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BISMARCK, N.D. (KXNET) — The Arabian Nights are over, and with that, it’s time to look at a different type of ancient artifact from Magic: The Gathering’s long history. In the case of Antiquities — a set entirely consisting of Artifacts and cards that mention Artifacts — we mean this quite literally.
After ancient powerful war machines from the Thran Empire are discovered on the plane of Dominaria, brothers Urza and Mishra utilize them in a tremendous battle for control of both halves of a mystical stone. This decades-long conflict would later play a major part in the history of the Multiverse, resulting in not only the apparent death of Mishra and awakening of Urza’s Planeswalker powers, but difficulties for Dominaria as a whole that would last for thousands of years — not to mention the unsealing of the Phyrexian Empire’s first iteration. Many of these events would be chronicled in tie-in novels, and sets of their own further on in the franchise (including a more fleshed-out depiction of the Brothers’ War in 2022) offered more in-depth looks at the time of darkness, the period of unease, and the Ice Age that the world went through as a result of the conflict.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that this is where MTG truly lept from a collection of unrelated fantasy cards to a game with its’ own lore and extended universe. Antiquities served as effectively the first major ‘story arc’ in the Magic’s extended franchise, at least, as far as booster packs were concerned, and has a special place in many players’ hearts for that alone.
For both story and mechanical reasons, Antiquities is one of the most intriguing of the early Magic sets — and much like Arabian Nights, some of the cards from it fetch a tremendous price. As we continue our descent into the most expensive cards throughout MTG’s History, let’s take a look back at the beginning of one of the franchise’s most famous and impactful arcs — as well as the five priciest pieces of cardboard that came out of it. As usual, the average prices for each of these cards were measured and tracked using pricing site MTGGoldfish, and based on the market value at the time of writing. Prices are rounded up to the nearest dollar value.
The most difficult part of this column, in particular, is not discussing the prices or history of Antiquities, but the uses of the cards. While some older cards take more explanation to discuss why their price tags are as large as they are, others tend to speak for themselves. Such is the case with Argivian Archaeologist.
The Archaeologist is one of the more straightforward cards in regard to its effectiveness. The ability to pay a cost as low as 2 White Mana to return any Artifact from your Graveyard to your Hand is still impressive after all these years, and perhaps more so with the recent influx of White cards that reward the player for constantly playing new Artifacts or replacing old ones (like Sram, Senior Edificier or Puresteel Paladin). This makes Archaeologist a strong addition to any White deck that focuses on Artifacts, ranging from Vehicle builds focused around Shiorikai, Genesis Engine to ‘Voltron’ builds based on piling Equipment cards onto a creature like Balan, Wandering Knight or Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh and swinging for the fences. There are a lot of uses for this, and it’s hard to go wrong with having such a powerful recursion effect available every turn for such a low cost.
While its effectiveness is undeniable, Archaeologist suffers from being an extremely high-priority target for other players, and one that is incredibly easy to get rid of thanks to its lack of protection. Despite this, he is still an unexpectedly powerful piece of support for Artifact decks, and one with a fair price tag of $195.
The latest MTG Set featured the reprint of a peculiar card known as Training Grounds — one which possessed the powerful ability to reduce the cost of abilities that other cards activate. While somewhat niche, this ability has an unexpectedly powerful side, and can help to create powerful combinations that can end the game in one fell swoop. But even before the more well-known instances of this power, there were cards that provided this same effect in MTG’s early days, as Power Artifact shows.
Reducing the cost of an activated ability is something that has actually seen infamy even in recent times — even putting aside Training Grounds, Zirda, The Dawnwaker has been making waves in the Commander scene with its own power to reduce activated ability costs. Power Artifact serves as somewhat of a powered-down version of the more recent versions of this effect, but this does not mean it does not still serve an effective purpose. In fact, it can still be used to facilitate many of the same combos that make Zirda and Training Grounds so deadly (including infinite Mana with Basalt Monolith or Grim Monolith), as most of the best cards to apply this effect to are Artifacts to begin with (Staff of Domination and Lithoform Engine being two examples). In decks that already use Training Grounds, this serves as a more localized version, and in a pinch, can provide the game-winning effect.
Power Artifact is by no means the best iteration of this idea (Zirda and Training Grounds not only affect multiple cards, but also cards other than Artifacts), but it does serve its purpose well, and it’s pricing is proof of that. A copy of Power Artifact has an average market price of $230.
‘Tutor’ cards, which allow players to bring the exact cards they want to the hand, are some of the most famous and respected in Magic: The Gathering — but rarer than those are effects that actively place the selected card directly onto the battlefield. Before we had the likes of Oswald Fiddlebender, Zur the Enchanter, and the many, many, many Green cards that can tutor Creatures onto the field, we had Transmute Artifact — which, while not having the same reusability as other effects, is still incredibly powerful (and exploitable) in its own right.
