Reserved List Revelations

The Reserved List is evil and is the reason older card prices go up, right? Well, sort of. Chas Andres harkens back to two years ago’s Reserved List prices and notices a strange pattern. His findings may surprise you…

By

When it comes to Magic finance, there is no topic as controversial or inflammatory as The Reserved List. The last time I dedicated an article to
the subject was September 2012, and hundreds of readers joined
me in expressing my dislike of this long-held WotC policy. Two years later, Magic players are as passionate and frustrated about The Reserved List as ever.
In fact, Mark Rosewater gets so many inquiries about abolishing it that he had to make an emphatic statement just a few weeks ago in the Blogatog FAQ.

For those of you who are new to the game or unfamiliar with the reserved list, here’s a brief history: back in 1994, booster packs were in high demand.
Alpha and Beta sold out immediately, as did Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends. CCGs were a brand new genre, and no one at WotC expected the game to
catch on as quickly as it did. Random cards like Carrion Ants [CEDitor’s Note: Carrion Ants was released in Fourth Edition earlier in the year, a set that worsened the Chronicles fallout] were selling for $20+ due to their relative scarcity. Fallen Empires and Revised were printed
in large numbers, but people still wanted to get their hands on the out-of-print cards from the older expansions.

In 1995, WotC responded to this demand by releasing Chronicles. The set was a Modern Masters-esque expansion featuring the ‘greatest hits’ of Magic’s first expansions. Because the set was filled with many of the game’s most valuable and desirable cards, players were thrilled and sales volume was high.
Long after demand faded away, however, unwanted Chronicles packs sat unsold on store shelves. Until Blood Moon began seeing Modern play, there were few Chronicles cards that sold for more than about $2.

Not only were the buyers of Chronicles packs upset, but players who had paid $20 each for their Legends copies of Carrion Ants were livid. Healthy card
values are an important driver of CCG booster pack sales, so in order to reassure collectors that their expensive cards wouldn’t be reprinted into
oblivion, WotC released a list of cards that will never again be reprinted. The document reads as follows:


Reserved cards will never be printed again in a functionally identical form. A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the
same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness. No cards will be added to the reserved list in the future.

What cards are on the reserved list? For a while, every card from Alpha through Urza’s Destiny that hadn’t been reprinted in a core set was there. A few
years ago, WotC cleaned it up, taking most of the commons and uncommons off the list. Wizards also began reprinting foil versions of some reserved list
rares in boxed sets and through the judge rewards program, claiming that foil reprints did not violate the spirit of the agreement. That was also around
the time that Legacy staples began surging in price, so there was a massive online push to get WotC to agree to formally abolish The Reserved List and
reprint expensive cards like the dual lands. Things got to the point where various collectors and dealers were called into a secret meeting at WotC to
discuss the possibility.

The result? WotC doubled down on The Reserved List in a serious way. Not only did they announce that The Reserved List was here to stay forever, but the
foil loophole was slammed shut. Since then, WotC has given every indication (through articles like this and the aforementioned Blogatog FAQ) that there is no chance
of them repealing or subverting The Reserved List in the near future.

A lot of virtual ink has already been spilt on what I think of The Reserved List (I hate it), whether or not it will kill Legacy (hasn’t happened yet), why
it exists even though everyone seems to hate it (threat of a lawsuit and/or bad company PR, most likely), and what can be done to kill it (nothing). I
imagine some of you would like to re-hash this stuff in the comments, which is fine-it’s a topic that’s always worth discussing.

For today’s article though, I’m more interested in looking what has happened with cards on The Reserved List over the past two years. My 2012 article
discussed every relevant Reserved List card from The Dark through Urza’s Block, so I have a record of what the prices were like two years ago along with my
thoughts at the time. A common refrain among Magic financiers is that you should always be buying, hoarding, and trading for Reserved List cards because
they only go up in price, but is this actually true? How would your investment have fared if you bought in two years ago, and what might that say about
what you should be doing with your Reserved List cards today? Let’s find out.

