Magic: The Gathering - The 5 Most Expensive Serialized Cards

Numbered cards in Magic: The Gathering are considered one of the biggest hits you can pull from any set. Granted, these cards don't always skyrocket in value; the card itself and the set it comes from also need to be worth collecting, but if the stars align, a numbered card can be worth a life-changing amount of money.

We're going to look at the five most expensive serialized MTG cards according to TCGPlayer prices, using the higher of the most recent sale price or the market value.

All prices are taken from TCGPlayer (except #1) at the time of writing and are subject to change.

5 Emeritus Of Ideation - Numbered To 500

$2,900.00

This is the newest card on this list, and it just cracked the top five with a current value of $2,900. This value is most likely to shift over the coming weeks and months, as we don't yet know whether call copies have been found, and it is a card from the most recently released set.

Emeritus of Ideation gained a lot of intrigue during the Secrets of Strixhaven preview window for its prepared ability, which lets you cast Ancestral Recall, a Power Nine spell.

The artwork for Emeritus of Ideation's serialized variant was done by Mark Poole, who also provided the artwork for the OG Ancestral Recall all the way back in 1993.

A seven-mana 5/5 flying creature with a ward of two mana, Emeritus of Ideation is an intimidating card to see on the battlefield before Ancestral Recall, a one-mana spell letting a target player draw three cards, is even considered.

4 Palantir Of Orthanc - Numbered To 100

$2,999.99

This list is dominated by cards from the Lord of the Rings: Tales Of Middle-Earth set, and the first of those is Palantir of Orthanc. This highly playable artifact gains an influence counter at the beginning of your end step. You then target a player who decides whether you draw a card. If they refuse, you mill cards equal to the number of influence counters on Palantir of Orthanc. Then, the target opponent loses life equal to the total mana cost of the milled cards.

It's a classic Commander card in that if a player really wants to roll the dice and not let you draw a card, they could get extremely lucky, and you mill lands off the top of your deck, but if you just so happen to send some high-value cards to the graveyard, your opponent is going to be hit for massive life damage out of nowhere.

3 Elesh Norn - Numbered To 500

$3,999.99

Next up is Elesh Norn, a 3/5 legendary Phyrexian praetor with vigilance from March of the Machine, who effectively acts like the Rhystic Study of damage. That's right, any time a source of damage is dealt to you or a permanent you control, the controller loses two life unless they pay one mana.

You can also pay three mana and sacrifice three other creatures to transform Elesh Norn into their enchantment saga, The Argent Etchings, which cycles through three incredibly powerful chapters before transforming back into Elesh Norn.

It's a fantastic card to build a deck around, albeit it would need to be Mono-White if used in Commander, but a recent sale of this card has catapulted it into being among the most valuable numbered cards in MTG right now.

2 Aragorn, The Uniter - Numbered To 100

$4,599.99

Coming in second place is another Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth card, Aragorn, the Uniter. This awesome card has unique triggers for when you cast either a red, blue, white, or green spell, making it a very fun Commander to build around, but also one that will get you ganged up on at your table if your decks start singing.

It's no great surprise to see this list dominated by Lord of the Rings cards, but there is an argument for limiting numbered cards to just one per set as a headliner going forward. As cool as it is to pull a numbered card, it's even more special when there is a specific headliner for each set. Then again, some sets have headliner cards that are officially printed in a limited capacity but without a serial number, like the Infinity Stones, so the rules are fairly inconsistent.

1 The One Ring - 1/1

$2,000,000

A unique card in every sense, this one-of-one variant of The One Ring from Tales From Middle-Earth is in Post Malone's possession, who famously purchased it for $2,000,000 when it was discovered in a pack in Toronto.

However, it's still not the most expensive MTG card ever, with a pristine CGC 10-graded Alpha Black Lotus selling for $3,000,000 back in 2024.

Postie is a longtime MTG fan, having appeared in many YouTube videos playing Commander, and is known for attending events whenever his schedule allows. If you ask nicely the next time you see him in an MTG setting, you may even be able to take a photo with the card.