The Complete List of Serialized Cards in Magic: the Gathering

Last updated on April 6, 2026

Shivan Dragon | Illustration by Justine Jones

There’s no denying it: The hottest of hot cards these days are all serialized. In any set that includes them, they make up the most expensive cards that you can pull. In just a couple of years there have been multiple iterations, and they’ve subtly been printed in different ways.

What are the best of the best serialized cards, and where can you find them? How have they changed since they first appeared, and where are they going?

That’s exactly what we look at today, so let’s jump in!

What Are Serialized Cards?

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

A serialized card is a card that’s been printed as part of a limited run. A serialized card includes the total number of cards in that run plus a unique number to tell you where in that run the card falls. Every serialized card is unique, as the same number in the run is never repeated. There have been a variety of run sizes printed so far, ranging from 513 for The Thirteenth Doctor down to a single card for the 1:1 The One Ring.

Sometimes the artwork on the serialized cards is found on non-serialized versions, but most new serialized cards get their own artwork or frame to increase the specialness of the card, which seems like a great move.

The History of Serial Number Cards

Serialized cards first appeared on Magic cards in a fairly unusual way. In the Phyrexian Praetors: Compleat Edition Secret Lair, there was an incredibly small chance that you could open a serialized Viscera Seer number between 001/100 and 100/100, and the whole of the rest of the card was completely reversed. This was clearly a test of the concept of serialized cards in Magic, but to my knowledge, their existence has never been officially acknowledged by anyone at Wizards.

The first official serialized cards in MTG were the serialized retro-frame artifacts found in The Brothers’ War collector boosters. They’ve since shown up sporadically in sets, but often included in bonus sheets, particularly for Remastered sets (like Ravnica Remastered) and Universes Beyond sets (like Fallout). They’ve also shown up in special Secret Lairs given out at MagicCons. However, after a feeling that some sets were so flooded with serialized cards that they weren’t as special anymore, WotC changed tactics and moved to one featured card instead.

Headliner Cards

The Headliner development in serialized cards lets Wizards and collectors focus on one card for a set. The idea is that each set will have a specific card that will be the card that you want to pull, and a card with chase variants to look for. The first Headliners, Edgar Markov in Innistrad Remastered and The Aetherspark in Aetherdrift, were serialized with unique art, so if the 77 golden chocobos in Final Fantasy are any indication, Headliners will be serialized when WotC has a good reason to.

The idea was spawned from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and The One Ring and its many variants in that set. You can’t deny it caused a lot of buzz. Personally, I think this is a great idea, as in the past there have been criticisms that too many cards in a single set have been serialized. This way, there’s one particular card to focus on that box breakers will be hyped to find.

How Many Serialized MTG Cards Are There?

At time of writing there are 291 different cards with serialized versions, although there are one or two duplicates in that list, like Chromatic Lantern getting serialized versions in both Ravnica Remastered and The Brothers’ War. This means there are hundreds of thousands of individual serialized cards out there, although some have smaller runs than others.

The first sets that contained serialized cards make up the bulk of this, with up to 65 cards getting 1 in 500 serialized versions. However, with the advent of Headliner cards the number of serialized cards is expected to grow much more slowly, with a single serialized card printed for the whole set if any.

Where to Buy Serialized Cards

Serialized cards are a bit tricky, because they're usually sold by individuals who happened to open one, or on marketplaces where they tend to be a bit scarce anyway. AncestralMTG has a good selection of serialized cards. They've even got a complete set of Lord of the Rings including every serialized card (except the 1:1 The One Ring) for only a cool $1,000,000!

Sets with Serialized Cards

Headliner Sets

The following sets all have exactly one serialized card as part of the Headliner program:

• Emeritus of Ideation — Secrets of Strixhaven
• Bitterbloom Bearer — Lorwyn Eclipsed
• Traveling Chocobo — Final Fantasy
• Mox Jasper — Tarkir: Dragonstorm
• The Aetherspark — Aetherdrift
• Edgar Markov — Innistrad Remastered

Secrets of Strixhaven

Let's let you in on the secret behind Emeritus of Ideation. This card lets you cast the one and only Ancestral Recall. To do so, you need to prepare the creature which is a small step, but one that offers a little balance to an otherwise super-powerful spell.