Note that the cards on this list include every Reserved List card that was at least $2 on StarCityGames in September of 2012. The expensive staples from
these sets that aren’t mentioned? They aren’t actually on The Reserved List! Some of the omissions are kind of weird, so if you’re uncertain you can always
check out the full document here.

Urza’s Saga

Right off the bat, it’s clear that Reserved List status is not a guarantee that a card will climb in value. In fact, of our twelve Urza’s Saga cards to
watch, eight of them have dropped in price since September of 2012. I bet some of you didn’t expect that!

We can learn a lot by taking a closer look at what happened with each individual card. Argothian Wurm, Lifeline, Lightning Dragon, Morphling, and Temporal
Aperture were marginal casual cards at the time, and most of their remaining utility has been lost to Commander homogenization and power creep. Time Spiral
and Gilded Drake probably dropped in price for a different reason-in 2012, both cards were seeing significant play in Legacy. These days, neither card
shows up at the top tables all that much. On the flip side, Gaea’s Cradle exploded in price when the legend rule changed and Elves decks began to increase
in popularity and strength.

Gaea’s Cradle’s price will come down if Elves falls out of favor in Legacy, but its price will continue to creep up as long as that deck stays relevant.
Most of these other cards are great long-term holds regardless of tournament playability though. Karn, Silver Golem, Yawgmoth’s Will, Gilded Drake, Serra’s
Sanctum, and Time Spiral are probably not going any lower than they are now. The others are less likely to impress, but any one of them could catch on if
the right commander is printed.

Urza’s Legacy

Two years ago, I recommended that people pick up Grim Monolith, Memory Jar, and Palinchron since each of those cards has a fairly unique effect on the game
that can’t be easily replicated or reprinted. The two casual rares doubled in price, but Grim Monolith has stayed in the $25 range. I still think that the
card has a shot to be $80+ at any point-if, say, Daretti MUD wins a major event, there won’t be any stopping it from exploding in price.

Urza’s Destiny

The three cards I recommended in 2012 were Academy Rector (which had just started showing up in Legacy Omniscience decks), Metalworker, and Treachery.
Rector was a good call-it peaked just above $30 a few weeks later, but started dropping again when the deck failed to become even second tier in Legacy.
Metalworker is the big winner here, but that jump happened recently thanks to its legalization in Commander. Treachery hasn’t gone anywhere, which is still
shocking to me-is there a better start to turn 5 out of a blue deck in Commander?

Again, we see the marginal casual stuff, especially the casual cards that aren’t good in Commander, dropping further and further toward bulk as they’re
forgotten. Most of the Legacy stuff and Commander staples have either stayed the same or risen slightly.

Tempest

Intuition is our first big Legacy loser. It’s an undeniably powerful card, but most combo decks simply build in better redundancy plans, and it doesn’t
really do what you want in control or Reanimator right now. It’s always one card away from being busted in half though, so it might be time to grab a
couple copies. I know I have a playset stashed away.

Why did Earthcraft jump in price? Legacy banned list speculation. Cards like these always jump to $50 or more when they’re taken off the list, so people
drove the price up in hopes of making a quick flip. It hasn’t happened yet, of course, and it’s unclear if it ever will. Every other card here more or less
stayed in the same price range.

Stronghold

Sliver Queen rose in price thanks to M14 introducing a new generation to one of Magic’s most popular and iconic tribes. Any 5-color sliver deck needs one
of these, so I expect the price to keep rising when slivers are printed and dipping when they fall back into obscurity.

Volrath’s Stronghold is another mostly forgotten Commander powerhouse. Seriously-have people actually seen this card? Do they understand what it’s capable
of?

Dream Halls and Mox Diamond are Legacy combo pieces that only see marginal play. At this point, Diamond is mostly just a Lands card, and since you can’t
run that deck without The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, store-level demand hasn’t increased.

Exodus

Survival of the Fittest has an interesting history. It jumped from $15 to $60 before the Legacy ban, then dropped back to $12 in 2011. It crept up to $20
by the time I wrote about The Reserved List in 2012, and now it’s almost at $40 again thanks to Cube and Commander demand. The card is so good in both of
those casual formats that I can’t imagine it going down in price again.

