When it was announced that the Mystical Archive was returning in Secrets of Strixhaven, many MTG players were understandably excited. This is hardly surprising, considering the original Mystical Archive from Strixhaven: School of Mages was a fantastic bonus sheet. Offering tons of iconic and staple spells with stunning new artwork, this was one of the all-time great bonus sheets.
Thankfully, from the looks of the newly revealed spoilers, it appears that the return of Mystical Archive is following in the original’s footsteps. Today, Wizards has continued that this bonus sheet will contain multiple $67 reprints. While there’s still the usual assortment of bonus sheet chaff, the big cards here are well worth getting excited about.
Multiple $67 Reprints
Vampiric Tutor and Force of Will are some of the best reprints we could have hoped for in the new Mystical Archive. These are some of the most expensive, popular, and powerful spells in MTG that both see multiformat play. As good as Force of Will is, Vampiric Tutor is undoubtedly the better of the two spells.
So good that it’s banned in Legacy, and restricted in Vintage, Vampiric Tutor is the tutor. Offering any card in your deck for one life and two mana, calling this card a staple would be an understatement. Appearing in over 622,000 Commander decks, according to EDHREC, this tutor is simply the best in the business.
That said, Force of Will is no slouch either, as it’s the classic free counterspell of choice. Extensively played in Legacy and Vintage, this card has a huge presence in Commander as well. Thanks to this constant demand, the price of Force of Will is always high, as it routinely sells for $67, just like Vampiric Tutor.
While the price of these iconic cards is incredibly high right now, these new Mystical Archive reprints might finally change that. Since one Mystical Archive card appears in each Play Booster, the supply for these cards should increase dramatically. Even with these reprints being mythics, we can hopefully expect a long-overdue price drop.
Notably, Vampiric Tutor and Force of Will are new cards for MTG Arena. For better or worse, both these cards are bound to be prebanned in Historic, but they should be great in Timeless and Brawl.
A Bunch of Chaff
Sadly, while we can expect the returning Mystical Archive to contain some real gems, it’s not all $50+ hits. During the Secrets of Strixhaven debut livestream, the only other notable Mystical Archive reprint was Subterranean Tremors. Considering this card sells for just $7.50 on average, that’s definitely saying something.
Unfortunately, while Subterranean Tremors is somewhat expensive now, this new reprint will likely decimate its price point. This scalable board wipe doesn’t see play outside of Commander, and even there, it’s no staple. The only real upside of this reprint is that it’ll be a new card on MTG Arena, but even then, it won’t see widespread play.
After Subterranean Tremors, the value of the newly revealed Mystical Archive reprints gets significantly worse. Reprieve is the next most expensive card, and that only sells for around $1.60. Following this, there’s Smallpox at $0.39, but that card should at least be an interesting MTG Arena addition.
Lastly, it’s hard to see Giant Growth and Disdainful Stroke as anything other than Draft chaff. While both of these cards are definitely good in Limited formats, their value is nothing to write home about. Selling for $0.13 and $0.12, respectively, it’ll be hard to get excited about opening one of these cards. That said, the Mystical Archive does have one trick up its sleeve.
Silver Scroll Foil Mystical Archive Cards
For those who really want to bling out their Commander decks, there are also Silver Scroll Foil variants of Mystical Archive cards. Exclusive to Collector Boosters, this foil variant only appears in Japanese, and fairly rarely, too. While they’re nowhere near the level of serialized or ultra-chase cards, these foil variants should still be seriously pricy.
All in all, it’s very hard not to get excited about the Secrets of Strixhaven Mystical Archive already. So long as there are a few more high-priced and high-powered reprints, this could be the best bonus sheet ever. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what gets revealed during the rest of spoiler season.
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