Though it has not always been the case,Magic: The Gatheringhas four different rarities among the cards you find in the average pack, common, uncommon, rare, and mythic rare. While not the most flash of those cards, those of the uncommon rarity have certainly had their impact on the game.
With plenty of cards to pick from, more than 20,000 uncommon cards alone, we scoured some of the more underappreciated cards in Magic to find those worth the most.
These values are taken from TCGplayer.com’s Market Value and are subject to change over time. We also elected to forgo serialized cards in this rarity since they tend to fluctuate a lot in value.
10City Of Brass
Arabian Nights - $587.82
One of the earliest lands to let you tap for any color, City of Brass has a long history in Magic. A part of the curious lore surrounding the card is that the city is burning hot thanks to being entirely brass and in the middle of the desert, so the population is mostly made up of djinns and efreets.
City of Brass comes from the first real expansion in the game, one that had a complicated print run. Part of what is keeping the value of City of Brass high is the popularity of the Old School format, which prevents you from using cards that were printed past 1994, making it a valuable land.
9Sol Ring
Limited Edition Alpha - $549.99
You can’t ignore the power and influence behind Sol Ring. This little artifact adds two generic mana to your mana pool and has been in practically every Commander deck ever since it catapults you ahead of your opponents, especially early in the match.
You can tell a card is from Limited Edition Alpha thanks to their rounded corners as they’re the same size and shape as your standard deck of cards.
The Alpha version of the mana rock goes for so much mostly because of its limited print run and collector appeal. Plenty of players love those old borders, making them a collector’s piece over the years.
8Animate Dead
Limited Edition Alpha - $600.00
The original reanimation spell in Magic: The Gathering, Animate Dead is a unique Aura in that it enchants a creature in your graveyard,bringing it back to the battlefield. It doesn’t even have to be your creature either; you can snag a creature from any graveyard to make it yours.
While early Magic lacked many of the incredibly powerful creatures you see today, there were still a good number of targets back in the day like:
Given the strength of these cards, it’s easy to see why Animate Dead is still highly valued and highly played.
7Swords To Plowshares
Limited Edition Beta - $629.99
One of the best single-target removal spells in Magic, Swords to Plowshares is almost iconic for its level of efficiency and power. For just one white mana you get to exile a creature, removing it from the game forever. The trade-off is that your opponent gains life equal to that creature’s power, but that doesn’t matter much in a game.
Beta cards are similar to Alpha, in that they are black-bordered, and have neither an expansion symbol nor a copyright date, though they have sharper corners like every other set except for Alpha.
6Hypnotic Specter
Limited Edition Alpha - $857.38
One of the original boogeymen of Magic’s early days, Hypnotic Specter is a neat little 2/2 Specter creature for three mana that while initially ignored by early Magic players, quickly took over the game.
The Specter has an ability that forces your opponent to discard a card when they’re dealt combat damage by the creature. Pair that up with the card Dark Ritual, which adds three black mana to your mana pool for just one mana, and you can drop the Specter on your first turn. From there, you can start ripping your opponent’s hand apart with each attack.
5Demonic Tutor
Limited Edition Alpha - $934.99
Tutors are kind of like the bread and butter of black decks, letting you craft your hand depending on what you need or what the battlefield demands. There are no better tutors than the Demonic Tutor, a two-mana sorcery that lets you go get any card from your deck and add it to your hand.
This level of power makes the Demonic Tutor valuable no matter the printing, but the Alpha and Beta editions are the only two to top out at almost a grand.
4Sol Ring
Beta - $949.99
For years there was a stigma among players that Alpha cards were less playable than Beta cards, mostly because if you wanted to use them in a tournament, or even among friends, you needed to sleeve your deck thanks to Alpha’s more rounded corners.
This led to players preferring Beta prints over the Alpha ones, which can contribute to the large gap between the two printings. While fewer Alpha versions of Sol Ring exist in the world thanks to a smaller print run, the Beta iteration comes out on top.
3Demonic Tutor
Beta - $999.99
Much like the two early editions of Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor pulls double duty on the most valuable uncommon cards in Magic. This card is so strong that for years it remained out of print.
Its last main set printing was in 1994’s Revised Edtion, though it had two smaller printings shortly afterward. It wasn’t until it was printed as a Judge promo card in 2008, and then in a Duel Deck in 2009 did this card become readily available again. With so few cards out there among players, Demonic Tutor will only keep climbing.
2Bazaar Of Baghdad
Arabian Nights - $1,685.81
There is a paragraph of text on Bazaar of Baghdad and it all just boils down to letting you draw two cards and then discarding three cards. There are two very simple reasons why this land is so valuable: it was only printed in one set, Arabian Nights, making it a part of the Reserved List, a collection of cards from Magic’s early days that the company has promised never to reprint.
The second reason why this card tops the charts is that it isunique among all other lands, and because of that, is a necessity in Vintage decks like Dredge, which wants cards in the graveyard early in the match.
1Library Of Alexandria
Arabian Nights - $2,089.98
Speaking of incredibly valuable cards on the Reserved List that do an exceptionally specific thing, we have the Library of Alexandria as the most valuable uncommon in Magic for many of the same reasons as the Bazaar of Baghdad.
It is a part of the Reserved List, so the card will never be exactly printed on paper again. It can pop up as an oversized card or in a digital format, but other than that, the 1993 version of the card from Arabian Nights is the only way you may get this card on paper, making it an incredibly valuable uncommon card.
