Now that Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth spoiler season has started for Magic: the Gathering, the community is entirely engulfed by it. If you want to see some of the new cards previewed today, check out our kickoff roundup here.
That said, Frodo’s appearance on MTG tables everywhere is not the only thing that this set has to offer. Also available are new LOTR Box Topper reprints of many MTG cards that players have been dying to see for a second time! Done similarly to the style first showcased with Godzilla cards in Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths, format staples are now accompanied by stunning LOTR artworks!
Many of these have massive price tags, meaning that there is some serious value coming in MTG’s biggest set ever! Let’s take a look!
How to Get MTG LOTR Box Topper Cards
Before we actually start looking at the Box Toppers themselves for the Lord of the Rings set, finding these Box Toppers is a bit more complicated than the average MTG LOTR card. In order to make sure you know where you can find these incredible cards for yourself, let’s review what we know about obtaining these LOTR Box Topper cards.
Revealed today during the MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth debut aftershow, Mike Turan revealed that the Realms and Relics LOTR Box Toppers would be available in traditional foil in a Set, Draft and Collector Booster boxes. Like any MTG Box Topper, you’ll get one per box. These are the randomized pack version of those since there are multiple LOTR Box Toppers you can open. Think Ultimate Masters or Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths.
In addition, in Collector Booster packs, you can find them as nonfoil cards and, with a higher rarity, in a Surge foil treatment.
A final note, these reprints will not affect the legality of the card overall. This means that the cards being reprinted here are not going to suddenly become Modern legal.
The Realms and Relics are iconic lands and artifact reprints that have been redone to represent elements of the Lord of the Rings lore. There are some seriously expensive reprints available here that players have been waiting for! Let’s take a look!
Ancient Tomb
Ancient Tomb defines Commander and Legacy at the highest levels. In exchange for two life per activation, Ancient Tomb gives players the ability to jump ahead on their mana curve with two colorless mana. This can lead to some incredibly powerful plays like the now-banned turn one White Plume Adventurer alongside a Lotus Petal in the Legacy format.
One activation of Ancient Tomb won’t amount to much, but this land lets you keep ahead of other players’ mana curve by offering two mana at a rate that many other lands would offer one. As a result, the card sees play everywhere it legally can.
This, combined with many reprints that now have limited availability has pushed the price of Ancient Tomb, according to TCGplayer, to $70 at the absolute lowest. Depending on the copy of Ancient Tomb, players can expect to spend as much as $300 on one of these.
The Great Henge
The Great Henge, originally printed in Throne of Eldraine, is a Commander staple for – really – any green deck that isn’t a cEDH one. The card offers everything the format needs wrapped up in an excellent package: mana advantage, card draw, board presence and lifegain. The card is a bit expensive to cast, but it can easily be reduced to a reasonable rate as long as you have a creature with a high Power. This made the card quite competitive back in its Standard days when combined with many smaller creatures. Currently, a copy of The Great Henge will run you about $60.
Wasteland
Most players won’t generally see a lot of Wasteland being played often, but that doesn’t mean the card isn’t good. Seen at some Commander tables and everywhere in Legacy and Vintage, Wasteland’s ability to destroy nonbasic lands without offering a replacement is format-defining.
While the card is definitely good and somewhat difficult to find, it doesn’t actually see as much demand as you may expect. Wasteland is fantastic in Legacy, but there aren’t a ton of people playing that format.
As a result, Wasteland’s cheapest variant on the secondary market goes for about $22 right now, which is still pretty decent.
Cavern of Souls
Cavern of Souls has a ton of reprints, yet the card is still worth around $55 at its absolute lowest. This is a tribal player’s dream, fixing for any color of mana for spells that have a selected creature type. The cherry on top, and the reason why this card is so expensive, is that Cavern of Souls prevents cards cast with it (as long as it adheres to the tribe of choice) from being countered. This gives tribal decks an additional dimension against Counterspell-heavy decks like Izzet Murktide in Modern.
Honestly, like all the other reprints of Cavern of Souls, I doubt this one is going to affect the secondary market cost of the card too much. Still, should you want a playset of these, it will likely lose some value right when it releases.
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Ensnaring Bridge
Ensnaring Bridge is a bizarre card that used to be much more prevalent in the Modern format. Able to prevent creatures from attacking with greater power than your hand size, Ensnaring Bridge is capable of stalling for ages. The card still sees some play in Prison Tron variants in Modern, but this is not a very popular archetype at the moment.
This, combined with a mediocre reprint in Double Masters, has reduced the cost of the bridge to $15.
Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
Ever since Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth established what could become a new cycle of abilities, players have been excited to see the other four colors get what black currently had. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, is the first card introduced after Urborg that fits within this cycle. This card gives all lands the Forest subtype, allowing everyone to tap their lands (including this one) for green mana.
Since this is also capable of affecting your opponent’s lands, there are some seriously nasty combos with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. Life and Limb, for example, turns all Forests into 1/1 creatures. All you need to do is something akin to End the Festivities and your opponent loses all their lands. Alternatively, Drana and Linvala would prevent opponents from ever tapping their lands.
Even though this card is quite powerful, the secondary market price isn’t too high. You can currently find copies for less than $10.
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Bojuka Bog
Eh, every one of these Box Topper packs have to have a dud. Bojuka Bog is a fantastic utility land that sees Modern, Commander and some cEDH play, but the card is a lot more readily available than many of the other cards on this list since its a common, meaning it only goes for about a dollar on the secondary market. The good news? It will be really easy for Commander players to find a home for this card and showcase its beautiful artwork.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Much like Cavern of Souls, Boseiju, Who Shelters All offers its owner the opportunity to spend mana and cast uncounterable cards. The cost is much higher this time, with two life needing to be offered. There’s also no fixing available with Boseiju, meaning players will need to use other lands to provide the colors to cast the spells that would otherwise be uncounterable.