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As a general rule, any form of immediate tutoring is strong, and this is even more so the case when Artifacts are taken into consideration. Transmute is particularly noticeable for allowing the player to bring any Artifact, regardless of cost from their deck to the field, provided they pay any difference in Mana. This can be used to grab powerful low-cost Artifacts from the deck without issue, and if the player has enough Mana to pay the difference, can bring out higher-cost ones as well. Although it may seem that this is a relatively good trade-off, there are plenty of ways to exploit this — the sacrificed cards, both the old and new targets of Transmute, can always be brought back from the Graveyard through the abilities of Osgir, the Reconstructor or Emry, Lurker of the Loch. Players with more than one Artifact on the field can even utilize the likes of Goblin Welder to quickly swap between cheaper and more powerful Artifacts as needed.
While cards like Urza’s Saga and Arcum Daggson have their own versions of Artifact Tutoring, there are very few versions of this ability that have the versatility of Transmute Artifact, and it’s price tag only serves to ensure that this stays the case. Transmute currently sits as one of the most expensive early Blue Artifact support cards from the early days of Magic at $298, only being beaten out by Alpha and Beta versions of Copy Artifact.
While many people tend to love larger and more powerful Artifacts, sometimes, the cheapest are the best. What they lack in style, they make up in substance. Often times, Artifacts that cost little to no Mana are hailed as some of the best in the game — and even excluding already famous entries like the Power Nine and the universally-beloved Sol Ring, these cards can have both incredible uses and incredible price tags to go along with them. Candelabra of Tawnos is one such card.
This odd artifact is slightly more difficult to explain than the uses of others on this list, but there is a powerful reason for its price tag. For lack of a better way of phrasing it, this card essentially allows players to ‘trade’ any excess Mana they have to untap Lands. Not only does this allow for the transference of unneeded Mana into more useful colors by using it to untap basic Lands of the player’s choice, but it also allows them to possibly reuse the powerful effects of nonbasic Lands — including drawing cards with Bazaar of Baghdad or Library of Alexandria, putting more Lands onto the field with Thawing Glaciers, or recycling cards with Volrath’s Stronghold or Academy Ruins. The most obvious use for it, however, is to untap Lands that give more than one Mana — like Ancient Tomb, Temple of the False God, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Gaea’s Cradle, or Cabal Coffers — to greatly increase the overall amount of Mana one has for the rest of the turn. This effect was so powerful and popular that the card received a direct successor later in Magus of the Candelabra, although it is nowhere near the notoriety or power of the original.
Ironically, as is further reinforced by the heavy costs of many of these incredible Lands, it would seem that Candelabra’s use is amplified the more expensive your deck’s land base is — and that’s not even counting this card’s price on its own. A copy of the Candelabra can set a player back $900.
A list of the most valuable cards in MTG Booster Packs would not be complete without the inclusion of a Land, and Antiquities does more than follow in the footsteps of Arabian Nights with Mishra’s Workshop. In fact, this entry is more expensive than even the likes of the lands from Arabian Nights, giving it an infamy all its own.
As far as the card’s effect is concerned, the reason for its fame is quite simple: this is a land that allows you to gain three Colorless Mana instead of one colored for a simple tap, provided that this Mana is used solely to cast Artifacts. Considering the popularity of Artifacts in Commander and other formats where it is legal (where almost every deck in existence possesses at least a few Artifacts), it’s easy to see why this is such a coveted card.
The most obvious place that this card shines is in decks that focus entirely on Artifacts — where it not only helps to quickly place Mana Rocks or other useful cards onto the board, but also allows them to unleash game-ending cards like Blightsteel Colossus or Darksteel Forge (none of which actually require colored Mana to begin with) easily when combined with other sources of Mana. Even putting aside Artfiact-centered decks, though, many decks that employ Artifacts as important aspects and win conditions (like Ashnod’s Altar) or who benefit from Artifact Creatures helping boost other creatures (Metallic Mimic, Adaptive Automaton) can also utilize the Workshop to quickly get their combo pieces on the board. The biggest fans of this Land, of course, would be those that use Artifact Creatures as their Commander like Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter that can immediately descend onto the battlefield after it comes into play. Our personal favorite leader who gets the most out of the workshop would be Myr Tribal Leader Urtet, Remnant of Menmarch — who can not only play himself, but nearly every other Myr in the deck (save for their heavest hitters) as soon as the player’s first turn.
If this card received a reprint, we imagine it would see a lot more use, and quickly become one of the most dangerous cards in the Commander format — but its absurdly high price tag has thus far prevented this from becoming a reality. A trip to Mishra’s Workshop can set one back $3,247 at the very least.
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