One cool feature here is that the original artist is back. The Mark Poole art is the feature of the double rainbow foil that is only found in English in Secrets of Strixhaven collector boosters.

• Emeritus of Ideation

Final Fantasy

The Traveling Chocobo of Final Fantasy x MTG has a mere 77 printed with a serial number on them. Sure there are other colors but the most valuable treasure are the gold chocobos. These are limited to English collector boosters of Final Fantasy.

• Traveling Chocobo

Assassin's Creed

Assassin’s Creed had four serialized cards, based around the four historical figures in the set, and they were each printed as XXX of 500. These are:

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Mary Read and Anne Bonny
• Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh
• Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

Modern Horizons 3

The big cards (literally) coming out of Modern Horizons 3 were the three Eldrazi Titans, and these each received XXX of 250 versions with their original concept art. The serialized Titans were:

• Emrakul, the World Anew
• Ulamog, the Defiler
• Kozilek, the Broken Reality

Fallout

Fallout had the seven Bobbleheads printed as serialized cards with XXX of 500 versions. These were:

• Strength Bobblehead
• Perception Bobblehead
• Endurance Bobblehead
• Charisma Bobblehead
• Intelligence Bobblehead
• Agility Bobblehead
• Luck Bobblehead

Murders at Karlov Manor

Murders at Karlov Manor, being set on Ravnica, had seven of the guild leaders printed as XXX of 250 versions in the City treatment originally seen in the March of the Machine Multiverse Legends bonus sheet. These cards were:

• Aurelia, the Law Above
• Lazav, Wearer of Faces
• Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact
• Rakdos, Patron of Chaos
• Teysa, Opulent Oligarch
• Trostani, Three Whispers
• Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

Ravnica Remastered

Ravnica Remastered was one of the sets with the most serialized cards available, with a whopping 64 cards available in XXX:500 versions. These were all reprints in retro frames, including some repeats of cards serialized in other runs. Some highlights from the list are:

• All 10 shock lands
• Cyclonic Rift
• Birds of Paradise 
• Deathrite Shaman
• Krenko, Mob Boss

Doctor Who

Doctor Who had a unique approach to their serialized offerings, with each of the first 13 mainline iterations of The Doctor receiving an XXX/5YY version, with the exact number printed depending on which Doctor it was. For example, The First Doctor was XXX/501, but The Twelfth Doctor was XXX/512. Of course, the cards included here were:

• The First Doctor
• The Second Doctor
• The Third Doctor
• The Fourth Doctor
• The Fifth Doctor
• The Sixth Doctor
• The Seventh Doctor
• The Eighth Doctor
• The Ninth Doctor
• The Tenth Doctor
• The Eleventh Doctor
• The Twelfth Doctor
• The Thirteenth Doctor

Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

The Lord of the Rings set contained multiple runs of serialized cards. For starters, the most famous is the 1:1 The One Ring, which was sold to Post Malone by the person who opened it for roughly $2m. This is the most famous serialized Magic card ever, never mind just in the set, and it somewhat overshadows the rest.

Alongside the Ring, there were a number of Sol Rings printed in the style of the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans of the world, representing the Rings of Power forged for each race. They were printed in different quantities depending on the exact card. The Elves printing had 300 copies printed, as the Elves had three Rings of Power, Dwarves received 700 as they had 7 rings, and Human printing was printing as XXX/900 for their 9 rings.