There are definitely homes for this card in Commander and competitive formats alike (see Calibrated Blast in Modern, for example), but the card doesn’t have a huge demand, putting it at a $20 price tag for the time being.
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Cloudstone Curio
Another absolutely home-run reprint, Cloudstone Curio is a three-mana infinite combo piece that enables a ton of nonsense in the Commander format. This, essentially, can create a loop of enter the battlefield triggers as long as players have the mana to cast the cards being bounced.
On top of this having a lot of Commander potential, Cloudstone Curio has very few printings throughout its history, all of which are difficult to come by. As a result, at its cheapest, the card currently has a $50 price tag. That said, because a lot of this card’s secondary market value is based on scarcity, this reprint could have a surprising impact on Cloudstone Curio’s secondary market value.
Deserted Temple
Deserted Temple is a utility land that can have some interesting applications. This can be useful in decks that have lands that tap for multiple mana, like Gaea’s Cradle, or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, but it can be equally powerful to use multiple activated abilities of another land in the same turn. When used in conjunction with Maze’s End, you can both play and activate Maze’s End’s ability in the same turn. This could also lead to you activating Maze’s End, replaying it, using Deserted Temple, and activating it again.
This is the first time Deserted Temple has ever seen a reprint. Considering the card was initially printed in Odyssey, it having a significant value on the secondary market is unexpected. Worth about $20 at the moment, there is a high potential for this card to drop in price thanks to this reprint. This is because there is a good chance that a majority of the price tag for Deserted Temple is due to the card’s scarcity instead of demand for it.
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Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge is an absolutely fantastic land in Commander that also sees some play in Modern. Any sort of effects on a utility land is just another thing to do that an Island cannot provide, and untapping a Legendary Creature can be a big deal.
Minamo, School of Water’s Edge does not have a ton of printings right now, and those printings are not widely available. The card is also quite good, giving it a $20-$25 price on the cheap end at the moment.
Homeward Path
Homeward Path is another utility land that is very impressive in the Commander format. Taking control of another player’s Commander can be one of the most effective ways of dealing with it. Since changing a zone otherwise allows the player to reset their Commander to the Command Zone, taking control of it can prevent access of the Commander for extended periods of time.
Should this happen to you, Homeward Path grants an easy tool to undo it. There are a lot of other synergies that this can provide, especially with cards that give control of your permanents to other players like Humble Defector and Dubious Challenge. These synergies, combined with the fact that this has never been printed outside of a Commander product up to this point (with exception to a Judge Promo, which is even more scarce), gives it a $15ish value.
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The Ozolith
The Ozolith is one of the many incredibly powerful cards originally printed in Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths. The card is featured in, really, any Commander deck that has some sort of counter synergy, and sees play in Modern via the Hardened Scales archetype. As such, there is a sufficient amount of demand for this card.
Seen as a fantastic upgrade for many preconstructed Commander decks, The Ozolith grants the ability to become a hub for any counters you may lose. Should a permanent die, the counters, instead of disappearing, can be moved onto The Ozolith, which can then be moved onto another creature at the beginning of combat. This can stack up incredibly fast, making each creature you play a massive threat.
For now, The Ozolith goes for about $25 on the cheaper end of things.
Shadowspear
Shadowspear primarily gets its price tag from its competitive viability in the Modern format. Searchable via Urza’s Saga, Shadowspear can make a difficult board situation easy to solve. Granting Lifelink, Trample, and a small buff to any equipped creature, Shadowspear makes any common Modern threat into a serious consideration. Just one swing of life can put the game out of reach.
Because of the card’s Modern applications, Shadowspear is under a heavy amount of demand. The card is also a decent Commander option in equipment decks that consider it. However, like The Ozolith, Shadowspear’s original printing was from a set released not too long ago. As a result, this card is only priced at $20 on the low end of things for now. Shadowspear has seen some relatively inaccessible reprints before this one, and the Commander demand for it is much lower than for a card like The Ozolith.
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Rings of Brighthearth
Rings of Brighthearth, once upon a time, had a very expensive price tag attached to it. Power creep combined with a strong reprint in Commander Legends has bumped the price of this card down significantly. Regardless, if you have a deck with a lot of meaningful activated abilities, Superfriends, perhaps, this card can still bring a significant amount of value to your EDH game.
Rings of Brighthearth is the other current miss in these LOTR Box Topper cards, only retailing for $3ish at the least.
About Half of the LOTR Box Topper Cards Revealed
Included here is about half of the Box Toppers that will be featured in the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. So far, there are a ton of decent hits with a few really strong options like Ancient Tomb and Cloudstone Curio (though the Curio may see a price decrease thanks to this reprint), a lot of midrange $10-20 cards and a few duds. This looks pretty promising as a result, but there is the potential for a few more stinkers to show up in the second half of these Box Toppers.
That said, the remaining Box Toppers could be even better than these ones (honestly, that’s pretty unlikely). Should the new LOTR Box Topper cards previewed next week be just as good as these, we could have some serious value on our hands. Of course, if the valuable cards in these toppers are too common, players should expect to see a price decline on many of the cards featured here. Ancient Tomb and Cavern of Souls will always have a significant secondary market price thanks to demand, but this amazing reprint could make them just that much more accessible.
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