Hello folks, I hope that you are having an awesome day today! Today I want to follow up with my article on Tuesday where I looked at the factors that make a card expensive in Commander, specifically the leader of the deck. Given people's desire to have a nice version of their Commander, there are several factors as to why a version of a Commander is expensive. We looked at five factors in that article.

Today I want to look at the ten most expensive leaders for Commander. What are they, and what themes can we so for others?

After creating this list, I noticed three themes. Every Commander that makes this chart fits into one of three places:

Reserved Cards from Legends

Due to cards from the first sets having low print runs, these cards have a very, very low print run which drives up their price. Many of them have been reserved and thus cannot be reprinted again, which means that they are considered safe bets by the investing community, driving up their price. Finally, they are popular so they are highly demanded. The result is that three of the five factors mentioned in the article earlier this week apply to this list, and as a result, many reserved cards from Legends are making the cut today as the priciest in the game.

Underprinted Cards from Portal Three Kingdoms

The next place you'll see high prices was on the English side of Portal Three Kingdoms, a set that defines low print runs! Many of these cards that have not been printed in supplemental places over the years like Commander's Arsenal or Commander decks have a high price. They combine low availability and high demand. One notable exception to this has a lower value reprint but is still on our list.

Tribal Demand

Two leaders on this list reflect the best options for the most popular tribe in the game. These are the only two to make our chart that are not from Portal Three Kingdoms or from Legends. They are both expensive enough to make the top five, so these are very much a key part of this conversation.

How did I make this list? Great question! In order to make this list I searched various websites for in-stock cards. Some sites have cards ranked more expensive that others, my #10 and #9 were the most variable. My #10 was at #3 here at coolstuffinc.com but generally at the lower end of its set's price.

Also, in order to make the below list I am considering your lowest near mint price in English. Nicol Bolas from Legends can run you enough to make the cut below, but his Chronicles is just a couple of bucks. That's the price I considered here. Only the cheapest near mint version was considered for this list.

#10 and #9 and #8 - Lady Sun

All the first three cards on this set were cheapest at $59.99. Lady Sun was my biggest shock in this list due to how... not great she is. I can understand the other cards form her set, but not her. There are better cards than her that aren't on my list. But hey, this isn't my list, it's yours! You can tap her to self-bounce herself and another dork. You can use her ability to recur one of your dorks from something like aura-based removal, to reload an enters-the-battlefield ability or to bounce a foe. By self-bouncing, you avoid any Commander tax from using her. Note that due to her awkward timing, she cannot bounce something in order to save it from a combat trick or at the end of your turn or something you chump blocked with in order to save it or creature removal. There our good Lady Sun is!

#10 and #9 and #8 - Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen

People must like their Ladies. Note that Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen, makes sense to me. She does something unusual. She's an unblockable leader in a color that doesn't normally do that. You can toss Colossification on her and win in one hit. You can make a Voltron Commander around her and combine Green's love of mana and destroying most things with ways to make her big and go wide. This is a fun card, and I get it. I'm surprised that she's here, but I get it. Based on the place you are looking, there are sites where her English version is north of triple digits, but I found her for $59.99 as well.

#10 and #9 and #8 - Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed

This is the one exception to our list. Only Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed has a cheaper version that prices here. If this list had been made a few years ago prior to his judge promo he would have the clear #1 on this list, but now he's dropped. Nevertheless, he remains one of the class acts. Why? As you can see he's cheap and he rocks the virtually unblockable horsemanship. Nice. But it's the next ability that's special - you can sacrifice him and return any black card from your graveyard to your hand. Notice what word was missing from that ability? "Creature"! It doesn't need a creature to stop it from face-smashing goodness. Sure, you can recur one if that is what is needed. But not necessarily! Dark Ritual? Ambition's Cost? Vraska's Contempt?

Necropotence? Demonic Tutor? You get the idea! He is massively powerful in a Mono-Black build.

Now let's do our final Portal Three Kingdoms leader.

#7. Dong Zhou, the Tyrant

There was a time when I talked about how under the radar Dong Zhou, the Tyrant was. No longer! Now he is the strongest and most powerful leader you can lean into from his set, and you can see why with his unique ability to smash someone when he arrives to the scene. Someone's best creature is about to punch them in the face! Who? Let's find out! I like dropping him. Note that the damage he deals is not red but the color of the dork that smashed their owner, so it's direct damage from a red deck that may avoid some versions of damage reduction. Also note that the creature is dealing damage, so I have killed someone by having their Phage the Untouchable smash them for lethal damage. So much fun! I get your presence here.

#6. Rasputin Dreamweaver

At $69.99 is this powerhouse. Every time I think of this guy the DISCO song from the 1970s called "Rasputin" by Boney M. goes through my head. Rah-Rah Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen. Rah-Rah Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine. How can you not?

If you've never heard it, you need to!

Anyways, I digress, Rasputin.

