Today, Innistrad Remastered is live on all the sites, for buying and for selling. No longer are we stuck with ‘preorder’ pricing, which tends to be super high and moves very slowly, now individuals can get in on the action, undercutting each other and other websites.

If you look at eBay, there’s a lot of stuff already selling, some with a preorder tag and some where the cards are in hand, but those are not the same quantity as TCGPlayer. Especially this weekend, the prices ought to move pretty fast as people seek to unload quickly. We’ve learned from Ravnica Remastered that holding for a long time is going to be unprofitable for almost everything, so let’s see where things are, and identify what might go up from here. 

It’s worth noting that reprint sets like this are supposed to lower the prices of the cards in the set, at least for the basic copies. Wizards has figured out that they can do two things at once: First, make the regular frame foils and nonfoils cheaper, and at the same time, make new premium versions which should sell well. Generally speaking, we see that’s true with last year’s Ravnica Remastered, and before that, Dominaria Remastered. 

The base versions of cards reprinted in those sets have fallen and mostly haven’t recovered. There’s a few exceptions, Cyclonic Rift being the standout, but things like Force of Will, which hasn’t been reprinted in the two years since, still hasn’t recovered. (To be fair, Force is up a few bucks in the last four months but it’s still not above $60, when it was $100+ before the DMR reprint) 

Ravnica Remastered is a fantastic example of the concept of both making base cards cheap (and therefore accessible to a wider range of players) and premium versions pricey. The serialized shocks are all over $250, with Steam Vents closing in on a grand. At the other end, the basic nonfoils from the set are all under $15 except for shocklands, Bruvac, and Cyclonic Rift. 

That’s the model I’m expecting for Innistrad Remastered cards. 

We already have some data for cards dropping in price, and like I said, I expect a lot more of this over the weekend. Prices are current as of late Thursday night as time zones allow the preorders to unlock. 

Emrakul, the Promised End is now $38 when EMN base copies were $63 in September 2024. 

Edgar Markov is $55 for the nonfoil (the first nonfoil!) when the C17 foils were $90 in October 2024.

The Meathook Massacre is $29 when MID copies were $55 in October 2024.

This trend is prevalent among basically everything that is in Innistrad Remastered, and if you want to buy basic copies, you should wait patiently. There is a lot of price drop coming, for the regulars and for most of the premium versions as well. 

The card most likely to pull a Cyclonic Rift is The Meathook Massacre. It’s at the right confluence of rarity and EDH demand, but it’s niche enough to avoid being reprinted again in the next 12 months or so. (Probably, anyway, because Wizards’ reprint policy can charitably be described as ‘mystifying’.) Meathook is in 127,000 decks on EDHREC, which is quite good for its age and rarity. EDHREC is a database where only the most devoted players upload their lists, so remember that the more casual players don’t add their decks. Casual players are also likely why the card has been expensive for its whole lifespan, even after it was banned from Standard. For comparison’s sake, Cyclonic Rift is at 688,000 decks, so more than 5x as popular despite multiple printings. 

I expect Meathook to drop below $20 sometime in the next couple of months, and that’s when I will want to move back in. 

One of the things that I’m not as excited to buy are the lands. The ‘slow lands’ have been reprinted in the Dr. Who set, and got both EA and Surge Foil EA versions there, to go with the original set’s Borderless and then Double Feature had the Silver Screen versions. We’re looking at a wide mix of premiums, and a whole lot more of the basic copies. These will languish like a lot of other land cycles have, and while getting in for $3 or even $2 a copy is an attractive idea, given the Commander popularity, it’s very easy to imagine these getting another reprint before too long.

There is a card that is set up to fall like a rock and almost immediately rebound: the Borderless foil of Rooftop Storm. Aetherdrift has two Commander decks, one with an artifacts/energy subtheme, and an Esper Zombies list. I would not be surprised if Rooftop Storm was in the deck, but that’s a basic nonfoil. We’re about to see a number of Zombie cards pop off, and this is one of the greatest reasons to sleeve up the undead, making the deck free and your Commander cost less. (Still gotta pay the Commander Tax!)

Currently, foil Borderless versions are at $5.50 and falling, plus today the whole Zombie decklist is revealed, making a perfect storm of potential.

Finally, I want to make a point about the Movie Poster cards. These are awesome and iconic, gorgeous pieces of art melded with great design. I will be happy to get these cards. 

These are not going to be super-expensive cards, though.

Back in the Mana Math of INR, we went over how it takes 100 Collector Boosters to get a foil copy of a certain Movie Poster card, or fifty to get a nonfoil. If INR is printed at the same rate as Lord of the Rings: Holiday Edition, that’s 1.5 million Collector Boosters. A little division, and we get the total number of copies at 15,000 foils and 30,000 nonfoils.

