Wizards of the Coast was extremely careful with how they approached Modern Masters 2013. The set was their first full reprint release since Chronicles which notoriously went over extremely poorly back in 1995. This time around, though, they clearly got it right, and the set flew off shelves to such a degree that they ran it back soon after two years later with Modern Masters 2015. This set proved a little more controversial than the previous one, with the majority of its value being tied up only in the mythics, but that just means there's plenty of good stuff for us to talk about as we rank them all!

Ready? Let's dive in and get to ranking!

Number Fifteen

When Modern Masters 2015 first came out, players everywhere utterly lambasted the inclusion of Comet Storm in the set. The card had little monetary value and players cited it as a feel bad if you opened it over any of the other mythics in the set. In truth, the card was actually still a great card for Commander and Limited, just not so much for feeling like you were getting your money's worth. Given that, I feel it's much better than the bottom of this list might make it seem, but for a set like this meant for Modern appeal? It's definitely the weakest of the batch.

Number Fourteen

Much like Sarkhan Vol in Modern Masters 2013, Tezzeret here is more of an obligatory planeswalker inclusion to round things out. It had some solid Commander and Cube uses, but as far as Modern applications went there just weren't any. This led to it being viewed as a rather mediocre inclusion, even though the demand was there from certain niche spaces.

Number Thirteen

At the time, Iona was a solid inclusion, but not a terribly exciting one. Most of the time you'd never see it in Modern due to the lack of ability to cheat it out. If anything, its main sources of appeal were in Commander (it was still legal at the time), Cube, and Legacy Reanimator and Sneak & Show lists. For the main format this set is meant for, though? Not so much.

Number Twelve

Kiki-Jiki was still at an absolute high by the time Modern Masters 2015 released. Splinter Twin was still one of the most dominant decks of the time and while you certainly wanted the deck's namesake most, you still wanted Kiki-Jiki around as a failsafe. However, Twin was the much more needed card at this point. Kiki-Jiki's value had gone down earlier in the year with the banning of Birthing Pod killing Kiki-Pod strategies and this was also the card's third reprint in the past few years. Given that, seeing it back here was welcome, but much less so than some other in demand cards.

Number Eleven

A little over a year before the release of Modern Masters 2015, Bitterblossom was unbanned in the Modern format. It was prebanned at the onset of the format due to the absolute dominance of the Faeries archetype during Lorwyn-era Standard. Players realized as the format began to shake out, though, that Bitterblossom probably wouldn't have that great of an impact in the format and Wizards agreed, leading to its unbanning and causing massive price spikes. Reprinting it here was excellent and certainly a welcome inclusion, however Faeries fell off fast, and the card became a bit more of a fringe player than anything as time went on.

Number Ten

Compared to my Rise of the Eldrazi rankings, I ended up opting to separate out the eldrazi titans this time around. The first time around, seeing all three of them together was absolutely monumental and a masterstroke of contemporary Magic design. By now, though, they were fairly old hat and players knew where they stood on them by now. Kozilek was usually seen as the worst of the three, though it still remained one of the best creatures you could be doing at Commander tables the world over.

Number Nine

The second Eldrazi titan on this list, Emrakul gets knocked down a peg here comparatively simply due to the lack of Commander utility. Players needed to get their hands on copies of the other titans, but Emrakul was way lower on peoples' lists...unless they were a competitive Constructed player, that is. There it showed up in a pretty decent number of lists in non-rotating formats like Modern. Despite being the best thing you could do in terms of creatures, getting it onto the board was fairly daunting, making it still a bit more niche than other major role players on this list.

Number Eight

You love her, you hate her, but Elesh Norn was a slam dunk for a set like this. Barring Urabrask, most of the original Phyrexia praetors had some playability backing them. Sheoldred and Jin-Gitaxias were both popular Reanimator targets in Legacy, and they were matched with Vorinclex in terms of Commander utility. Elesh Norn had it best, though, seeing play in all of those spaces while also being a big player in Modern decks by providing a way to firmly close out games against creature decks. These days, we've had no shortage of reprints featuring this classic, but this was her first reprint and it was a big deal in the era.

Number Seven

In most Constructed instances, Emrakul was the place to be. Usually you were cheating it out or generating so much mana that the cost was irrelevant, making it far better to cast than the other two titans. It lacked in one key spot, though: Commander relevance. By this point Emrakul had long since been banned, so it fell to Ulamog and Kozilek to give you the big finisher that could shuffle back your deck in a pinch. While Kozilek's draw four was nice, Ulamog's indestructibility and blowing up any permanent was better for most. It was and still is one of the best Commander staples out there and still saw some Constructed play as well until the arguably better Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger would come out soon after.

Number Six

If you wanted to play Tron in Modern, there was one thing you absolutely needed: a playset of Karn Liberated. While this was eventually usurped by the mighty Karn, the Great Creator with War of the Spark, Karn Liberated completely dominated any game it came down in. If you got it on the board, it was often difficult to deal with and good luck if your opponent ever went for the game resetting ultimate. A hyper specific card for the format, but one that desperately needed the reprint it got here.

Number Five

Nowadays, it's hard to look at Vendilion Clique and take it seriously as a major player in Modern. In its heyday, though, it was far and away one of the best cards you could be playing in Blue-based lists. This gave it a sort of status among the big three of Masters inclusions of the era alongside Bob and Goyf, and Modern Masters 2015 was no exception. The new art gave players a new reason to seek it out as well, and it was as hot a card as ever the second time around in this set.

Number Four

Nowadays, Primeval Titan isn't worth a whole ton, nor is it quite as exciting as it once was. We're now almost 15 years since its initial release, it's long since banned in Commander, and it's more or less reached a classic evergreen status in formats like Modern and Legacy. At the time, though, Titanshift decks were all the rage, as were the budding Amulet Bloom builds that would later evolve into the current Amulet Titan lists. Primetime was an absolute staple of non-rotating Magic formats and its inclusion in this set was as fitting of a reprint as it gets.

Number Three

By this point, Mox Opal hadn't yet become quite the powerhouse in any particular deck that would lead to its banning. Players hadn't quite figured out (or had access to) decks like Krark-Clan Ironworks and Urza Thoptersword that would later dominate the format. At this time, though, Affinity was still a tremendously popular and powerful deck and people needed more copies of the Opal to fuel it. More importantly, this year saw the major breakout of the Lantern Control deck which utilized Opal, making it a powerful and highly in demand card. It was desperately in need of a reprint as its price kept going up due to this play in not only Modern but also Legacy, Commander, and Cube, and it was extremely welcome here.

Number Two

Prior to its reprinting here in Modern Masters 2015, Dark Confidant was pushing nearly $100. It was simply that highly sought after for anyone looking to play the format. At the time, it was essential for anyone playing Black-based midrange lists in the Modern format. This extended pretty cleanly over to Legacy as well, where it was also a tremendous powerhouse. If you were playing non-rotating Magic in this era, you needed Bob just as much as you did Goyf, making it a solid number two on this list.

Number One

By this point, Tarmogoyf is still holding strong as far and away the most in demand card from a Masters set. It was such a big deal that we ended up with the so-called "Goyfgate" when Pascal Maynard took a foil one over a card that worked better for his draft deck in the top 8 of the set's accompanying Grand Prix. It may have been all downhill from here with the impending arrival of Fatal Push in Aether Revolt, but at this moment in time, the Goyf was still king.

Paige Smith

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