Gosh, we sure are a pile of entitled snobs, aren’t we?

As someone who wrote an article last year about From the Vault: Legends entitled ‘From the Vault: Disappointing,’ I was actually pretty shocked at how mixed the community reactions were to Wizards’ latest edition to the series. I remember last summer when Aaron Forsythe got up on the stage at PAX and promised us a return to form after From the Vaults: Legends, everyone was pumped. But judging by the reactions on my Twitter feed yesterday, the majority of you believe that he failed to deliver.

You guys are wrong.

The only bar that From the Vault: Realms fails to clear is the invisible one that you made up. Lands, after all, are often the most expensive part of any Magic deck, and there were lots of cards that could have been reprinted here that would have been total game changers. I assume that some of you were imagining walking into a retail store and picking up a box that had a foil Wasteland, Karakas, or even a set of Onslaught fetchlands. Heck, even a shockland or two with the Return to Ravnica expansion symbol on them would have likely been met with a daylong dance party at Gen Con.

Instead, we got, in the words of a friend, “Maze, Urborg, Vesuva, and a pile of garbage.”

If you are in the camp of players and traders who believe that, I urge you to take a deep breath and actually look at what we’re getting. Remember why you were so excited to get a set of lands in the first place? Because nothing holds value like lands do.

Take Strip Mine, for example. That card isn’t even legal in anything except Vintage, and it’s been reprinted a bunch of times over the years. Yet the foil printing in From the Vault: Exiled is up to $20! Even random durdle lands from old sets have way more value than most of the spells do. Miren, the Moaning Well is a $6 card with a $30 foil. Kor Haven is $6 and $50. Tower of the Magistrate is $10 and $60. These are all marginal cards with okay abilities, and they’re worth way more than you probably thought because people can jam them into their deck instead of a basic.

Of course, the value of a set like this is more complex than simply pointing out lands from the past that are good. Let’s take a look and see how it measures up historically.

Marquee History

Right now, the first two From the Vault sets—Dragons and Exiled—sell on StarCityGames.com for $150 sealed. Relics is a little less pricy—you can pick one up for just $120—and Legends is downright cheap at just $80 retail.

Realms is already selling higher than Legends, and I expect that will remain the case. The preorder price is $100, but it’s sold out. The cheapest ‘Buy It Now’ option on eBay, for what it’s worth, is a whopping $130.

Much of that is hype and bluster, but several auctions did actually sell in the $100-$110 range last night. While I expect the price of a sealed From the Vault: Realms to dip below $100 once copies actually hit the market, the long term price for this set should be far stronger than last year’s disappointing offering.

Last year, I compared the contents of From the Vault: Legends with the cards in the other three sets and quickly realized that From the Vault: Legends’ biggest problem was the lack of a marquee card. Dragons had Nicol Bolas, who still retails at a whopping $40 despite seeing play exactly nowhere. Exiled did it one better, giving us a $50 Berserk. Relics had Mox Diamond at $30, which everyone was very happy with. Legends gave us…Progenitus at $20.

Of course, those prices don’t tell us everything. People loved the Nicol Bolas reprinting because it put an amazing new face on a classic legend. Exiled gave us access to a $100 card that most players couldn’t dream of playing with until the reprinting. Relics virtually doubled the amount of Mox Diamonds available, dropping the price of a $40 card that was a very tricky four-of to get for Legacy. Legends…gave us more copies of a card that was easy to pick up for $10. Also, the new art was awful. Did I mention how terrible From the Vault: Legends is?

So how does Realms stack up?

I would argue that Maze of Ith is at least tied with Berserk for the top spot on this list. If Nicol Bolas were released today, tournament players would be howling that they were robbed and Commander/Cube players would be equally bummed that the ‘best’ card in the set was an unplayable Elder Dragon. Mox Diamond was nice for the Legacy crowd, but the card did very little for the casual contingent. Berserk was great for beatdown players of all shapes and sizes, but even that card is far more of a fringe playable than Maze of Ith. Berserk and Mox Diamond also have the ‘drawback’ of needing a playset to be useful. With Maze of Ith, you can do a lot with a single copy.

It’s true; Maze of Ith doesn’t have as many Legacy implications as something like Karakas. Getting more of those into circulation would have been nice. But Karakas is kind of a useless card to anyone who doesn’t play Legacy—it’s banned in Commander—while Maze of Ith is something that almost everyone has a use for. Not only does it see some Legacy play, but it goes in nearly every cube and Commander deck ever made. There’s a reason this foil is preselling at $50 and SCG hasn’t dropped the price of their original copies—Maze is a hot card. Heck, I traded a played copy of Maze for full $50 retail last week and had multiple other offers on it at the time.

