Seeing how many people are searching “MTG Investment cards” and “best magic the gathering investment” these days, it seemed prudent to write up an article about why Magic the Gathering cards are becoming a very good investment. The trick is to understand what Magic cards are actually good investments. There are several categories of cards in Magic the Gathering that have been regularly appreciating in value. Let’s break them down.

• Old School Magic (Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark)
• Reserved List Cards (cards that Wizards promises not to reprint)
• Modern Format Competitively Played Cards
• Top Played Cards in EDH / Commander
• Pauper Format Competitively Played Cards

These 5 categories are where you should be putting your Magic the Gathering money. Sure, the newest sets in Standard are fun to speculate on, but as an investment, you’re looking for blue-chip stocks in the form of Magic cards. So, which of these 5 categories is the best Magic card investment? Read on.


Old School Magic

Most Magic the Gathering finance experts will tell you that building Old School Magic sets is perhaps the best investment that you can make. Nostalgia is very powerful and the scarcity of cards (especially in excellent to mint condition) means that they will appreciate over time. Even the least expensive cards in these sets (Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark) are still valuable simply because they are sought after by collectors and investors.

Set building has been a thing in sports cards for a very long time. It’s become a very good investment in other trading card games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, as well. It’s also important to note that besides the very popular niche format, Old School Magic, that uses cards exclusively from these seven sets (plus Revised), many of the cards from these sets still see play in widely played competitive Magic format today! (Blood Moon from the Dark is a great example.)

Why not invest in Revised Edition and Chronicles Magic Cards?

Revised Edition cards are a very much stripped down version of Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited that don’t include the “Power Nine” (Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, the Moxen, Timetwister, and Time Walk). They are not nearly as scarce, much as the white-bordered Chronicles reprint set is - which reprinted cards from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends - so they typically make poor investments. That being said, there are cards from Revised and Chronicles that still see competitive play. They include:

From Revised:

• Underground Sea
• Volcanic Island
• Tundra
• Bayou
• Tropical Island
• Badlands
• Scrubland
• Taiga
• Savannah
• Plateau
• Wheel of Fortune
• Demonic Tutor
• Mana Vault
• Birds of Paradise
• Sol Ring

From Chronicles

• Concordant Crossroads
• Blood Moon
• City of Brass
• Ashnod’s Altar
• Nicol Bolas
• Urza’s Mine
• Urza’s Power Plant
• Urza’s Tower

The majority of these cards are heavily played in Commander. Blood Moon and the Urza “tron” lands are extremely popular in Modern. Birds of Paradise and City of Brass also see occasional play in Modern. So, these are cards that are perfectly fine to hold if you can’t afford the rarer versions, because they are still sought after for their playability.

What About Collector’s Edition and International Edition Cards?

Because Collector’s Edition and International Edition cards aren’t allowed in competitive play, I don’t particularly care for them. However, from a pure collection and investment standpoint, CE and IE cards have been seeing major returns for those who’ve invested in them. Owning a Black Lotus for $550 in IE or $1200 in CE isn’t a bad proposition. It took a long time for Wizards to see the realization of the investability in these sets, but it happened. If you want to collect cards that are iconic and always on the rise, and you want to ride the momentum, go right ahead. But, because they aren’t playable, I’m personally not a fan.


Investing in Reserved List Magic Cards

Because Reserved List cards are intentionally meant to be scarce, Magic card collectors and investors have doubled down on purchasing them in recent years. The problem is, many of these cards aren’t really that playable. For many of the playable cards on the Reserved List, including the ten dual lands from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised, this has meant bloated prices. While there are some that are probably still yet to realize their true value, Reserved List cards are fairly “unsafe” investments at this point, unless you get solid deals on the dual lands I just mentioned or other playable cards from early in Magic the Gathering’s history. An entire investment guide to Magic’s Reserved List could be written, so we won’t go fully in depth here.

That being said, the value of some older sets such as Fallen Empires, Homelands, and Ice Age lie in the Reserved List cards. That’s because for those collectors who are struggling to buy into the first big Vintage sets, these sets are attractive to build. Why not? Ice Age, in particular, has lots of good playable cards. Fallen Empires and Homelands are notoriously weak sets, but people are still building them, believe it or not.


