Last weekend I was browsing the All Time Highs and All Time Lows list on MTG Stocks when a frequently played card stood out to me – not because of it’s recent high, but rather due to the fact that it is hitting all-time lows.
Thoughtseize is the ninth most played card in Modern, according to the same website. It’s also 37th in Legacy, for some consolation demand. Yet despite its ubiquitous utility in these two formats, the card simply cannot gain traction from a pricing standpoint. When Theros rotated out of Standard, Thoughtseize’s eternal playability motivated players to keep their copies for future utility. As a result, the black sorcery’s price held up fairly well throughout the release of Battle for Zendikar.
Then, when Oath of the Gatewatch departed standard, things got ugly. Now the card sells at an all-time low on TCG Player, with buy lists topping out with a meager $8 – a far cry from its $17.50 peak back in 2014. What’s the rationale for this selloff? Does this signal the end of the age-old strategy of holding rotating cards for inevitable returns? This week I’ll explore some driving forces behind recent Eternal playable cards to try and get to the bottom of this phenomenon.
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Sort of tangential to your article, but I don’t understand all the love in the mtgfinance world for the khanslaught fetches as a specs. I’ve recently picked up personal playsets of the original onslaught fetches, but I don’t own any fetches as specs.
The inevitable, eventual reprint of the zendikar fetches is a real problem for the khans ones, given that the allied and enemy fetches are to some extent (i.e., in some decks) substitutable. We saw this when khans came out and it caused the zendikar fetches to lose ~30% of their value. The effect next time won’t be nearly as strong (depends a lot on how soon the reprint comes), but it’ll probably cause some drop in khanslaught fetches and definitely will cause their prices to stagnate for a year or two.
I’m with you 100%. While fetches were peaking in Standard, I moved my speculative copies and kept only those I use in my Legacy and Vintage decks. I really don’t like the prospects of Khans fetches. I think there’s an over-supply of them as speculators seemed to go deep on them, and there’s a constant reprint risk as you flagged.
If I’m going to park money in lands as investments, I’d much rather go into something like the recent Creature Lands once they rotate because those will offer some upside with minimal downside. One look at Celestial Colonnade is all I need to be convinced to tuck away a few playsets of the best new creature lands for a couple years.
Great build, thanks!
Sig
But look at Stirring Wildwood.