But what will the new printing do to the value of Maze of Ith? Should you trade your copies now?

The Drop

Depending on who you ask, getting reprinted in a From the Vault set either has no effect on the value of a card or a major effect. We could argue about that all day, but I’d rather take a look at the numbers and see if any trends start to emerge.

Here’s the Black Lotus Project price chart for Mox Diamond. The red arrow points to the date when From the Vault: Relics came out:

Based on this, it doesn’t look like the set’s release did much to the price of the card. That said, Mox Diamond was spoiled a few months earlier, so it’s very likely that the price drop leading up to the set’s release had a lot to do with the tumble it took all summer long.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell what happened here in retrospect. Was that a soft summer for Legacy? Did fewer decks need Diamonds after that point? Results are inconclusive.

What about Sol Ring, another card in From the Vault: Relics?

Interesting. Not only did the set’s release have no release on the price of this card, it looks as if the additional copies drove the price up once everyone realized that the FTV allocations wouldn’t satisfy demand for the card.

Incidentally, the giant crash you see mid-2011 is the release of the Commander precons. This chart is actually one of the more interesting ones I’ve found, and it seems to indicate there might be some sort of ‘tipping point’ phenomenon where demand finally outstrips supply and the market for a card crashes all at once. This is probably worth exploring further some other time.

But I digress. Let’s do one more in From the Vault: Relics:

Again, it looks like the reprinting didn’t do much to the value of the original card. It may have slowed its growth, but if you owned a set of Vials in the summer of 2010 they’re pretty much worth the same amount today.

All of these charts simply reinforce what we already knew about supply and demand. Some cards, like Sol Ring and Aether Vial, have so much demand behind them that a limited release of additional copies won’t drop the price. It might retard further price inflation, but it won’t kill the value.

Other cards have their price more rooted in rarity, and these released have a profound effect on them. Mox Diamond, for example, was much more difficult to find than Sol Ring in the years before this set came out. But while the increased supply of Sol Rings didn’t feed all the demand for the card, it did pretty much mean that everyone who wanted a set of Mox Diamonds could get one. Thus, the price started to stagnate and drop.

This goes double for cards that are even rarer, like Sun Quan, Lord of Wu. Even though the retail price of the Portal Three Kingdoms version is still $15, no one will ever trade for your copy at anything approaching that. I’ve had one sitting in my trade pile for over a year now and haven’t gotten so much as a nibble.

This is also somewhat true for foil cards.

Unfortunately, there aren’t pretty charts for the value of foils. Pricing data on these from several years back is nearly impossible to find, so I had to break out my Google-fu to see what I could find.

In October 2009, a foil Aether Vial from Darksteel was worth about $25 retail, roughly what it is today. In the months leading up to Relics, however, that foil was up—way up—into the $50 range. I do believe that had this set never come out, that foil would still be worth many times as much as the non-foil copy.

Set foils generally hold a premium over promotional cards. For example, a normal Sensei’s Divining Top is worth $15. The From the Vaults foil goes for $30. The near mint set foil from Champions of Kamigawa? That’s sold out at $50.

Not only do most eternal players consider the set foil to be the more ‘pimp’ version, but many casual cube builders (like me!) vastly prefer the original art and feel. These cards will always hold a premium—the only question is how large that premium is.

There are a ton of players who simply enjoy foils. These people don’t really care where their four copies of Aether Vial come from and are more than happy to snap up the much cheaper promos. Once a promotional set like this comes out, demand for the originals softens up because all of these people are able to foil out their Legacy decks or cubes without having to drop $50 on the set foil. Even if the retail price stays high, trading these cards at full value becomes nearly impossible because the pool of buyers goes down by more than half.

So we know, then, that the From the Vault: Relics printing didn’t hurt Sol Ring’s price, nor did it seem to affect Aether Vial. But it did lower the value of Mox Diamond as well as the Darksteel Foil Aether Vial.

Since there are no easy answers, I think we should examine all of the cards in From the Vault: Realms one at a time and see if we can predict how things will shake out.

Maze of Ith

• Current Price (set card): $49.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $49.99
• Current Price (Judge Foil): $179.99

Maze of Ith is the marquee card in this set. Unlike Berserk and Mox Diamond, where players with no use for the card were happy to trade them to the Legacy crowd, very few players who buy this are going to part with their Mazes. This is going to make for a smaller supply of this card than most people think.

The Dark copies of Maze of Ith have been stable for a while now, and I don’t expect that to change. I do, however, see a drop in price for the judge foil. While the judge foil still has unique—and amazing—art, it is now no longer the only foil copy of this card available and the demand will soften considerably. I predict that this card will settle more in the $100-$120 range over the next year or so.