I think the number of packs is greater than 1.5 million, putting the copies higher and higher. Plus, with that many movie copies out there, we can do some comparisons that may cause wincing. Remember how Meathook is in 127k decks? Well, Guardian Project is in 200k, and there’s a xxx/500 serialized foil of that available for $115 on TCGPlayer. The current price of $100 for the Showcase foils is far too high. If you want these sweet shiny cards, be patient and you’ll save a lot.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

A lot of us use the TCGPlayer site to buy and sell cards, frequently reselling cards on that site that we bought from them. Their fees are not unreasonable, and while some of us are exclusive to eBay for selling, it’s generally true that the more people who see your item, the more likely it is to sell. (Presuming that it’s priced at a level where it would sell, anyway.)

However, TCGPlayer has made some specific choices in their user interface that lead to less people seeing your item, and we need to be aware of these cases. Not just because it costs money, but because these might be cases where selling on a different platform is a much more profitable choice.

I’m not saying this to denigrate TCGPlayer or the service it provides. I use them a lot, both for buying and selling, and I appreciate the task they are facing. Hundreds of thousands of cards, frames, foiling, and conditions, plus the vagaries of shipping, taxes, and the Direct service…it’s a tremendous logistical challenge! I also really like their new data, for 1M/3M/6M/12M and knowledge of copies selling per day. These are things I wish they would improve, for everyone’s sake.

So let’s get into three big things you need to be aware of with TCGPlayer, which might be costing you profits.

If you’re a regular listener of MTG Fast Finance (and why aren’t you, it’s a great show, and we have the data to back it up) we’ve mentioned some of these concepts but we haven’t really set it all down together in this way. I’m collecting this information, combining it, making it simple for you to keep in mind

TCGPlayer doesn’t list all versions under ‘show all versions.’

This probably isn’t groundbreaking to you at this point, but TCGPlayer made the choice as the Collector Booster era hit us to list every version with a different frame, or a different foiling, as a separate product page. Here’s an example with Banner of Kinship, a card which has regular frame, Extended Art, and Borderless Art. Each of those has a foil, plus the Borderless has a Mana Foil treatment. 

All told, that’s seven versions to keep track of. TCGPlayer has four listings for the card. If you type in Banner Of in the search bar, here’s what you get:

This is forgivable, but here’s the core issue with this choice. If I click the first result, I can only see two of those options: the original frame and the Prerelease foil. Worse yet, if I click on the original frame, and I click on ‘all versions’ I can only see the original frames. The only way to get to the premium versions is to know exactly which premium version I want, and type that into the search bar.

The egregious offense here is that a potential buyer, on the biggest card-selling platform in North America, cannot see all the versions side by side. TCGPlayer does allow you to see regular and prerelease foil side by side, along with all the reprinted versions, so why not give players ALL the options? Makes no sense.

TCGPlayer hides other languages by default, even if other languages are opened in English packs.

In Foundations and in Duskmourn, players can open a Collector Booster and get a Fracture Foil. One in three Fracture Foils in English packs are Japanese-language cards, the same as you would get in Japanese-language packs. 

They are the same card, pulled from the same pack, and have a similar number of copies in circulation when you take into account Japanese-language packs having 100% chance for Japanese-language Fracture Foils. 

But for TCGPlayer, the default language choice is English, and that means to find these copies, which are just as pretty, you have to go in and add Japanese to the languages you’re viewing. As a result, these copies move slower and go for cheaper. For this card, Enduring Courage, you’re looking at about $90 for the English version but half that for the Japanese version. Similar gaps exist for the other cards with this set of treatments, and you can save a lot of money if you want these cards. For instance, if you’re hungering for the anime Llanowar Elves, the English will run you about $425, but the Japanese can be had for $80 less. 

And if you happen to pull a Japanese version, do yourself a favor and list it on eBay instead. You’ll make more money. It’s close to being arbitrage worthy, where I’m telling you to buy on TCG the Enduring Courage for $50 and sell it on eBay for $75 (which is something you could do right now), but if the gap widens much more, then the taxes, shipping, and fees won’t be prohibitive and you will indeed turn a profit.

Cheap price + high shipping + multiple copies = low profit

Let’s use an example of a card, the promo pack Infernal Grasp. The cheapest NM nonfoil is $1.86+$1.27 for shipping, a total of $3.11. People want their versions to match, so you want to get four, and this is where people mess up. They want their copies to show up as cheap, but add a high shipping cost, so you can get more money per sale. But then they make a costly mistake: They list a bunch of copies at once.

Here’s three vendors who have multiples of the same nonfoil promo, and all of whom are trying this game of high shipping. 

At a glance, it looks like a killing, selling this card for at least double. But when you spread out the shipping, the bonus vanishes. Sure, the top one is $6.47 if someone buys a single copy, but if someone buys four, that’s $11.21 total. Per card, that’s $2.80, less than the person who listed a single copy at the cheapest price!

If I were to buy these as a spec (which I wouldn’t, though the new Borderless is intriguing) and get all ten, I’m in for $2.43 a copy before taxes.I get why people put a big shipping cost–they want to make sure that every order is worth at least a certain amount. But if you follow that practice, and lower your prices to keep up, then list lots of copies, you can lose money per copy.

