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Barely a year and a half after Wizards stated Ultimate Masters would be the final Masters release, they came right back to it with Double Masters. Wizards saw how much players loved the "all-in" strategy of Ultimate Masters and decided to double down, so to speak, with this set. Every pack had not one, but two rares in it, providing players with more opportunities to open powerful cards in their boosters. Naturally, this means a massive number of mythics, and thus plenty to cover for this week's mythic rankings article!
One note before getting going is that this set far and away has the most mythics of any set I've covered to date. As much as I'd love to cover the dozens of awesome cards in this set, there's simply no way I can cover all of them reasonably. Instead, I'm going to offer a simple list of the lowest 25 and then do a proper write-up for the top 15. This way this list can cover the cream of the crop while still acknowledging all the mythics simultaneously.
With that out of the way, let's dive in and get to ranking!
35. Maelstrom Nexus
33. The Scarab God
28. Sen Triplets
26. Vengevine
25. Arcum Dagsson
24. Batterskull
23. Dark Depths
22. Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
21. Sneak Attack
20. Karn Liberated
19. Land Tax
18. Darksteel Forge
17. Dark Confidant
15. Ensnaring Bridge
Love it or hate it, Ensnaring Bridge is a major player in several formats and that was even more true back in 2020. The card saw very frequent play in Modern as well as a solid amount in Legacy, making it a fairly in-demand card despite being a prison piece. The reprinting in Masters 25 a few years back helped the price a bit, but the reprint here brought it down to much more reasonable levels for the foreseeable future afterwards.
14. Mana Echoes
For quite some time, Mana Echoes had been a popular combo finisher in Commander, with the most famous example involving Sliver Queen. Unlike the majority of cards on this list that usually had one or two reprints at the very least, this was the first time Mana Echoes had seen a reprint ever. It was comically expensive prior to this and, while it dropped quite a bit at first, has since rebounded to once more be a pricey card. It was much needed at the time and if anything we may just be overdue for another now.
13. Sword of Feast and Famine
As you may have guessed with the earlier end of this list without write-ups, all five of the enemy colored Sword of X and Y cycle was reprinted here in Double Masters. War and Peace as well as Body and Mind were more strong Limited cards and former Standard powerhouses than they are good now, and Light and Shadow saw relatively lower play on average than the other swords that see play. Case in point, Sword of Feast and Famine. Getting to repeatedly force opponents to discard and simultaneously untap all of your lands makes the card a beating in not just Constructed but also in Commander, making it one of the better cards to pull in this set.
12. Trinisphere
Prison deck players continue to rejoice, Trinisphere was yet another card in desperate need of a reprint for all the same reason Ensnaring Bridge needed one. Both cards tend to see similar amounts of play in the same styles of deck, but Trinisphere had previously only ever seen two real printings in Darksteel and From the Vault: Exiled (plus Kaladesh Inventions if you count that). As a result, Ensnaring Bridge was already a fair amount more accessible, and so this cruel little artifact was looking for it much more.
11. Mox Opal
These days, this might seem like it's deserving of a much higher ranking given how powerful Opal has proven since the recent Modern unbanning. At this point in time, however, Mox Opal was still banned, and as a result this card was more of a consideration for formats like Commander and Legacy. As such, this card being reprinted was quite tremendous, but the impact wasn't quite as important as a reprint was in Modern Masters 2015 or would be now in a current release.
10. Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Fire and Ice is an example of a card that you might not think should be as high as it is on this kind of list, but when you think on it more, it makes sense. Like Sword of Feast and Famine, it's a reasonable inclusion in Commander, is a Cube staple, and has shown up regularly in Modern and Legacy events at different levels of play - and usually in higher numbers than FaF. That wide range of appeal has made it a fairly pricey option that was dying for a reprint, and getting one here along with the other four enemy color swords was extremely welcome.
9. Wurmcoil Engine
Nowadays, copies of Wurmcoil Engine are readily available. This is thanks both to The Brothers' War Retro Frame Artifacts bonus sheet and the lower relevance in Modern, you can find copies of this classic card for cheap. At the time, however, Wurmcoil Engine was seeing heavy play in Modern thanks in no small part to the continued popularity of Tron. The card was hovering around $25-30 at the time and was needed to help ensure those players had the copies they needed to play competitively.
8. Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Despite being a big expensive win-more card, casual players have always adored playing with Avacyn, Angel of Hope. When Double Masters released, the card was hanging around $50 and it really needed the extra printing to help with the demand. The price dropped thanks to the reprint, but not by much, where it steadily climbed up to nearly $60 apiece until later printings kept it at a more modest $40. The demand for this one is very real, and it proved to be an excellent addition for the set.
7. Blightsteel Colossus
Speaking of big expensive casual favorites, Blightsteel Colossus represents another in this vein of cards. Unlike Avacyn, though, Blightsteel Colossus sees far more play than just Commander, being a favorite option for players to get into play with formats like Cube and occasionally Legacy. This gives the huge beater a bit more range, and given how it was sitting around $80-90 shortly before the reprint, it proved imperative to get more copies out into the wild for players of all kinds. After all: who doesn't love crushing your opponents with a big one-shot badass?
6. Jace, the Mind Sculptor
By mid-2020, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was still quite regularly being played, leading to the card commanding a strong price tag alongside it. This reprint made it that much more accessible, while also providing a cool new borderless treatment to the classic art that became an instant smash hit for players looking to bling out their deck. Turns out he was still better than all.
5. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
Was Atraxa a pain to access on the price front? Not as much as some of the higher end cards on this list, however the reprint here was still crucial solely for availability purposes. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice has held the number one spot on the top commanders list for years, and getting more copies into players' hands was incredibly important as a result. Even now with this and other reprints, the card still commands a strong price tag as well.
4. Mana Crypt
Much like how I covered it in the Eternal Masters, Mana Crypt was a tremendous card in dire need of a reprint. The speedy growth of Commander over the years pushed the demand for this card over the top and made it extremely expensive as a result. For the most part, however, this generally represented only the competitive side, and as such, I feel there were still some other cards that were a little more in demand by comparison. Additionally, while the further reprint here was still much needed, the additional reprint of Mana Crypt in Mystery Booster 1 within the previous year definitely put a minor damper on this card's impact. Make no mistake, though: Mana Crypt remains far and away one of the most critical reprints this set had to offer.
3. Chrome Mox
Comparatively to Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox had similar demand levels, being used heavily in competitive Commander as well as Cube. The difference, though, was that Chrome Mox is also a card that sees a tremendous amount of Legacy play as well, where people need four copies and not just one. This made the card similarly as expensive and with an arguably greater demand, making this one a much more important reprint even if Mana Crypt still commanded a higher price tag.
2. Doubling Season
While Mana Crypt and Chrome Mox were largely cards for the more competitive side of Commander, Doubling Season was instead aimed at the much wider group of casual players. By now, we've seen multiple reprints in the last few years that have completely tanked Doubling Season's price and made it far more available. At the time when it was coming out in Double Masters, however, it was closer to being worth $100 a pop and that number was barely dented when the reprint came along. Suffice it to say, getting more copies into the wild was a huge deal for casual players the world over.
1. Force of Will
Once again, Force of Will was far and away the card players were most looking forward to being reprinted. If you played Commander, you probably wanted a copy to help shut down the serious shenanigans from your opponents. If you played Legacy, you needed a full playset. Copies were once again over $100 and this provided players with an outstanding borderless treatment that's still highly coveted to this day. The set was packed with tons of awesome cards in it, but none match the impact a second true reprint of Force of Will had.
Paige Smith
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