If the retail price of this card drops at all from $50, I recommend aggressively trading for these and holding them for a while. To me, the floor on this foil is $50 and the ceiling is $70-$80.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Current Price (set card): $19.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $19.99
• Current Price (Set Foil): $59.99

It is common for these promo foils to start out at the same price as the set card only to grow apart over time. The demand for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is lower than that of Maze of Ith, and I’d bet this release will temporarily drop the price of the set card down to $15 or so. I also think that this will drop the set foil price considerably—my guess is that it will be $39.99 before long.  

Eventually, though, this promo should sell for $5-$10 more than the set card. Urborg has many uses in all legal formats, and if the original stays in the $20 range, the foil should hit $30 without too much of a problem.

Grove of the Burnwillows

• Current Price (set card): $12.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $14.99
• Current Price (set foil): $29.99

Obviously, this card would be much more exiting if Punishing Fire hadn’t gotten the axe in Modern, but it’s still legal in Legacy and I have no doubt other combos with this card will pop up at some point. Demand for this one is likely going to be low for a while, but it will pick up again once this card returns to some sort of tournament relevance.

Price-wise, I expect it to be stable or dip into the $8-$10 range—demand for Grove is pretty low these days. The set foil is probably safe at $30.

Ancient Tomb

• Current Price (set card): $9.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): Unlisted

This is Ancient Tomb’s first foil release. It’s a four-of in Legacy and a Cube staple. Don’t sleep on this one.

While I don’t know what retail price this card will debut at, I expect it to be a $20+ card long term. Being the only foil version of a tournament staple is huge, and this will be the card I will be most aggressively trying to acquire on release day. I expect many casual players won’t have a use for it, but my sweet (terrible) Robot deck in Legacy uses four of them and my cube runs it, so I’ll need at least five copies.

Vesuva

• Current Price (set card): $9.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $9.99
• Current Price (Set Foil): $34.99

For those of you who dislike this set…

The fifth-most-valuable card in Dragons is a tie at $7.99: Thunder Dragon, Bladewing the Risen, Dragonstorm, and Rith, the Awakener. In Exiled, it’s Lotus Petal at $12.99. In Relics, it’s Isochron Scepter and Sword of Body and Mind at $9.99. In Legends, it’s a bunch of stuff at $5.99.

Wouldn’t you trade any of those cards straight up for a foil Vesuva? I sure would.

Forgetting for a moment the insanity of the Modern bubble and the Cloudpost banning, Vesuva has been a pretty steady grower in the $6-$10 range over the past couple years. While it doesn’t currently have too many tournament applications, it’s always on the verge of being broken while remaining a solid casual card. Noticing the trend? All three of the cards we’ve seen so far are great casual cards that are also playable and decent in tournament Magic. For those of you who think this set lacks cohesion, here it is. It is trying to appeal to the broadest player base possible.

The art on this card is amazing, especially in foil. I expect it will continue to steadily rise in value, probably into the $10-$15 range over the next few years, staying $5 or so ahead of the set card. The set foil isn’t outrageously priced either, and it shouldn’t drop too much from where it’s at—perhaps into the $25-$30 range.

High Market

• Current Price (set card): $6.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $7.99
• Current Price (set foil): $59.99

No chance this set foil is going to stay at sixty freaking dollars, even if it does have the old border. Commander players who want to pimp out their decks have another option now.

I do think this is one of the more underrated cards in the set, and I’d expect it to hit $14.99 long term. I love that this made the set because it’ll help introduce the card to a whole new group of Commander players who have been missing out.

Forbidden Orchard

• Current Price (set card): $5.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $7.99
• Current Price (set foil): $24.99

This is the first big miss in the set for me. Forbidden Orchard was an integral part of the old Oath decks, but much like Grove it’s a combo card that doesn’t seem to have much use right now. Casual players aren’t going to like the drawback, and tournament players are going to shove it in the back of their binders and forget it. Couldn’t this have been, say, Rishadan Port instead?

This card’s best uses are in Vintage where the set foil will reign supreme, so I expect that one to stay at $24.99. This version will probably drop to $5 or so unless it finds a new home.

Cephalid Coliseum

• Current Price (set card): $4.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $6.99
• Current Price (set foil): $12.99

One of my local game stores is Knightware in Studio City, which is home to many of the largest Legacy tournaments in Southern California. There also isn’t too much of a Standard scene. Because of that, local players who probably wouldn’t consider Legacy otherwise are drawn to play the format.

