Many key Legacy lands are on the reserved list, for example, so a Legacy manabase can easily cost more than $2000.) Aware of this history, Wizards played it safe with MM1: conservative print runs, and an MSRP of $7 per pack, in the hopes of making a limited-release reprint set that wouldnt crater existing card prices
A creature token The challenge of gifts was that they had to be things that were generically useful
For starters, there's a whole lot of potential in the card itself, even if you want to just opt for the equally as beautiful, if a little less expensive, Legendary variant (which is valued at just under $6 right now)
On a naked board, you can toss a +1/+1 counter on something
A common concern at the time was making sure that players had some way to still impact the later turns of the game
On top of that, this card can potentially pay for itself with its Treasure creation and even copies instants and sorceries you cast