Picture this: you're at your local Modern Horizons III Prerelease or Release event. You sit down at the table, ready to crack open your packs, start a draft, or engage in some other form of Sealed event with fresh new Play Booster packs of the new set. You crack open that first booster, and you are most hoping to open...

The Most Valuable Cards in Modern Horizons 3

Some players are truly cutthroat, hoping to win every match of Magic they play. They're the ones who research which cards are most powerful in a Limited environment in advance of the tournament. It's those stand-out cards they're most excited to open in a Sealed or Draft event. These are the Bonnie Pall, Clearcutter's and Overwhelming Forces of a set. Whatever it takes to win.

Other players (including myself), especially when a set first comes out, simply wants to open something valuable to help offset the cost of a draft. Often times, the two are not mutually exclusive - a valuable card will also dominate in a Limited tournament. Between the two, however, most of us are probably just happy to open something valuable. The more valuable the better.

What exactly are the most valuable cards you want to see inside your Play Boosters? Let's take a dive in and see!

Eldrazi Eldrazi Eldrazi!

Straight out of the gate upon the release of Modern Horizons 3, various Eldrazi and Eldrazi-related cards are topping the bill as most valuable. After seeing popular Eldrazi creatures top the price list from previous sets, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. Wherever you have gigantic, powerful creatures with wild abilities, you'll see demand.

The most valuable card (non-foil, non-alternate frame/art) thus far is Ugin's Labyrinth.

Technically, this mythic rare isn't an Eldrazi; it's a land. One quick read of the card, however, and you can see how synergistic the card is with Eldrazi creatures! This essentially acts as a Sol-land (kind of like Eldrazi Temple) as long as you have a colorless card with mana value seven or greater to exile when you play it. Most of the time, that's going to be an Eldrazi creature. Then when you're ready to cast the card, you can simply tap this land to return it to your hand at instant speed. In a way, this land doubles as both a mana accelerant and a way of protecting your game-winning card from hand disruption! It's no wonder this card is selling for over $50!

Speaking of cards selling for over $50, you also have Ulamog, the Defiler as one of Modern Horizon 3's most valuable cards.

That's right, Ulamog is back and has some new tricks up its sleeve! Simply casting this Eldrazi creature places a trigger on the stack that Traumatizes your opponent (literally and figuratively). This painful to deal with thanks to that oppressive ward cost, and if you there are any cards in exile (for example, put there by Ugin's Labyrinth) then Ulamog gets even more powerful! I'm pretty sure the most competitive players of them all wouldn't mind opening this card in a Limited event, and that ~$60 price tag is a nice bonus.

Next is a longtime fan favorite: Emrakul. This time, we have Emrakul, the World Anew, another twist on an old classic.

Emrakul, the World Anew is also in the $50 range, and I've seen a couple streamers play with this card in the Arena Early Access event. The card is backbreaking - even if your opponent can counter the spell or kill the creature, you still gain all of your opponent's creatures! Permanently!

Oh, and good luck killing Emrakul, the World Anew when it has protection from spells and permanents cast this turn. What a card.

One last Mythic Rare Eldrazi worth mentioning from Modern Horizons 3 is Kozilek, the Broken Reality. While this one is a little less expensive ($25-$30), it's still a solid card to open from a Play Booster. As a good rule of thumb, opening any Mythic Rare Eldrazi creature is likely to mean you've stumbled into something valuable!

Other Modern Horizons 3 Hits

While Eldrazi takes the first prize for bringing us the most valuable cards in Modern Horizons 3, they don't completely monopolize the list. There are a few other cards that are selling for over $20 in the early days of the set's release.

The most valuable non-Eldrazi card to open so far is Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student // Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar.

This card is part of a cycle of flip Planeswalkers, reminiscent of those we saw in Magic Origins. They start out as a creature with a cool ability, and then flip into a Planeswalker when a specific criterion is met. In Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student's case, she starts as a creature that Investigates upon attacking. Then once you draw a third card in a turn, she flips into Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar, a Planeswalker with an impressive suite of abilities. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is currently the most valuable of the flip Planeswalker cycle, selling for around $25-$30.

Another valuable Mythic Rare from Modern Horizons 3 is Ocelot Pride, a 1-drop White creature with First Strike and Lifelink. Being such an efficient creature that can hit the battlefield on turn one, this can quickly get out of hand by creating 1/1 Cat creature tokens whenever it connects with an opponent (triggering life gain). Then when you have the City's Blessing, you start getting duplicate copies. This $20-$25 card is a one-card army, and it's no wonder it's one of Modern Horizons 3's most valuable.

Then there are two cards with amusing callbacks to the "good old days" of Magic: Nethergoyf and Necrodominance.

Both are powerful Black cards retailing for over $20 upon set release. The former is a dark spin on Tarmogoyf - its mana value half that of Tarmogoyf, but it only counts cards in your own graveyard. Giving it Escape is a fun twist, but you need to be careful which cards you exile to Escape it or else your card may become less powerful. The latter is a twist on Necropotence, one of Magic's most historically broken cards. I see Necrodominance restricts your maximum hand size to five, something Necropotence didn't do. Is this enough to hinder the card's power, or will Necrodominance become a dominant force of Constructed play? Time will tell, but for now it's safe to say opening this card is a worthwhile endeavor.

Honorable Mentions

In terms of non-foil, non-alternate art, new-to-the-game cards, those I mentioned above are the most valuable to open. However, there are a couple groups of cards that certainly merit honorable mention for their value.

First, there are all the custom printings of the aforementioned cards. Ulamog, the Defiler may sell for over $50 in its normal printing, but its rarer and flashier counterparts are even more. Foil etched copies sell for around $80 and borderless variants are closer to $90! Then there are the retro-frame versions, which also sell at a nice premium to the baseline version. It's a wonder retailers can keep up with inventorying all the variations on each card from a modern day set!

Other special printings deserving mention for their value include Textured Foil Borderless Sorin of the House Markov, Foil Etched Emrakul, the World Anew, Textured Foil Borderless Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, and Textured Foil Borderless Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. Each of these cards are worth around $70 give or take a few bucks.

Last but not least, there are the most important reprints of the set: allied color fetch lands! That's right, Wooded Foothills, Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Windswept Heath, and Bloodstained Mire all got reprints at Rare in Modern Horizons 3. While not as valuable as the cards mentioned above, you can never feel bad cracking a fetch land from a booster pack of Magic, and I expect these to remain over $10 despite the reprint, with old-bordered variants commanding a nice premium.

Wrapping It Up

Modern Horizons 3 has a lot of new, exciting, and valuable cards worth opening! If you're sitting down at your first Limited event, this article highlights some of the most exciting cards to open in your pool. Granted not all of them are guaranteed to increase your win rate (though most of them likely would), but they are guaranteed to make your entry fee in the event effectively much cheaper!

Before concluding, I just want to remind players that the prices I cited above were in-line with roughly what copies have been pre-selling for on the open market. Retail prices would be higher, buylists will be lower. Most importantly, on average, prices will decline over the next few weeks as more Modern Horizons 3 supply enters the market. If you crack something valuable that you aren't interested in keeping, it may be wise to trade/sell your card immediately in order to maximize value.

Not every card will drop in price, mind you, and once Modern Horizons 3 is fully integrated into the Modern metagame, we may see a smattering of cards actually increase in price. If you think you can anticipate that metagame shift, more power to you. Either way, these are the cards most worth opening from Magic's newest set!