Yurlok players play by their own rules, so maybe $17 for a marginal effect is worth it after all.
6. Undiscovered Paradise
Undiscovered Paradise
Visions, Rare
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I can construct a situation in which Undiscovered Paradise is actually a useful and beneficial card, but it takes a little bit of doing: you’re playing a multicolor landfall-based deck that can reliably play multiple lands a turn, and want a way to trigger landfall every turn. The card is perfect for Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait lists, for sure, and I could see people wanting to play it in decks like Omnath, Locus of Creation. But in order to get the most out of Undiscovered Paradise, you have to be able to consistently play extra lands, or you’ll never develop your mana – and you also have to be willing to pay $17.50 for a card with one of the narrowest use-cases you’re likely to come across.
5. Squandered Resources
Squandered Resources
Visions, Rare
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Unlike Undiscovered Paradise, it isn’t difficult to imagine situations wherein Squandered Resources might be useful. Decks like The Gitrog Monster and Lord Windgrace are always actively looking for ways to put lands in the bin, and Squandered Resources gives these decks a very profitable way to do so. This card synergizes very strongly with cards such as Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds and of course Splendid Reclamation, and is a strong inclusion in any deck looking to exploit both its lands and the graveyard. It’s a shame it costs almost $20, but hey, that’s the Reserved List for you.
4. Natural Order
Natural Order
Visions, Rare
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Another card not on the Reserved List, Natural Order is $21 because of its obscene power level and the fact that it is widely played not just in Commander but also in Legacy. Elves plays Natural Order to fetch Craterhoof Behemoth (and sometimes, these days, Atraxa, Grand Unifier as well), and Green Zenith decks also play it to fetch… well, just about anything, really. High power and high playability mean this card is in demand with a price tag to match, although you can pick up the Eternal Masters version of this card for a little cheaper, just under $17, while the Strixhaven Mystical Archive version is only $14.
3. Tithe
Tithe
Visions, Rare
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White is getting better and better at fetching up extra lands these days, but there was a time when Tithe was about as good as it got, along with cards like Land Tax and Gift of Estates. Tutoring two Plains cards for one mana isn’t bad, by any means, but is it worth a slot in the 99 in the days of Archaeomancer’s Map, Scouting Hawk and Deep Gnome Terramancer? Is it worth almost $23? One note in its favor is the beautiful art on the card (I wish we had more cards that looked like this), but… overall, I just don’t think Tithe is close to worth the asking price. It has trended down for the last few years, however, so maybe there’s some more downward movement for those rusted-on mono-white fans.
2. Anvil of Bogardan
Anvil of Bogardan
Visions, Rare
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Anvil of Bogardan offers a cheesy way to make sure you hit your Tinybones, Trinket Thief and The Raven Man every single end step, and also sees some play in decks like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, where it’s useful for a bit of extra life loss, and Tergrid, God of Fright, where it’s just nasty. Even this moderate amount of demand in EDH is enough to put this Reserved List card at $40, however, and so if I were playing Tinybones or The Raven Man I’d try to save myself a bit of cash and instead just stick with cheaper options like Necrogen Mists ($7) and Bottomless Pit ($1.60).
1. Vampiric Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Visions, Rare
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Our final card on this list does not appear on the Reserved List, meaning it must be a pretty good one. It certainly is, too – Vampiric Tutor is commonly seen in EDH, cEDH and even Vintage. Tutors are one of the backbones of Commander, and Vampiric Tutor is enthusiastically played there as its instant-speed nature gives it extra utility, plus the fact that two life isn’t much of a cost to pay when you start with 40. In Vintage, Vampiric Tutor is played in everything from Tinker to Doomsday to Paradoxical Outcome, helping to search up key cards for just one mana. All this means that even without being on the Reserved List, an original Visions Vampiric Tutor will cost you $56 – but again, there are cheaper options, such as Eternal Masters, or if you’re really up against it, the awful white-bordered monstrosity from Sixth Edition.