He has a unique ability to arrive with seven counters that you can pull off and then make that sweet colorless mana so he is more mana on the back end than on the front. That's cool and you can run some Rasputin Dreamweaver combos around pulling off counters for mana. You can also pull them off to space yourself from some damage, although in a 40-life format I find I do that rarely. He loves proliferate, like Karn's Bastion, and you can get more counter for free every upkeep as long as you didn't get greedy and leave him tapped. Give hm vigilance to swing with him and get counters.

He is a powerful machine of mana-loving power. He also loves the color's blink and he is easy to build infinite mana shells around so enjoy him! Enjoy Russia's Greatest Love Machine!

All right, top five time!

#5. Sliver Legion

Hello, fans of Slivers! Clocking in at $74.99. I don't know why Sliver Overlord is so cheap as he's the best leader for Slivers. He's $19.99 for you budget minded Sliver players, but the Legion is valuable not only as a leader but in your Sliver deck.

According to EDHREC:

• Sliver TBA (See below) - 273 decks
• Sliver Legion - 54 decks
• The First Sliver - 1555 decks
• Sliver Hivelord - 446 decks
• Sliver Overlord - 1556 decks

Lots of Sliver love! As you can see, Sliver Legion doesn't appear to be run as a leader, which makes it the exception on this list. It's run more for its ability to power a win for Slivers than it is for anything else. Nevertheless, this heavy play has resulted in it making itself quite pricey on the market. Welcome to the club!

#4. Hazezon Tamar

He clocks in at $99.99, which is a lot of dollars. He's probably the most fun of any here. He gives you access to three colors and he loves ramp. On arrival he'll give you a number of tokens equal to his lands, so he is a lands-matter leader. He is also an easily answered maker of hordes as removing Hazezon Tamar also removes his army, so a single bounce, exile, tuck, or destruction ability ends the Hazezon lesson. Which makes him play fair. A lot of folks will lean into cards like Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots when they run him onto to reduce that, but those (and he) are still very answerable. He is also in the colors (Selesnya) that love tokens and include cards like Dictate of Heliod and populate that will help his going wide as well as green for ramping with his land loving ability. He is in the right colors and he's is all about fun. You are never sad when you lose to Hazezon Tamar.

#3. Gwendlyn di Corci

Look at this pricetag: she's $119.99! Unlike Hazezon Tamar, her random discard for no mana feels less fun for your foes. She's a cheap 4 mana and even without help from red's love of haste she can tap on turn five to begin the discard daisy chain. Until Tinybones, Trinket Thief arrived in Jumpstart, she was one of only a small number of dorks that could play into a discard shell along with casual hits such as Waste Not and Megrim. She is an awesome option for your discarding as well as controlling decks! And her powerful slate of three colors is not to be denied.

#1 and #2. Sliver Queen

She clocks in at $149.99, tying the next card. This Queen reigns supreme. She can make dorks for two colorless mana so you can make them very quickly and cheaply and ably. Unlike her mana cost, they don't require any colored mana. She was run as a target to fetch in Standard-legal Oath of Druids decks. You can grab her with Natural Order. Sliver Overlord[/card] can fetch her out and make Slivers with the leftover mana. She's a powerful stealer of hearts and she is on the Reserve List. She was the first five-color card and legendary leader so she will always have casual cachet for those reasons. Plus, she's good.

#1 and #2. Angus Mackenzie

$149.99 also. Going into this research, I guessed he would be the most expensive leader out there. And he is! But Sliver Queen has tied him, which is pretty cool. Anyways, let's look at the Fog Machine. This Fog on a stick can tap to Fog for a turn, which is quite powerful. Angus is perfect for any control build you may be thinking about running in Bant. You get access to everything from counters to Cultivates to removal of pretty much anything you could think of. Plus, Angus is a cheap 3 mana and can be dropped and used very early in the game. You may want to add in a few other Fog effects to make sure that people cannot gang up on you and swing at you multiple times forcing their way past his tap ability. Angus Mackenzie is no joke and is tied for the priciest Commander for right now!

Now let's talk about three cards that should have made this list and didn't that would be safe investments for next time:

Ramses Overdark is a very cheap leader with a cost under $20 on most sites. Given how unique he is and how restricted and rare from Legends he is, I am shocked he is not worth more cash. Grab him and make a deck around him today!

Sun Ce, Young Conquerer is worth roughly half of Lady Sun. How? He's unblockable which is cool for a leader. He brings a Man-o'-War ability to your leader, which is helpful. He was reprinted in a Masters set online and I have him as my leader of my Magic Online Commander deck and he's quite good in that role. Grab some!

Finally, Yuan Shao, the Indecisive is only twho-thirds the price of the better leaders from this set and is unique among red leaders with his reverse menace granting. He will give anybody with menace unblockable as they cannot be blocked by just one dork and cannot be blocked by one dork. Therefor nothing can block them! Enjoy the Yuan Shao'ing of your metagame.

And there you have it! What did you think of my list? Anything in here that surprised you? Have an awesome and safe day!