Since its introduction in 2023, the MTG Special Guests range has been a consistent source of both great reprints and great art. While they’ve gotten rarer over time, this quality has rarely dipped, making it one of the last good sources of reprints we have left. Naturally, many of these cards are pricey too, offering massive lottery cards for specific sets in some cases. If you’re planning to open any in-universe MTG packs in the near future, these are the most expensive Special Guests cards to look out for.
10 | Subtlety
Printed in: Modern Horizons 3 (2024)
Price: $13-38
All five of the notorious Modern Horizons 2 Evoke Elementals made a comeback as Special Guests in the sequel set, representing a substantial value add. Subtlety is one of the best cards in the cycle, offering a free pseudo-Counterspell that sees a huge amount of play in Modern decks like Living End.
Subtlety also has a minor role in Commander, appearing in around 31,000 decks by EDHREC’s count. Notably, this isn’t hugely impressive, as the card is held back by the weakness of countermagic and the high Evoke cost. The card certainly has its niches in Commander, however, particularly in decks that care about mana value like Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow and Glarb, Calamity’s Augur.
This well-rounded playability fuels the $13 price tag on the regular Special Guests version of Subtlety, but the $38 value on the Textured Foil version is more down to scarcity. Special Guests are rare in Modern Horizons 3 anyway, only appearing in every 64 Play Boosters or 15.5 Collector Boosters on average. The Textured Foils are rarer still, however, appearing exclusively in Collector Boosters, and only in around 1 in 50 packs.
9 | Prismatic Vista
Printed in: Outlaws of Thunder Junction (2024)
Price: $40
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is a surprisingly high-value set in retrospect, and its Special Guests lineup is no slouch, either. Among the assorted heavy hitters here, Prismatic Vista stands tall as one of the best. While it’s not a fully-fledged Fetchland, since it’s only capable of grabbing basics, this is still a fantastic way to fix your mana. Thanks to this, the card sees extensive play in both Legacy and Commander.
Due to its relative scarcity, Prismatic Vista actually has a financial edge over most Fetchlands. Outside of its original Modern Horizons printing, the card has only appeared in rare variants like this one. As a result, you’re looking at a cool $40 to add this Borderless beauty to your collection.
8 | Field of the Dead
Printed in: Murders at Karlov Manor (2024)
Price: $42
While it looks innocuous on the surface, Field of the Dead is actually one of the most egregious design mistakes Wizards has made in the last decade. Getting a continuous source of 2/2 tokens on a nigh-uninteractable land proved to be incredibly powerful, in a wide range of formats. It was banned in the Standard of its day due to its synergy with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, and it later caught the hammer in Pioneer, Modern, Historic, and Brawl.
Field of the Dead is just as fearsome in Commander, too, thanks to its grindy long-term potential. In fact, the card was made a Game Changer early on in the new system due to its power and easy splashability. Even with this restriction in place, over 240,000 decks run the card in the format, easily justifying the $42 price tag on this fancy Borderless version.
7 | Endurance
Printed in: Modern Horizons 3 (2024)
Price: $9-42
Though it’s not as problematic as its cousins, Grief and Fury, Endurance is still an incredibly powerful Evoke Elemental. The ability to shuffle a player’s graveyard away is stellar hate against decks like Reanimator, whether you’re playing Modern, Legacy, or Commander. The card can also be used to protect your own graveyard from hate, too, or to enable wild combo loops in decks like Modern Yawgmoth.
Throw in a very reasonable base casting cost and Flash, and it’s no surprise that Endurance sees a ton of play in all sorts of formats. While hits to the card’s price due to reprints have brought down the value of the base Special Guests version, the Textured Foil one remains very expensive at $42.
6 | Sword Of Fire And Ice
Printed in: Bloomburrow (2024)
Price: $42
Sword of Fire and Ice is a prime example of a highly expensive card propped up entirely by Commander demand. In constructed formats, five mana to play and Equip this is just too much, but in Commander mana and time are far more plentiful. As a result, over 96,000 decks in the format enjoy the card’s blend of protection, removal, and card advantage, with Voltron and Equipment lists in particular running it in high numbers.
This continuous Commander demand has kept the price of the Sword high even through multiple reprints, so the $42 tag on this Special Guests printing isn’t surprising at all. What is surprising, however, is that this is actually the most affordable version of the card available at present.
