Judge &media promos

A promo is a Magic card that was never for sale. You judged a tournament, you showed up to a prerelease, you bought a box, you stood in line at a convention — and a foil you couldn't open anywhere else came with it. The DCI judge program started handing out foil thank-you cards in 1998, and for years those judge foils were the only shiny version of some of the game's most famous cards: Gaea's Cradle, Vampiric Tutor, Ravages of War, Edgar Markov. Prerelease and Friday Night Magic promos put alternate art in players' hands every few months; Grand Prix and MagicFest gave attendees an alternate-art Primeval Titan or Griselbrand for walking through the door.

Then there are the ones Hasbro sold at a comic convention. From 2013 the San Diego Comic-Con planeswalker sets reprinted each year's core-set walkers in black-on-black art — Jace, Chandra, Liliana, Garruk and Ajani the first year, the Amonkhet and War of the Spark casts later — in boxes that sold out on the show floor and have climbed ever since. A promo's value is a question of how few were made and how many survived sleeves and binders; every one here at $40 and up is photographed (front) so you can judge the edges yourself, and all are priced to the live market.