The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is an excellent set for collectors and players who enjoy opening booster packs. There’s a lot more to look forward to than simply the various new cards and reprints from the set in their traditional forms. For players that open draft, set, or collector booster displays, there are a wide range of box toppers to potentially open. Collector booster packs can come with cards featuring a special neon ink treatment, such as the unique variety of Cosmium art versions of Cavern of Souls.
For anyone opening set booster packs specifically, there is the added bonus of maybe opening an expensive card from The List. The List showcases a wide range of reprints from throughout MTG’s history. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan has added a plethora of awesome cards to The List, while simultaneously removing very few high-end cards, making this a great opportunity for players itching to open product to find something special. Before we get into the solid additions to The List, it’s important to go over exactly what these cards are and where to find them.
What The List Is
List cards are a group of cards that can be found in the final slot of set boosters. Roughly one out of every four packs will have a card from The List in this last section. It’s easy to tell if you opened a card from The List for a couple reasons.
First, the cards will each feature the Planeswalker symbol in the bottom left corner to help differentiate them. Second, these cards can be from any point in MTG’s history, and will feature their associated set symbol, not the expansion symbol for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Similarly, these cards can range anywhere from common to mythic rare.
Notably, the legality of these cards is not changed. As a result, these cards will not become legal in Standard just for appearing on The List. With that out of the way, let’s look at a handful of pricey cards that were added and removed from The List for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
Read More: Surprise MTG Ixalan Promos Feature Trio of Constructed All-Stars!
Significant Additions to The List
The biggest new inclusion on The List, by far, is Dockside Extortionist. There’s no better plane for the elite Commander Pirate to see a reprint than in Ixalan. The card currently sits at $64, and with this reprint, the price may decrease at least a little bit. For such an impactful Commander staple, this is a big deal. Other excellent Commander-focused additions include both The Reaver Cleaver and Curiosity Crafter. These cards are currently worth $15 and $9, respectively.
If that weren’t enough, there are also a couple Modern staples that are being featured on The List. First up, we have Esper Sentinel. Esper Sentinel sees consistent play in Hammer Time in Modern, punishing players for casting non-Creature spells, including removal. Esper Sentinel is worth roughly $26. Second, we have Murktide Regent. This enormous Flier helped give rise to the Izzet Murktide archetype in Modern, dodging top-tier removal spells like Unholy Heat and Fatal Push. Murktide Regent sits at $15.
Read More: Top 5 Most Expensive MTG Pirates
Special Guests
As an intriguing part of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, there will be 18 Special Guests that can also appear in a List slot. These Special Guests appear as non-foil borderless cards in set boosters, while traditional foil versions can be found in collector boosters. Some of these Special Guests are quite valuable, adding to the potential for players to open pricey cards from The List slots.
The most valuable of these cards is clearly Mana Crypt. Mana Crypt is one of the best cards ever printed in the history of the game. Getting to add multiple mana with one card while spending no mana up front to cast it is incredible, and the potential life loss from Mana Crypt definitely doesn’t outweigh the advantage gained in most instances. Traditional copies of Mana Crypt in their cheapest form still sit at $140, despite seeing multiple reprints.
Beyond Mana Crypt, the Special Guests also feature Polyraptor. Polyraptor is a strange card that, despite costing a whopping eight mana, sees a solid amount of Commander play due to its combo potential. Alongside cards like Goblin Bombardment, you can repeatedly deal damage to Polyraptor, creating new copies of itself. Throw in a way to drain the opponent when Creatures die, such as Blood Artist, and you have a win condition. Polyraptor is worth roughly $28 in its cheapest traditional form.
Another Commander card featured as a Special Guest is Thrasios, Triton Hero. Thrasios is a great option to lead as your Commander, and it features one of the most powerful Commander mechanics in the game: Partner. This allows you to pair Thrasios with other Commanders with Partner and make use of two Commanders at once. As an excellent mana sink, especially alongside ways to generate infinite mana such as with Basalt Monolith and Power Artifact, Thrasios holds a hefty price tag of $17. Between these Special Guests and other elite new List additions, there’s now a lot more value added to these set booster slots.
Read More: New MTG Errata Replaces Tribal Spells, Nagas, and More!
Cards Removed from The List
Ketria Triome is part of a cycle of tri-color Lands with basic Land types. The addition of Triomes has greatly impacted numerous Constructed formats. Multi-color Leyline Binding decks make excellent use of Ketria Triome, especially in Modern. Cards that get reprinted on The List do often drop a bit in price, but Ketria Triome still holds a decently high price tag of over $9, according to TCGplayer market price.
While Ketria Triome is certainly a notable loss from The List, the biggest losses from the Wilds of Eldraine List are two unique Universes Within cards designed to remodel Secret Lair additions.
There were a few Secret Lairs, including the Walking Dead Secret Lair, that introduced some mechanically unique MTG cards to the game. After a few months, Wizards of the Coast created in-universe versions of these same cards to appear on The List. Despite having different names, they were functionally identical, and decks could still only utilize up to four of either variant.
Rick, Steadfast Leader from the Walking Dead Secret Lair gave rise to Greymond, Avacyn’s Stalwart. This Greymond version from The List, due in part to being a solid Human typal payoff with a limited supply, is roughly $41. In a similar sense, Gisa’s Favorite Shovel, the Universes Within version of Lucille from the Walking Dead Secret Lair, is worth about $11. These are definitely big losses from The List. Fortunately, though, there are plenty of fantastic additions to replace them.
Read More: Top 10 MTG Best Cards from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan for Constructed