5 | Scapeshift
Printed in: Outlaws of Thunder Junction (2024)
Price: $58
There aren’t many MTG cards prolific enough to get an entire archetype named after them, but Scapeshift is one of them. Paired with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, the card created a devastating land-based combo deck in Modern, which later evolved into the Amulet Titan decks we see today. There’s also a fairly successful adaptation of the deck in Pioneer, relying more on Lumra, Bellow of the Woods graveyard loops to win games.
Though it’s certainly best known for its constructed performance, Scapeshift is no slouch in Commander, either. Tutoring up multiple lands, with no restrictions, has earned the card a spot in over 108,000 decks. Because it’s so unique and irreplaceable, and because it’s only had one real reprint outside of this Special Guests version, Scapeshift is a seriously pricey card. This version will run you $58 on the low end, making it one of the biggest possible pulls from Thunder Junction.
4 | Solitude
Printed in: Modern Horizons 3 (2024)
Price: $34-67
With Grief and Fury largely out of the running in Modern and Legacy due to bans, Solitude is the most powerful Evoke Elemental still in the mix. Getting a ‘free’ Swords to Plowshares is huge on its own, but the fact that Solitude comes on a body really pushes it over the edge. This lets you pull off powerful tricks in Jeskai Blink decks in Modern, such as hitting Solitude with Ephemerate with Evoke on the stack.
Throw in a ton of play in Death and Taxes lists in Legacy, and Solitude is a seriously prolific card. It’s even reasonably popular in Commander, showing up in over 70,000 decks, ranging from Ashling, the Limitless to Winota, Joiner of Forces. As a result, the base Special Guests version from Modern Horizons 3 is around $34, and the Texture Foil is a whopping $67.
3 | Chrome Mox
Printed in: Aetherdrift (2025)
Price: $164
With full-on fast mana now considered a design faux pas by modern standards, the older pieces we do have carry more and more prestige by the year. While Chrome Mox isn’t quite as busted as Mox Diamond or Mox Opal, it’s still an absurdly powerful mana rock, and one that sees a ton of play in older formats. Both Legacy and Vintage run it regularly in a wide range of decks, and it’s a super-staple in most serious cEDH lists to boot.
Considering its power level and the incredibly low chance of it getting another reprint soon, Chrome Mox is one of the most expensive MTG Special Guests by a huge margin. On the low end, this banger will run you around $164, making it a big lottery card for the otherwise underwhelming Aetherdrift. The First-Place Foil version of this card takes that idea even further, selling for around $520 right now. Since this printing only appears as a Box Topper, however, it doesn’t really count as a Special Guest.
2 | Enemy Fetchlands
Printed in: Tarkir: Dragonstorm (2025)
Price: $40-420
Tarkir: Dragonstorm didn’t reprint the enemy Fetchlands in the main set as many players hoped, but it did include them in its Special Guests lineup. While not ideal, this still gave players a new way to access arguably some of the best lands in Magic. Since they can tutor up lands with basic land types for mana fixing, while also shuffling your deck and filling your graveyard, this entire cycle is widely played everywhere it’s legal. From Commander, to Modern, and even all the way back to Vintage, these lands are absolute must-haves.
Because these were printed here in regular versions as well as ultra-rare Dragonscale Foil versions, there’s a wide range of prices across them. The regular ones range from $40 for Marsh Flats, all the way up to $69 for Scalding Tarn. The Dragonscale Foils, which are only available in Collector Boosters at a 1% pull rate, go from Verdant Catacombs at $300 to Misty Rainforest at $420. On the low end, these prices are impressive, but on the high end, they’re some of the biggest tags Special Guests has to offer.
1 | Mana Crypt
Printed in: The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan (2023)
Price: $54-12,500
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan was the first MTG set to feature Special Guests, and it remains a high point for the initiative to this day. The big hitter here was Mana Crypt, an insane mana rock which, at the time, was a staple in every high-level Commander deck and most Vintage lists. The card was so good, in fact, that it caught a surprise Commander ban in 2024. While this dulled its value somewhat, Mana Crypt remains a pricey card to this day.
What’s really interesting about Mana Crypt’s Special Guests appearance is that it was available both as a regular Special Guest, worth around $54, and in five Neon Ink, Collector Booster-exclusive versions. These vary in terms of rarity, with green being the most common, followed by blue, purple, red, and then the three-color version. Exact pull rates on these are unknown, but all of them show up in less than 1% of packs.
These Neon Ink cards are seriously pricey, too, ranging from the green one at around $280 to the red one at around $1,020. The three-color version blows these, and all other Special Guests, out of the water, however, selling for a whopping $12,500. This printing is so rare that there are barely any copies or sales out there, but nevertheless, it’s the most expensive MTG Special Guests card by a huge margin.
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