The original run of Lord of the Rings Collector boosters also had serialized versions of the Realms and Relics cards, and the non-serialized versions could be found as box toppers. These 30 cards were printed as XXX/100 versions, and some highlights include:

• Cavern of Souls
• Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
• Karakas
• Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• Cloudstone Curio

But that’s not all! With the holiday release of the special edition Collector boxes, there were 10 rock poster versions of cards from the main set printed as XXX/100. Among others, these cards included:

• The One Ring
• Arwen, Mortal Queen
• Sauron, the Dark Lord

March of the Machine and Multiverse Legends

March of the Machine, representing the journey across the Multiverse and the defense against the Phyrexians, contained a bonus sheet with legendary creatures from across the multiverse. Each of these 65 cards has XXX:500 versions. Some of the more sought after (read: expensive) cards on this list are:

• The original five Phyrexian Praetors
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
• Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

The Brothers' War

The Brothers’ War was the first official printing of serialized cards, and it was hot out of the gates with all 63 of the cards on the Retro Artifacts bonus sheet included in their “sketch” printings. Some of the hotter inclusions were:

• Wurmcoil Engine
• Swiftfoot Boots
• Altar of Dementia
• Ashnod's Altar

Secret Lair

So far, the only Secret Lair with serialized cards has been the original surprise include of a reversed Viscera Seer as an XXX/100 include with the Praetors drop. Wizards seems not to want to include these in Secret Lairs, and they may want to keep them to hype up booster boxes to sell packs. Maybe Secret Lairs don’t need that extra hype?

Packs With Serialized Cards

Serialized cards are only found in Collector boosters and have been locked there even before Play boosters came about. In theory, they could show up in other kinds of booster in the future, but it’s unlikely as Wizards will want to keep something special for the most expensive boosters.

What Are the Odds of Pulling a Serialized Card?

The odds for pulling a Serialized card from a random booster pack is generally advertised as “less than 1%.” It’s difficult to find out more than that for your average set, but for the LotR set, we were given a little more information; the odds of opening the 1:1 The One Ring were less than 0.00003%.

I’ve heard anecdotally that there are around 3 million collector boosters printed for an average set (although special sets can have more). In the days of Headliner cards, this means that the odds of opening one of XXX/500 serialized cards is around 0.00017%.

How Much Do Serialized MTG Cards Sell For?

Serialized cards always have a good premium over non-serialized versions, but the actual value varies. Some of the cheapest, like some of the less popular ones, can be found for as low as $50, but the average card that has a base version in demand will be more like a few hundred to about $1,000. Of course, the most expensive ever was The One Ring which sold for a whopping two million dollars!

Should I Grade a Serialized Card?

Grading a serialized card is always a personal choice. Do you want to play with it? Because once it’s slabbed, you won’t be able to (although it can make a good commander). The advantage is obviously that it’s protected, and if you were to sell it there’s some guarantee to the buyer that it’s the real deal.

With serialized cards it’s an even more interesting question. As serialized cards are fairly unique, getting them graded doesn’t add much to the uniqueness. Of course, collectors will often want a slabbed card, so you need to weigh all of this up when you decide if you want to get a card graded.

What Is the Most Valuable Serialized Card? 

The 001/001 The One Ring is clearly the most expensive serialized card, and Post Malone bought it for $2 million. Who knows what it will sell for were he to ever sell it, as collector items like these really embody the “it’s worth whatever someone is willing to pay” mantra.

If you’re hoping to pull something nice and pricey, there are still plenty of options. For starters, not all serialized versions of the same card are going to sell for the same amount. A 001/500 is going to fetch a higher price than a random number in the middle like 364/500, and other numbers are more sought after, too. Lower numbers are generally more exciting, but if you open the biggest number in a run (like a 500/500), that’s usually worth more than a middling number, too!

We’ve also got some big sets coming up that might have some big serialized cards included. The Marvel universe is stocked with legendary items that we may see. I don’t expect Wizards to go back to the 001/001 well just yet, but we may see XX/010 infinity stones or similar, which would be more incredible pulls worth a pretty penny.

Wrap Up

The One Ring | Illustration by Veli Nyström

Love them or hate them, Serialized cards are very popular and very collectable, and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Wizards continues to learn how to do them well. They add excitement to opening those very expensive Collector packs. The publicity that came with The One Ring didn’t hurt, either.

Have you ever opened a serialized card? If you did, what did you do with it (after the initial shock, of course!)? Let us know in the comments or share your story over on the Draftsim Discord. Or share what you would do, as it feels like everyone would do something different.

That’s it for this one. I hope you enjoyed our little exploration of these special cards. I’ll catch you next time!

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you’ll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.