City of Traitors made massive gains, mostly thanks to a MUD resurgence a year and a half or so ago. It shows up all over the place in Legacy now, appearing
in Omni-Tell, Reanimator, Sneak and Show, MUD, Prison, Painter, Helmerator, and more. There’s no reason this card can’t join the dual lands in the $100+
range soon.

Recurring Nightmare would be $35 if it were ever unbanned in Commander. I’m not sure if that will ever happen-it can lock someone out of the game pretty
quickly and viciously. It’s worth monitoring due to its upside though.

Mirage

I did pretty well here, recommending Lion’s Eye Diamond and calling Shallow Grave an intriguing sleeper pickup. The latter card actually surged to $35
after a buyout, though it didn’t see enough play to warrant that kind of price tag. It is a pretty good card in Legacy Tin Fins though, so there’s still
room for it to grow.

At $2, Zirilan of the Claw is an intriguing spec. We’re a few months off from some seriously awesome new dragons, and this guy is a pretty good casual
threat, albeit an expensive one.

Visions

Undiscovered Paradise is the only Legacy card here. Some Bloodghast-based Dredge decks still run it, though the interaction isn’t as powerful as it was
once thought. It’s possible that this card will become relevant again when we revisit Zendikar though, so at $5 it’s an intriguing pick-up. Tithe is decent
in Commander, though most people run Land Tax in that slot instead.

Weatherlight

The downward trend of casual cards and marginal staples continues with Weatherlight. Firestorm and Peacekeeper both saw more play in 2012 than they do now,
so their prices have come down. Null Rod has started to become more relevant again recently though, and even though it’s listed at $6.50, Star City is
currently sold out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is re-stocked at a higher value.

Ice Age

None of the ‘good’ cards from Ice Age are on The Reserved List, so we’re left with these clunkers. No surprise they haven’t gone anywhere in two years.

Alliances

Helm of Obedience was the sole card I recommended here, and it peaked well above $10 before dipping back down thanks to Legacy demand. Most of the rest of
these cards are continuing their fall into obscurity, as they should.

Homelands

Nope.

Fallen Empires

I’m pretty sure I’ve never even picked these out of my bulk.

The Dark

Maze of Ith and Blood Moon aren’t on The Reserved List, so The Dark’s best two cards are free to keep being reprinted. Goblin Wizard and friends are still
as silly and irrelevant as ever, though if you haven’t played with Preacher in Commander before, I suggest giving him a shot-especially if you have an
Orzhov deck with sac outlets.

When I wrote my article in 2012, I didn’t cover any Reserved List cards from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Legends, Antiquities, or Arabian Nights. Because the
values of those cards have as much to do with the collectors’ market as the competitive market, I didn’t feel as though it was worth making a distinction
over Reserved List rares vs. reprintable staples. In retrospect, I wish that I had covered Revised cards instead of leaving them out of the discussion.
After all, it doesn’t seem right to have this conversation without at least taking a look at what’s happened to dual lands over the past two years. While I
don’t have concrete Star City Games pricing data on these, I was able to track down the relevant trend intel from other sources. Take a look:

Dual Lands

Woe unto you if you sold any of your blue duals before the spike earlier this year. While most dual land prices are down from their spring highs, they are
still up significantly from fall 2012. Even crazier, three of the duals that spiked the most-Volcanic Island, Underground Sea, and Tundra-were already the
priciest of the bunch. What happened to Savannah that caused a five percent drop? Well, Maverick was at the height of its popularity in 2012, and it hasn’t
been a good time to be a non-blue mage recently. The only non-blue dual to make a serious jump was Bayou, and you can thank Abrupt Decay and Deathrite
Shaman for that.

The weird thing about The Reserved List is that 99% of the cards on there are still easily available. Sure, I wish it had been possible to print Academy
Rector in Theros, but most of these cards were never going to come back anyway. It’s not like there has been some crazy hoarding campaign over the past few
years to corner the market on Commander staples either-heck, Treachery is still just twelve bucks and Volrath’s Stronghold has come down in price. Most
Reserved List cards have been outclassed, outdated, or just plan forgotten. And that’s fine-Magic is a twenty-one year old card game. It’s old enough to
buy a legal drink, for goodness sake!