Investing in Modern Playable Magic Cards

Modern has become one of the most popular competitive Magic formats. It’s fairly diverse as far as what decks are playable and the card pool is giant and ever expanding. The main issue with investing in Modern is the likelihood of occasional reprints that tank the value of existing cards. With Masters sets being released on a regular basis, why invest in Modern Magic cards?

Modern Magic cards begin with 8th edition, which was the first set to introduce the overall card design we see today. Many Magic purists still prefer the vintage card design, but there is plenty of value in some of the earlier Modern sets. What’s important to realize, though, is because the print runs of these sets are much higher than some vintage Magic sets, there is one particular area to focus on: premium foils.

When foil Magic cards were first released, many players didn’t like them. They tend to scratch and show wear easily. But, as Wizards of the Coast intended, some players and collectors embraced them. Because there are a fraction of foil cards available and pretty much every card in Modern was printed in foil at some point, the demand often far outweighs the supply, meaning there are some ridiculous multipliers on cards that only see modest competitive play, or even no competitive play at all!

Because of the threat of reprints, investing in Modern is a lot trickier and requires you to keep a close eye on the card market. How much a card is seeing play is a major factor. Reprints can absolutely tank a card. However, certain foil printings tend to retain far more value due to scarcity and sometimes the artwork. (Yes, artwork matters!)

Modern also has some cards that are sometimes referred to as “stock splits.” Like in the stock market, a reprint of a Magic card causes that card’s stock to effectively split. Some cards, such as Eternal Witness, Lightning Bolt, and Blood Moon take hits to their prices but almost immediately rebound. That’s because when the price lowers, more people buy in to add those cards to binders and decks. The top 50 cards in Modern are a great place to look for actively traded cards that can bounce back in value from reprints. Playing the peaks and valleys of the Modern Magic card market can actually be very profitable, but it’s not for the faint of heart because of the possibility of mass amounts of reprints at once.

The Commonly Played Cards in Modern list on MTG Goldfish is a great idea to check on a regular basis in order to see what cards are being played on a regular basis. We can go further in depth in investing in Modern in a future guide.


Why Invest in Top Played Magic Cards in EDH / Commander?

Thanks to the great folks at EDHREC, the Magic community has a clear idea of what the Top 100 played cards in Commander / EDH are at any given time. These cards, especially in foil, can be great investments. But, like with Modern, you have to watch the price trends of these cards - buy low and sell high. Many of them continuously trend upwards, though, as Commander players typically don’t break down their decks nearly as often as Modern players. That means supply slowly, but surely, often doesn’t mean supply - causing significant price appreciation.

It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on what’s being played in 1v1 Commander. It’s a far more competitive format that has a significantly different metagame than multiplayer Commander. Again, though, 1v1 Commander players tend to stick with their decks and only change them when upgrades are available. But, because Commander cards typically only move one copy at a time, you have to be patient and watch for continuous upward movement in price, as cards in the format can bottom out for a long time.


Why Should I Invest in Pauper Format Competitively Played Cards?

Pauper has long been a fun, cheap format to play on Magic the Gathering Online. But recently, as Local Game Stores began holding more Pauper tournaments to attract MTG players on a budget, Wizards of the Coast decided to offer more support as a competitive format in paper Magic. This has been incredible for the market for cards played in Pauper. While investing in commons seems odd, the demand for certain commons has caused some $0.25 cards to rise as high as $5 or more!

While you certainly don’t want to invest in the cards that are already realizing their market value, just like with any competitive format, cards go in and out of favor in competition. Also, even though Pauper is quickly growing, the supply of many of these commons is massive. It’s best to put your money into foil copies. That’s because Pauper is a Legacy format, meaning people tend to stick with their decks for a long time. But, unlike in Commander, people often buy cards four copies at a time, meaning if a card gets hot, a card can break out! For those that bought in early, the profits were huge, but there are still gains to be realized. Even with new releases, if a card starts to see heavy play in Pauper, it’s worth investing in, especially if it sees competitive play in other formats, too.


Should I Buy Graded Magic Cards?

Many Magic the Gathering Old School set collectors have been sending their old school cards that they don’t plan to play with to the trading card grading giants PSA and Beckett (BGS). With sports cards, Pokemon cards, and Yu-GI-Oh cards, having high-grade, investment-quality cards with a PSA 9 or 10, or a BGS 9, 9.5, or 10 means a lot for their resale value. However, while some graded Magic cards have appreciated well, many others have not. Why is this?

