Amonkhet Invocations: Full Set Information

Steve Vrooman 3 minutes ago Collecting, MTG Cards

Spell Pierce | Illustration by Joseph Meehan

We live in the era of the bonus sheet. Not every premiere set has one, but they’re common enough to plan for how to deal with them in Draft since they show up commonly, sometimes one in every pack.

But before the bonus sheet boom, WOTC experimented with rarer inclusions, similar to showcase printings in Collector B oosters or serialized editions, like Post Malone’s The One Ring. This is the long and strange tale of the Masterpiece Series, like Kaladesh Inventions and Zendikar Expeditions, designed to incentivize opening boosters. We’re here for one of the last gasps of this series, the Amonkhet Invocations. Let’s dig up a bit of information, shall we?

Table of Contents show

What Are Amonkhet Invocations?

Vindicate | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

Amonkhet Invocations is a set of special bordered, foil cards that were randomly inserted into boosters from Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation, with a different list for each set.

Where Can You Get Invocation Masterpiece Cards?

Invocation maspterpieces are in sealed boosters from Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation, or you can buy them on the secondary market, especially from online card retailers.

How Many Invocations Are There?

There are 54 total cards across the two sets, with 30 in Amonkhet and 24 in Hour of Devastation.

Invocation Card Gallery

Amonkhet

Hour of Devastation

What Are the Chances of Opening an Invocation?

The chances are roughly 1 in every 130 packs, which is not an easy pull. The Command Zone opened 151 packs to get one when they tried.

The Most Expensive Amonkhet Invocations

The cheapest invocation right now is the otherwise bulk rare Threads of Disloyalty, the Invocation print of which clocks in at over $15. The 10 most expensive are more than $100. This is a function of their rarity, even given the number of folks who hate the frame.

#5. Consecrated Sphinx – $169

Commander and combo staple, Consecrated Sphinx clearly fits the frame and Egyptian thematics, with art by Lius Lasahido that, for my money, is the best art of any Consecrated Sphinx print. The sphinx is creepy and imposing, and unlike some Invocations, say, Thoughtseize, the art has never been reprinted in another frame.

#4. Pact of Negation – $182

A similar card with unique art is Pact of Negation, although I think the typical art for this card by Jason Chan for the first printing is quite good. Pact is useful in many circumstances. This card can functionally win games on the spot, which is a good time to unveil your groovy frame. At these prices it seems unlikely folks are regularly sleeving this up, but you never know.

#3. Daze – $224

You can pick up a Daze from Eternal Masters for less than $3, so this may be the highest premium for any Invocation printing. The Invocation Daze is just a phenomenal piece of cardboard. I have previously argued that Wrath of God was the prettiest Invocation. I may be revising that opinion. The blue-lit birds scattering over the glassy lake, come on! This is Richard Wright’s best art for MTG, and that’s saying something given his body of work!

#2. The Scarab God – $227

Creepy shadows ftw again! Grzegorz Rutkowski invites us to nightmare-land, with another shadowy figure emerging from the darkness. No hate for the excellent original The Scarab God artwork, but this pops. I am somewhat surprised to see what is frankly just a Commander card up here in the price stratosphere, but the Hour of Devastation gods are up on this list, perhaps as the most likely commanders out of the bunch. You have the virtue of looking at the card the whole game, most likely.

#1. Force of Will – $352

Force of Will is just a decent investment, it seems. The judge promo version, perhaps even rarer, is even more expensive than this. And I don’t find the Invocation art particularly compelling, although it's fine. Always a key card for a control mage, the top five here tells us that blue never goes out of style, baby!

Are Invocations Tournament-Legal?

Yes, as long as the card is legal in the format.

Why Were the Amonkhet Invocations Poorly Received?

The community seemed to hate the look upon release. As with most controversial MTG things, a Reddit search pulls up repeated complaints, but I think they boil down, most prominently, to the way the border of the frame morphed in this design. Kaladesh Inventions and Zendikar Expeditions each had non-traditional frames, but they had a clear black border around the edges. Invocations replaced that with a gold stripe along the top, an almost planeswalker style along the bottom, and a kind of proscenium structure for the frame around the art.

Some folks at the time thought it looked cheap or hard to understand, which was amplified by the decoloring of the mana symbols and the hard to read font that gestured toward hieroglyphs while following a short hieroglyphic element. I think all of this would have worked better if the frame didn’t feel unmoored from Magic design. These days, with special printings and Secret Lairs, I think they land differently.

Has the Invocation Card Frame Been Used Again?

A version was used for the March of the Machine Multiverse Legends bonus sheet for the card Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty. But this was heavily revised. The hieroglyphic gestures are gone and the name was more legible but also jarring once we all got used to Invocations! The mana symbols have color and the dual color treatment of the sides of the frame is just a lot more assertive than it was on the few multicolor Invocations, like Vindicate.

But I think the key is that they anchored the bottom of the frame in a classic black that weighs down the bottom. It looks more “normal”, but for me this is a mistake. It makes the three-dimensional stone window for the art look even more artificial. But perhaps I am in the minority there.

Wrap Up

Doomsday | Illustration by Jaime Jones

I am sort of nonplussed by all of these special treatments, but I’m also not much of a collector. I want the cards, and I want reprints of the cards I want. If you want to give me a bonus sheet so I see them more, great. I love the way the Retro Artifacts in The Brothers’ War worked. They showed up quite often, but there were much rarer, serialized versions for folks who wanted to chase that. Having to open three boxes to get a glimpse at one of the cards makes me feel like Charlie Bucket unable to afford chocolate bars, and it reminds me this is all just cardboard.

And I think many folks felt like that when the Invocations were released, and they sublimated that annoyance into aesthetic critiques. Because at that point, the aesthetics are the justification for the collector-bait practice. This is beautiful. This is special. You should try to acquire it. But… it doesn’t look like Magic to me. And the experience doesn’t quite feel right, which I maybe could get over by lusting after the slick Kaladesh Inventions Sol Ring in absentia, but if the card looks like an awkward mash of art and frame, like the Invocations Aggravated Assault, not so much.

I’m glad they went a different direction, at least for now. But it feels like this element of the thing is an increasing part of the experience. All that said, if I had one of these I’d love it. So take that as you will!

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Steve Vrooman

A casual MTG warrior since Ice Age, Steve would have liked to have seen at least one card with cumulative upkeep in Kaldheim. He likes to think he'd be in Lorehold, but it's probably Silverquill.