This is only a problem when all three conditions are met, and if you avoid any one of the three, you’ll be fine. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

It’s the end of the year, and so it’s time to look at a year’s worth of written predictions and see how I did. 

I do this with grace and humility, because I have to be kind to myself when I do badly, and not overly celebrate when I get it right. 

I’m focusing just on the things I picked in my articles, because we’ve got a whole separate show on MTG Fast Finance where we talk about our picks this year. 

Let’s get into it!

On 1/12/24 I wrote about Ravnica Remastered, and some things I liked long-term. I did pick Guardian Project to go all the way down to $5, and the regular versions are up to $8. They would be higher, except for the Fallout reprint that I didn’t see coming. (One of my takeaways this year: All bets are off when it comes to reprints!) Brudivac almost got down to my pick of $10, but he did get to $13 and now he’s back up to $25, a solid profit. I would unload if you got in cheap. I was also right about Cyclonic Rift going under $35, it went all the way to $26, and there’s multiple versions between $30 and $40. Crypt Ghast got some borderless reprinting, but the base version did sink down to $5, and is now $8.

Then on 03/01/24 I put together a list of Assassin-related specs, and those have mostly done very well. I identified the SL version of Thraximundar (He Who Paints The Earth Red!!) to double up, Callidus Assassin surge foils to go higher ($3 up to $11) and Unliving Psychopath foils in NM condition were $2 and are now $10. Garza’s Assassin did not grow, that half your life is a whole lot, and Kiku, Night’s Flower has ticked up just a little to $8. If she gets reprinted she’s going to drop like a rock, so I’d be hesitant about holding on too long.

Next up, on 03/29/24, I wrote up a whole a bunch of Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds specs. Seemed like it would be a popular commander, because token themes are big and Naya likes doing stuff like that, but Ghired has only 2500 Commander decks on EDHREC, good enough for 12th place from OTJ. Obeka was the big winner of that set, people registered four times as many decks for her!

A similar pattern on 04/19/2024, where I thought Gonti, Canny Acquisitor would take ‘steal your deck’ decks to new heights, but nope, missed there too. Deck theft is a theme I enjoy, with Gonti and cards like Tasha, Witch Queen, but the greater public has no appetite for that as yet. 

The writeup for the first Miku Superdrop came along, and this was a mixed bag. I was right about the Miku drops, as the EN lairs are going for $90/$70, while the JP versions are near the original cost still. The rest of the drop I felt better about, but none of them have been solid growers in the time since.

When Modern Horizons 3 came out, I wrote up a list of early specs on 6/14/2024, most of which have shows growth since July but non better than Fanatic of Rhonas, which has doubled up since that writing. Things like Springheart Nantuko, Medallions, and Wight of the Reliquary have gone up by a dollar or two, forecasting good things for that set as time passes. 

The Summer Superdrop has a writeup I published on 06/21/2024, where the Miku drops have done the same (English go up, JP at cost) and the rest of the drops in that group have not had the same growth. I’m okay being patient with SLs at this point, I’m rarely in a hurry to resell at minor losses after taxes and shipping. 

On 7/12/24 I planned out what a Zinnia, Valley’s Voice deck would want, because copying value creatures sounds like every Commander player’s dream, but she’s turned out to be middling as these go, with only 6900 decks. Bello, Bumbleflower, and Baylen were all bigger hits, and Bumbleflower is the biggest surprise to me, as Commander players generally hate giving other players cards. 

After that, Monty Python was previewed, and on 07/26/24 I wrote up why you should buy. Hope you did, that’s done very well and it still might grow. If they make a vol. 3, 4, or more, this first one should go off like a rocket.

One of my biggest misses of the year was in the D&D Superdrop on 08/23/24, when I was middling on Astarion and Karlach. The other drops seemed more appealing, and I vastly underestimated what these two characters would do for a drop. 

I wrote up my thoughts for the third Miku drop on 9/27/24, and after the zeitgeist did so well for Monty Python, I was convinced that Ghostbusters and Chucky drops would sell like hotcakes. I was tremendously wrong about that. Miku’s planeswalker drop should grow over time, but in the three months since, it hasn’t done much. The other drops have really languished, but perhaps they will grow over time. I think my takeaway is that even if something is popular, it’s not always collectible. The Ghostbusters hit me in the nostalgia, and Chucky movies have always been marketed at the same group of people, over and over. 

Most recently, on 10/25/24, I wrote up the Marvel superdrop, and I’ve been right about those cards, the order the drops were in, and most of the picks for the decks have seen a little uptick as well. Marvel is also likely to keep paying off into the summer, as more MCU cards are released and people want to build The Avengers deck, or some variation thereof. 

Hits and misses, to be sure, but if I was perfect I’d retire from everything else. The things I’ve been right about were easily able to pay off the misses, and that’s why we diversify. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.