This means that cards for ‘budget’ Legacy decks like Dredge are much hotter here than most other places. I can never keep Cephalid Coliseums in my binder for more than a couple weeks.

Players aren’t going to want to run a single foil Coliseum, though, so these will only trade well in the first couple of days (to people building playsets) or as a playset later on. If no one at your LGS goes for a set or two, I recommend getting four of them together and then trying to move them all at once.

I don’t expect this release to change the price of the other versions of this card at all.

Windbrisk Heights

• Current Price (set card): $4.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): 4.99
• Current Price (set foil): $9.99

Did you have any idea the regular set version of this card was still $4.99? I sure didn’t. I remember when it was destroying Standard, though, so perhaps it has some Modern application. If so, these foils are worth thinking about. At any rate, these promos generally end up being worth at least 25% more than the set version, so this could end up more in the $6-$7 range. More likely, though, the set version will drop a little as the market gets more saturated.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All

• Current Price (set card): $4.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): 4.99
• Current Price (set foil): $19.99

The land foil premium strikes again! I remember trading for one of these set foils at a GP a while back. The guy valued it at $6, but told me it wasn’t for trade. I asked him if he’d trade it to me if I gave him double the retail price. He agreed, and I still ended up with a nice deal on a card I run in Commander.

That said, this seems like the sort of set foil that primed to fall thanks to the new release. I wouldn’t be shocked if the price of this card overall takes a bit of a tumble.

Dryad Arbor

• Current Price (set card): $2.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): 3.99
• Current Price (set foil): $21.99

This is $1 less than Boseiju…why exactly?

Not only does Dryad Arbor see a ton more play in both Modern and Legacy, this new version of it is absolutely stellar. The art is jaw dropping, and the templating is totally unique in the game of Magic. I’m picking these up without question, and I’d expect it to be an $8-$10 foil easily. I also expect the set foil to drop because this version is so much cooler.  

Glacial Chasm

• Current Price (set card): $0.75
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $3.99

Now is a good time to remind you all of The Valakut Principle.

Back during Zendikar block, Valakut spent a good amount of time as one-of, if not the best deck. Despite that, trading copies of the actual card Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was incredibly difficult. The card was only worth about $2, and it was stuck in my binder forever. Why was this?

Valakut Decks required Primeval Titan to function. Without that jolly green giant, the deck didn’t really work. And at the time, Primeval Titans sold for $40+ dollars. Thus, anyone who wanted to make the deck had to shell out a ton of cash and the barrier of entry was high. People who couldn’t afford Titans wouldn’t trade for Valakuts, and the people who could afford Titans generally already had their playsets of the $2 rare.

Glacial Chasm is a very narrow card. It’s sometimes run as a one-of in Legacy Lands, which is barely a real deck. The bigger problem is that the deck really does require The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to work. And that card sells for a whopping $325.00 in near mint condition.

What I’m saying is if you find someone who will take this card off your hands at any price, do it. You will see these rotting in binders for the next ten years.

Murmuring Bosk

• Current Price (set card): $3.49
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $2.99
• Current Price (set foil): $9.99

Have you noticed this comes with a Forest watermark? It’s very cool, and I bet it looks great in person.

This land sees play from time to time, so keep an eye on it. I’d expect the set version will drop to $1.99 as the market floods a bit, but it’ll jump the next time Wizards releases a decent Treefolk or two. I also would never count out Doran in modern.

Desert

• Current Price (set card): $1.99
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $1.99

It’s too bad Camel is immune to these, because that’s pretty much the only thing holding Desert back.

As it is, I’d honestly rather be stuck with the desert from Settlers of Catan.

Shivan Gorge

• Current Price (set card): $1.49
• Current Price (FTV Foil): $1.99

The new art is great. Too bad no one will ever use this card in a real game of Magic.

Conclusions

Not only do I think this From the Vault set is good, I expect it will only grow in value over time. The great thing about lands is how universally desirable they are—the demand for them is higher than any other type of card.

Long term, I like Maze of Ith, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, High Market, Vesuva, Grove of the Burnwillows, Cephalid Coliseum, and Dryad Arbor to maintain or increase in value over the long term. I would pick these cards up and hang on to them for a year at least. Even random cards like Boseiju, Who Shelters All might end up surprising us—lands are just that good.

I would set my personal buy price for this set around $75, and I would set my sale price around $110. Long term, I expect this to be up there with From the Vault: Exiled—multiple cards will stabilize over $20, a marquee card will be at least $50, and the set will retail for a solid $150.

It may not have the Wasteland or Karakas you were dreaming on, but you’re missing out if you ignore this set.

Until next time—

—Chas Andres