The problem with The Reserved List comes down to just a tiny, tiny handful of cards-Gaea’s Cradle, City of Traitors, Lion’s Eye Diamond, The Tabernacle at
Pendrell Vale, Candelabra of Tawnos, Volcanic Island, Bayou, Underground Sea, Tundra, and Tropical Island. When people complain about The Reserved List,
most of their ire is directed at these specific targets.

Of course, WotC hasn’t reprinted several expensive Legacy staples that aren’t on The Reserved List either-Wasteland and Rishadan Port, for example, are
still waiting for their big comeback. Other expensive Legacy cards like Karakas and Force of Will were reprinted, but they were handled in a way that
didn’t cause the price to come down much. Were it possible for WotC to reprint Underground Sea and friends, I’d expect them to be handled in this fashion
and not in the Vintage or Modern Masters treatment.

Regardless, we live in a world where The Reserved List is here to stay. And after looking at what’s happened over the past few years, it’s clear that these
cards aren’t perfect long-term holds despite the upside they possess. While the highest profile cards surged in price, minor Legacy and Commander staples
like Time Spiral, Intuition, Gilded Drake, and Volrath’s Stronghold actually lost value. Beyond that, most of the low end casual cards absolutely
collapsed. A large part of this is the increasing efficiency of the Magic marketplace-there aren’t more copies of these cards now than there were in 2012,
but it’s far easier to buy, sell, and trade online. This trend isn’t likely to continue though, and I suspect if we check in again in two more years we’ll
find that most of these casual rares are close to their bottom right now.

At any rate, most of The Reserved List cards between $10 and $20 proved to be the best buys. These cards had enough demand to hit double digits, but not so
much demand that the shifting Legacy metagame collapsed their value. If you’re looking for the next generation of great Reserved List specs, this is where
I’d begin.

This Week’s Trends

– Modern Masters II and Grand Prix Vegas have been confirmed! Book your rooms and pre-register soon, folks, because it’s going to be epic. I hope to see
all of you there, and please do come say hello to me on the floor whenever you run into me at an event-I’m always happy to talk Magic or even do some
trading with a reader.

What we know about the set so far: it’s got Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Etched Champion in it, which is spot on with what I predicted in my article on the subject. Expect to see the other Eldrazi in there as
well as Mox Opal, which is pretty much a shoe-in now that we know there’ll be a metalcraft theme in Draft.

We also know now that MSRP for packs will be $10, and that the product will be a limited release, albeit less so than the first Modern Masters set. It’s
impossible to address either of these points without knowing more about the actual size of the print run. If the print run of Modern Masters 2015 is, say,
20% larger, it will be difficult to find packs at MSRP and card values should follow similar trends to the first MM set. If the print run is 100% larger,
packs will be easy to find at MSRP and card values will be significantly lower. I doubt WotC will go Chronicles over all of us, but I’m not going to be
pre-ordering any packs of the set for a dime over MSRP until I know more.

Beyond that, follow my advice from the Modern Masters II article. Sell all of your extra pre-Innistrad Modern rares and uncommons this March when the
market ticks up, and hold onto the mythics and everything more recent. As for Modern Masters sealed boxes, the prices have already come down enough that
I’m holding them in the hopes that the Draft format and mythics run are significantly different. If so, the boxes should be fantastic long-term holds.

I’ve heard some people wondering if the Modern Masters 2015 designation implies a new set each spring. I highly doubt that will happen. If WotC wants to
keep selling these packs at $10 each, they need the singles to still be worth something. My guess is that the print run will be low enough to keep everyone
wanting more and that we’ll see a MM set every two years or so.

– In Standard, Sultal Reanimator is still the hottest thing going. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is a mythic rare with serious casual demand, and she’s under $4
retail-seems like a good buy to me. Hornet Queen is another staple that only seems to be getting better right now.

– Other than that, Magic is mostly in a holding pattern. The weeks between the World Championships and the new year are some of the least active of the
year, so I wouldn’t be expecting many major price changes between now and the holidays. Make smart trades, pick up what you need for the spring, and enjoy
the breather.