Despite the set being mired in controversy, MTG’s The Zeta Set does look ludicrously valuable to open. Offering all kinds of $50+ mythics and a bunch of goodies at lower rarities, finding strong reprints seems quite easy. Thanks to the set’s playtest-inspired nature, there are even some crazy deep cuts within, including a card that hasn’t had a tournament-sanctioned reprint since Unlimited.
MTG Copper Tablet
If you’ve never heard of Copper Tablet, we wouldn’t be surprised. Because its last tournament-legal printing was 32 years ago, this card sees barely any Commander play, appearing in about 4,700 decks.
Thanks to dealing one damage to each player on their upkeep, Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin and Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls, turn Copper Tablet into a card advantage engine. Alternatively, Ghyson Starn, Kelemorph amplifies all the damage Copper Tablet deals, while Darien, King of Kjeldor can make the artifact a token generator.
With so much synergy on the table, Copper Tablet seems to be held back by its supply. Thanks to its extremely small print run, Copper Tablet costs $56 for players to pick up, if they can even find it in the first place. While this Zeta reprint is unlikely to fix Copper Tablet’s supply issue, it is one of the best cards to find in the set.
MTG Mox Tantalite
There was bound to be a dud Mythic in The Zeta Set, and it appears Mox Tantalite is that card. Despite the mana rock essentially offering free mana, its Suspend cost makes it anything but fast. Still, Commanders like Obeka, Cruel Chronologist, can speed this card’s Suspension along, while Otherwise, legends like Kellan, the Kid can cheat the card out, ignoring Suspend completely.
Frankly, even in its synergistic homes, you have to jump through a lot of hoops just to use a rather unimpressive payoff. Bafflingly, Mox Tantalite still appears in about 35,000 decks according to EDHREC, and has an average price of about $11.50. While this isn’t the worst card to open in a Zeta booster pack, it is far behind the rest of the Mythics revealed so far, which all go for $40 or more.
MTG Scute Swarm
Played in over 424,000 decks according to EDHREC, Scute Swarm is just as powerful as it is flashy. After getting six lands in play, Scute Swarm copies will start triggering exponentially, creating 64 copies of itself in just six land drops! Overwhelming the board with a Craterhoof Behemoth easily wins the game from here, but if you so choose, this silly Insect can even go infinite.
Whether you use Exchange of Words to swap Scute’s Swarm’s text with Mutavault, or Kodama of the East Tree and a bounce land, making infinite copies of Scute Swarm is surprisingly trivial. Considering its combo potential and Commander demand, it should be no surprise that this card has a decent secondary market value of about $9, to boot. At that price, this is a decent rare to open in The Zeta Set.
MTG Wheel of Misfortune
Despite the bizarre imagery attached, this might be the most easily understood variant of Wheel of Misfortune available. On the surface, this is just a wheel effect attached to a silly minigame, but this card’s synergies are far more potent with the right Commanders.
Combine Wheel of Misfortune with Pariah’s Shield and the new Smaug the Impenetrable, for example, and you can essentially generate infinite Treasures while drawing a fresh seven cards to cast. Alternatively, you can use Donna Noble with the Shield to deal infinite damage to an opponent of your choice.
Even if you aren’t comboing off with the card, Wheel of Misfortune is a decent inclusion alongside Commanders that want to get cards into the graveyard, like Magar of the Magic Strings. Thanks to all of its uses, Wheel of Misfortune is extremely popular in Commander, seeing play in over 127,000 decks. With a reprint value of $8, this is one of the best uncommons you can find in The Zeta Set.
MTG Chain of Vapor
Yet another banger uncommon, Chain of Vapor can bounce any nonland permanent on the board for just one mana. Between bouncing combo pieces threatening to win the game, or hate pieces stopping your own combos from going off, the sheer versatility of this card makes it extremely popular in Commander.
Thanks to this potential, Chain of Vapor sees play in a whopping 152,000 decks, mostly at the cEDH level, and it still feels underplayed. With its status as a Commander super-staple clear, it should come as no shock that Chain of Vapor has a secondary market value of $6.75 at the absolute cheapest.
MTG Mental Misstep
On top of having the undisputed best artwork in The Zeta Set, Mental Misstep is yet another amazing uncommon to find in your booster packs. It’s also an incredibly strong card, banned in Modern, Legacy, and even restricted in Vintage.
Since this card only costs Phyrexian Mana, Mental Misstep is essentially a free counterspell that breaks the color pie. In Magic’s older formats that have a surplus of one-mana cards, Mental Misstep would essentially be a free four-of in every deck if Wizards allowed it. Considering how miserable of a play experience this would be, this card will hopefully stay banned for a long time.
All of that said, Mental Misstep is still playable in Commander, where the format’s color identity rules stop Mental Misstep from sneaking into nonblue decks. Here, it’s an extremely common sight at cEDH tables, but sees far less success outside of that. Despite Commander being the only place you can legally play the counterspell, Mental Misstep still has a secondary market value of about $6.25.
As these cards demonstrate, a vast majority of Zeta’s rares, mythics, and even uncommons are surprisingly valuable. With this in mind, from a reprint value perspective, $19.92 genuinely seems like a fair deal for these booster packs. Sadly, this just makes their inevitable sellout and the dangerous implications of this product even deadlier. Hopefully, Wizards won’t use this product as an excuse to print more Secret Lair booster packs.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!