Are Modern Horizons 3 Collector Boosters Worth It?

Released just last week, Modern Horizons 3 is the latest Magic: The Gathering set, in a world where it seems they never stop releasing. While you may be looking ahead to the Assassin’s Creed universes beyond set, let’s take a moment to appreciate Modern Horizons 3 a bit more and take a closer look at it. We will examine the Modern Horizons 3 Collector boosters, and determine if buying these premium-priced packs is worth your time.

What’s in Modern Horizons 3 Collector boosters?

Magic’s collector boosters change with each set due to the changing card styles, and treatments they do for these packs. Each set has its own showcase looks, oddities, and different things Wizards puts into sets to get players to chase them. Let’s keep it simple here and take a look at what one can expect to open in these $40 (US) packs.

• 5 Rares
  • 1 Foil Rare or Mythic rare from the main set
  • 1 Rare or Mythic Rare from the Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks new cards (foil, foil-etched, extended art options included)
  • 2 Non-Foil Rares with ‘booster fun’ treatment such as borderless, extended-art, or retro frame treatment.
  • 1 Foil Rare or Mythic Rare that can have any treatment such as extended-art, borderless, retro framed, double rainbow foil serialized Eldrazi, foil-etched, traditional foil Special Guests, textured foil Special Guests or Double Faced Flip Planeswalker
• 4 Foil Commons
• 3 Foil Uncommons
• 1 Foil full art Basic Lands
• 1 Retro-frame common or uncommon, or full art Snow Covered Wastes
• 1 Foil retro-frame common or uncommon, or full art Snow Covered Wastes
• 1 Foil token

While Wizards of the Coast has an in-depth breakdown of collector packs, and different treatments this should help you get an idea of what you can find in the pack. Of course, this begs the question: what are the best opens you can get?

The Most Valuable Cards in Modern Horizons 3

With a newly released set prices are still fluid as sleepers are found, and overperformers discounted. Still, the set has already shown us some of what the most valuable cards are, and it’s adjusted for some early results. If it's mythic rare and eldrazi it's a good sign you have opened some money especially.

Ulamog, the Defiler has emerged as the chase rare of the set so far as we're seeing even the basic version going for $60.00 or more. While the pricest versions of these cards are the serialized versions, of which there are only 250 of each Eldrzi titan, the normal concept Edlrazi foils catch a pretty penny to with the foil concept version of Ulamog going for $200, and who knows what the serialized ones will go for (though it won't approach the One Ring's price).

It’s not only the concept Eldrazi versions that sell well though. As the more valuable part of the Eldrazi trio, Ulamog and Emrakul’s retro-frame versions are also commanding a hefty premium, and are among the most expensive cards in the set. These are cool versions of the cards, showing a pre-eight edition-esq look. Also here is Ugin’s Labyrinth, which you can expect to normally in decks with Eldrazi, and is a ridiculously good land in those decks.

The flip planeswalkers here show us popular characters at the moment of their sparking as Planeswalkers in the past. Sorin, Tamiyo, Ajani, and Ral have all picked up significant value in these borderless textured foil versions. This style of card was popular back when it premiered in Magic Origins, and it’s no surprise it’s popular here. Being powerful also helps with some even being looked at in competitive play.

Flare of Denial is a free counterspell, and it’s to no one’s surprise that it is going for a pretty penny with it likely to be played in all sorts of formats. If your blue deck has a decent amount of creatures (like Merfolk), you probably want to run it. Ocelot Pride combines three popular things: life gain, tokens, and cats, in a cool, efficient package for a magic hat trick. Kaalia is perhaps the most upscale version of an already popular commander.

What Did We Open in Modern Horizons 3 Collector Boosters?

Wizards were kind enough to send me several Modern Horizons 3 Collector Boosters, and I’ve gone through them all. I’ll be showing some of the more valuable things we found through the seven packs, so you can get an idea of what might be inside a collector booster even if you don’t get one of the lottery tickets of a serialized Eldrazi.

I got the cheapest Eldrazi titans in my packs, in the borderless concept eldrazi form. I think that Kozilek here is being a bit overlooked, as he fits both Eldrazi decks, and colorless decks in general. He provides an army in a box, disruption in a box, and card advantage in a box, all in one easy package. He also makes a great upgrade to the Eldrazi Commander Deck with the +3/+2 boost to colorless.

I started playing Magic: The Gathering in 2003, shortly after Scourge was released, so I have some fond memories of the retro frame, as I got many older cards in cheap bins as well. However, white cards have always seemed to get washed out with it, and it’s a shame for them that they didn’t manage to fix it a bit here, and it is one of the things the new border does well (also: putting the rarity in the corner making life easier for my colorblind self). As for Solitude itself, it’s one of the evoke elementals and is a very powerful card.

Flare of Duplication can here be seen as a reminder to check the price of the specific version of a card you have. While the normal version of Flare of Duplication will only run you a few dollars, and the baseline retro version is not too much more, this version has a premium. As for the card itself, it’s a decent new fork variant, and red can often have the creatures to sacrifice to play it for free, but remember it has to be a nontoken red creature.

As a character, Eladamri is an important part of one of magic’s most iconic storylines: the Weatherlight saga, but he’s been absent in cardboard form since Tempest was released back in 1997. Eladamri, Lord of Leaves is part of the reserved list so they can’t reprint him, but the chance here for a new card was taken. Eladamri, Korvecdal is a pretty sweet card, fitting right into Elf decks, while also useful in many other decks as a powerful card advantage engine and cost skipper.

One of the new ‘kindred’ cards as the type replaces the old Tribal card type, Echoes of Eternity requires significant dedication to the colorless cause with three colorless pips. For that though you get a pretty big return with a Panharmonicon-style ability and a free spell double for colorless. This can plug right into an Eldrazi commander deck, and this particular version of it is worth almost triple the cheapest version.

Is it worth it to buy Modern Horizons 3 Collector Boosters?

Opening Booster Packs in general is kind of like gambling: you never know what you might get. Looking at the prices of the cards I opened compared to the $40 price tag, only 2 of them ended up worth more than that today on TCG Player. Generally, it is better to buy singles of cards you want than to buy a pack unless you plan on drafting of playing sealed with it.

That said, there is something special about looking through a pack, and Modern Horizons 3 is a set with a lot of great cards  The cards in the set should hold good value for a while, especially as people move on because of the high overall power level, and some of the lesser talked about cards will increase in price. The modal double faced cards (with lands on the back) will help the value as the cards in Zendikar Rising are several dollars now, and the same is likely in a bit for some of the uncommons from Modern Horizons 3.

Should you buy a collector booster pack of Modern Horizons 3? No, probably not unless you get a lot of joy out of opening a booster. As far as sets to open collector boosters from though, this is a pretty good one with lots of neat treatments and cool cards.

Modern Horizons III Product used in the creation of this post was provided by Wizards of the Coast.