Key findings
- Odyssey introduced graveyard mechanics like Flashback and Threshold, shaping the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering.
- Cards like “Buried Alive” and “Nantuko Shrine” reflect the set’s focus on graveyard manipulation.
- “Entomb,” the most valuable card in the set, highlights the power of graveyard interactions in deck strategies.
Odyssey was the 24th set of Magic: The Gathering when it was released in October 2001, and introduced an entirely new region of Dominaria called Otaria. After the Apocalypse set concluded the long Weatherlight saga, Odyssey introduced entirely new heroes to the Magic storyline.
In terms of gameplay, Odyssey was the first set to explicitly include mechanics centered around manipulating your graveyard, and it introduced the popular Flashback mechanic (which allows you to play spells from your graveyard) as well as Threshold, which appeared sparingly in subsequent sets—including 2024’s Bloomburrow. Let’s take a look at the most valuable cards from Odyssey.
The card prices shown are all taken from TCGPlayer’s market price history for the past calendar year and may fluctuate over time.
10 Nantuko Shrine
Market price: $5.50
This green enchantment is an uncommon card, retailing for under a dollar before the release of Murders at Karlov Manor in 2024, but that set introduced the intriguing Slime Against Humanity variant, where “a deck may contain any number of these cards.”
If you play this card (which is great for a Commander deck) with a Nantuko Shrine in play, you’ll get a huge Slime token, as well as countless Squirrel tokens based on the number of Slime Against Humanity cards in your graveyard. That’s certainly an interesting and fun synergy that leads to the price increase of this card.
9 Buried alive
Market price: 6.06 USD
Originally printed in the 1997 Weatherlight set, this black sorcery fits perfectly with Odyssey’s graveyard shenanigans theme. It also pairs beautifully with many resurrection spells—especially those that allow multiple corpses to be pulled out of the graveyard at once.
This card has been reprinted a few times over the years—including in 2024’s Modern Horizons 3—but Odyssey’s edition is the only version with an old border and Greg Staples’ iconic artwork depicting a poor soul who, as you’d expect, is buried alive.
8 Price of Fame
Market price: 8.12 USD
In old MTG sets, cards were printed that severely ruined entire strategies, and this red enchantment is a prime example of one of those cards. Destroying a land when it is tapped on another player’s turn is an incredibly powerful effect, and when this is in play, games grind to a halt as people mostly stick to playing cards on their turns.
Playing spells at instant speed is in Magic players’ blood, but this card forces you to rethink every play on your opponent’s turn, or simply acts as a sponge for targeted or mass removal, allowing players to revert to their standard strategies.
7 Seize the day
Market price: 9.04 USD
Extra combat step spells are almost always extraordinarily powerful (a look at the price of Karlach, the popular MTG companion from Baldur’s Gate 3, proves that), and this is the only one of those spells that can be played from the graveyard.
This means, hypothetically, that you can untap a single creature twice and chain together three consecutive combat steps if you have 5 colorless mana and two red mana. This ability pairs well with a creature with a super-powerful attack trigger—like the grinding abilities of Lord Xander, the Collector or Ulamog, the Unceasing Hunger.
6 Terravore
Market price: 9.06 USD
The long-standing creature type Lhurgoyf saw a resurgence after the release of Odyssey, and the green addition to the series was Terravore—a creature whose power and toughness can quickly increase when paired with cards that shovel a lot of lands into the graveyard.
While the rare print edition of the card from Dominaria Remastered is available for a bargain price (under 20 cents at TCGPlayer), the rare Odyssey print edition will cost significantly more – probably because of the attractive vintage-style border.
5 Cephalid Colosseum
Market price: 12.27 USD
A land that lets you draw three cards? It’s Ancestral Recall on a stick! Of course, this nonbasic land forces you to discard three cards after drawing three, but for decks that exploit this disadvantage—like the ultra-popular, tournament-winning Psychatog deck from this era—it’s more of a boon than a hindrance.
Featuring classic illustrations by master illustrator John Avon, the Odyssey printing of this card has retained an extremely high price—especially when compared to the Modern Horizons 3 reprint, which offers the same illustration with a modern card border but sells for just a few cents.
4 Abandoned Temple
Market price: 13.00 USD
Uncommon nonbasic lands from older MTG sets almost always retain their high price on the secondary market, and this rare card from Odyssey fits that style of card perfectly.
This card has a powerful and cheap activated ability that lets you untap any land, and it blends in with powerful nonbasic lands like Gaea’s Cradle or Tolarian Academy, which can be tapped at once for tons of mana.
3 Corrupt Pact
Market price: 21.91 USD
This unique and intriguing Black Mage search card is a perfect addition to Commander decks that are all about finding that one card to save yourself or win the game outright, so it’s no wonder this card is priced above $20.
Commander decks don’t have cards with the same name by default, meaning you can use that card to get any card you want, whether it’s a final combo piece for infinity or a board wipe to reset the game, allowing you to come in out of nowhere and win.
2 Tarnished Citadel
Market price: 33.64 USD
As Deserted Temple shows, uncommon nonbasic lands retain their high price long after their release due to scarcity and novelty factor—both factors that contribute to the $30+ price tag for Odyssey’s Tarnished Citadel.
Essentially a worse version of City of Brass or Mana Confluence, this card was never reprinted until Mystery Booster 2, when it came out in a novel, white-bordered reprint. However, this card’s extreme rarity and massive downside likely contribute to its impressive price.
1 Burial
Market price: 36.30 USD
The most valuable card in Odyssey is this one-mana black instant spell that lets you search your deck for any card and put it in the graveyard. While this may sound counterintuitive, any deck that plays this card certainly has a reason to put cards in their graveyard.
Whether you’re giving your opponent a double whammy at the end of their turn with this card and then bringing back an extremely powerful creature on your turn with Reanimate, or fueling another graveyard-based combo, Entomb is the card that can find any card you need to get the ball rolling – all for one mana. It’s no wonder this version of the card fetches nearly $40 nearly 25 years after its release.
