Following the disastrous releases of Iconic Masters and Masters 25, Wizards killed off the brand after the release of Ultimate Masters. That proved to only last for a few years as we got Double Masters and Double Masters, which ended up being rousing successes. However, we may have gotten to that point once more with the release of Commander Masters.

While many players expected this eventually at one point, the eventual release proved to be one hell of a disaster. Many card prices inflated by a lack of real reprints absolutely cratered when the set dropped and the sealed was among the most expensive products ever released. It bombed - hard - and we've yet to see a true Masters release since.

Still, there are a ton of mythics in the set - many of which are tremendous reprints here. Today, I'm going to rank them all and discuss the top 15 cards! Additionally, for the sake of this article, I will be ignoring the Commander precon decks, because otherwise we'd be here all day.

With that, let's get to ranking!

• 35. Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 34. Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 33. Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 32. Bribery
• 31. Twilight Prophet
• 30. Urza, Lord High Artificer
• 29. The Scarab God
• 28. Savage Beating
• 27. Land Tax
• 26. Balefire Dragon
• 25. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 24. Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 23. The Immortal Sun
• 22. Craterhoof Behemoth
• 21. Grave Pact
• 20. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 19. Insurrection
• 18. Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 17. Neheb, the Eternal
• 16. Sun Quan, Lord of Wu

15. Spellseeker

One of the most oddball popular cards in the past was Imperial Recruiter - a card that let you tutor for a creature with power 2 or less. Then came Recruiter of the Guard which searched for toughness, not power. Now we got Spellseeker, which allowed you to find a spell with mana value 2 or less. This became an incredibly popular card in Commander and in Cube, raising the price to astounding levels with only one printing in the small release Battlebond, making this reprint pretty huge.

14. Archfiend of Despair

Speaking of Battlebond, we're running back to back mythics from that set! If your opponents are unable to deal with this huge demon, it will tear life totals to shreds left and right, thereby ending games fast. Best of all, it doesn't harm you, allowing you to gain lots of life and stay alive while your opponents are taken out in quick succession. This led to the card having a $50 price tag before this reprint brought it thankfully down to earth.

13. Morophon, the Boundless

Typal strategies are among the most popular ways to play Commander. For many creature types, there are plenty of legends you can use, but for several others, they have yet to have a legend they can build around. How do you let those people have their fun? Why, with Morophon, of course! This has led Morophon to become a red-hot legend in terms of demand and made it a must-get, which in turn makes it a huge reprint for this release.

12. Extraplanar Lens

Players love a good mana doubler, and Extraplanar Lens is an especially good one. While benefitting the whole board is something you often want to try avoiding, setting yourself up as the sole benefactor with snow-covered basics or Wastes can be huge. Perhaps most notable, though, was that this marked the card's very first major reprint ever since Mirrodin - a 20 year gap!

11. Loyal Retainers

One thing that Masters sets have tended to do by this point is find ways to reprint some of the rare and barely printed cards from Portal: Three Kingdoms. That's something we still see today, with Avatar: the Last Airbender including a few on the Source Material Cards bonus sheet. Here, we got a few really notable ones.

While Sun Quan, Lord of Wu barely edged out on my list of cards to talk about (a popular commander in its own right) Loyal Retainers was a huge get for its cheap recursive play for legendary creatures. This one saw a few minor reprints previously, but this was one of its first big ones, which made it a huge inclusion. Funny enough, between this and the 30th Anniversary promo that came out around the same time, the price on this card has totally collapsed, which just goes to show how important reprints can be.

10. Capture of Jingzhou

The set also brought one other huge reprint with it: Capture of Jingzhou. This marked another major Portal: Three Kingdoms card checked off with a reprint. Many players love this in particular for how useful it is to have extra redundant Time Warp effects in Commander. With just how many redundant effects exist, this full reprint also crashed the price pretty hard - which has proven to be a blessing for Taking Turns fans everywhere.

9. Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Players adore Avacyn as both a character and as a card. Is it usually win-more in Commander? Yes. Does it see any competitive play anywhere? No. Still, the demand for this sweet legend has remained incredibly high and no amount of reprints seem to be able to quell that demand and keep her price low. This one is and was very much one of the true Commander Masters of the set.

8. Finale of Devastation

Creature tutors are always popular, and so is Craterhoof Behemoth (who is lower on this list due to previous reprints). Combining them together into one card is sure to make for an absurdly popular card, and you'd be right! Not only has this amazing card become a mainstay of Commander, but it even saw some competitive play as a top-end for big mana combo decks. It was sitting around a cool $45-50 at the time of reprint and even now it still sits comfortably around $25 - showing that even this one reprint may not have been enough.

7. Smothering Tithe and 6. Doubling Season

Normally I don't group cards together to discuss - particularly when they're pretty different - but they share a common thread among them. They are both major staple enchantment events that commanded extremely high prices at the time, despite a handful of previous reprints for each. That alone makes them must-haves and huge reprint mythics for this release, with Doubling Season edging the higher rank for a higher price tag and less recent reprints.

However, it wouldn't be fair to talk about these without talking about the elephant in the room that came out just a few months later: Wilds of Eldraine. The bonus sheet for that set boasted several high profile enchantments - many of which had just seen reprints in this set...including Smothering Tithe and Doubling Season. This quickly made these feel so much worse and made the set look that much worse overall as a result, which really hurt the public perception of the release.

5. Demonic Tutor

Few cards define the Commander format quite like Demonic Tutor. The powerful tutor effect allows you to find anything for dirt cheap - a card so strong its banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Despite having multiple reprints by this point (including one in a $4 booster release), Demonic Tutor remained a high ticket item and one that just about every deck running Black needed. More copies were - and are - always welcome, making it a prime candidate here.

4. The Great Henge

It's somewhat shocking just how much of a powerful and expensive staple The Great Henge has proven to be. A Standard staple of its era, it has gone far, far past that into the value stratosphere for what it does in games of Commander. Not only does it come down cheap most of the time, but it generates mana, gains you life, draws you cards, and makes your creatures better. It really just does it all! No matter how many times Wizards continues to reprint this today, it's never enough, and this was no different, regardless of how massive a reprint it was.

3. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Ulamog feels like the odd one out among this set. Along with maybe Finale of Devastation, this represents the one true mythic of the set that has serious Constructed impact and had been desperate for a reprint. The card has been a mainstay of various Tron decks in Modern and has been limited in availability due to a lack of reprints - making this extremely critical at the time. Additionally, it had some fringe play in Pioneer, as well as the typical Commander and Cube play, and what you're left with is a staple that was begging for a reprint.

2. The Ur-Dragon

When it came to this set, many players lamented the fact that Edgar Markov - perhaps the most legendary creature in the game - wasn't in the set. Edgar wasn't the only major expensive high profile legend from Commander 2017 - and the game as a whole - either. The Ur-Dragon had been climbing high for some time thanks to players' love for dragons as a creature type. That made it easily the best legendary mythic that got a reprint in this set, but there was still one other card that managed to edge it out.

1. Jeweled Lotus

Few cards have been so hotly controversial and yet inspired such a wow factor as Jeweled Lotus. A straight up Black Lotus that only works in Commander? Hell yeah! As we all know, though, this story didn't end well. The card was banned along with Dockside Extortionist and Mana Crypt, leading to one of the lowest points for the MTG community perhaps ever, the dissolution of the Rules Committee, and the creation of the Commander Format Panel.

At the time, though? The card was well over $100 and scarce from a single pandemic-era printing. If there was a card more in need of a reprint in this set, I can't think of it, making it easily the best - and most significant - reprint of Commander Masters.

Paige Smith

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