The fact is, most Magic the Gathering players hate graded Magic cards. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first and foremost reason is that many Magic players still want to play with their cards. On many occasions, Magic players will find a bargain on graded Magic cards and crack open the cases, essentially “setting the card free.”

Another major reason Magic collectors are shying away from graded Magic cards is that PSA and BGS have been known to authentic FAKE Magic cards. Besides the straight-out counterfeits, though, there’s another process called “rebacking” that takes a low-grade vintage Magic card and essentially presses it onto another worthless Magic card. Through this combination, you can essentially create a much higher-grade Magic card.

The outrage from the vintage Magic community has led to many PSA graded and BGS graded Magic cards to be bought en masse only to be cracked open. While many are genuine, there have been enough “rebacked” and counterfeit cards that have fooled the graders. What should be a process to verify a card’s authenticity, especially in a market full of proxies and fakes, hasn’t been foolproof. Hopefully, the graders are taught much stricter guidelines in the future. This is why Magic the Gathering, the first major trading card game, hasn’t caught up to Pokemon and even Yu-Gi-Oh in the graded trading card market, especially with the older, more valuable cards.


Are Other Modern Magic Cards Worth Investing In?

Many people cite the gimmicky secret rare subsets in recent memory as great investments - particularly the Zendikar Expeditions, Kaladesh Inventions, and Amonkhet Invocations. While I don’t disagree, as they are fairly scarce and many are appealing collectibles, my favorite subset in recent memory are the Ultimate Masters Box Toppers.

Not only are most of these cards with tremendous playability, but they are extremely rare beautiful cards of iconic cards in Magic’s history. Who doesn’t want an extended art version of Karn Liberated, Liliana of the Veil, or Tarmogoyf? Even Lavaclaw Reaches has a market! Plus, because they are playable, the value of these cards is going to keep appreciating. These are probably my favorite gimmicky cards Wizards has ever printed! (Plus. Ultimate Masters is a crazy good set.)

There’s also the occasional foil cards that aren’t seeing any competitive play at all that seem to have incredible prices relative to their nonfoil counterparts. This demand comes from what the Magic card industry calls the ‘invisibles’ or what I like to call the “Kitchen Table MTG” community. The casual market is always bigger than the competitive market, and while casual players typically want many of the same cards as the competitive players, there are occasionally cards that are actually great cards to play with, but don’t necessarily end up seeing play competitively. There are many of these to consider, and those require an in-depth analysis for each example. The Kitchen Table Magic market could have a book written about it, so it’s far beyond the depth of this article.

My money in Magic is basically on the seven Vintage sets and Modern, Pauper, and Commander playable foils. In particular I like cards that see play in two or all three of those formats (plus Legacy and Vintage if possible). I avoid Standard like the plague, although there are very good cards in some Standard formats that make an easy transition to Modern value-wise, but they are few and far between.

In this Magic card investment guide, we’ve barely scratched the surface of Magic the Gathering investment. If you have any questions about what’s good or not good to invest in, feel free to comment below. If you have insights on good Magic card investments, feel free to share them!

Also, remember, as with any investment, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING IN MAGIC CARDS!

More Magic the Gathering card investment guides to come!

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I like Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter a lot. She's very Standard playable and useful in EDH. With probably Magic the Gathering's  best set ever on the horizon, Dominaria, this one-drop gal could be a part of some competitive deck. She's proven herself as a two-of in Green/White Aggro and already sees play in a few Commander decks on a regular basis. 

Now, ElspethFTW already has a solid write-up on Oviya Pashiri and her worthiness of being in your Magic collection. But here, I want to talk a bit about why Oviya suddenly went from a $0.25 bulk rare to a $0.50 card on the rise. Even foils are seeing a healthy interest, and it's not all from EDH players like myself who want her in my Rhys the Redeemed deck.

Oviya Pashiri has become the biggest speculation target leading up to Dominaria's release. That's why she's been a consistent best-seller on TCGPlayer. How did this happen?

Well, first of all, she's cheap. And if she's a best-seller, a lot of other players not quite aware of the fact that she's being speculated on join in thinking, hey, maybe something is up here. And, honestly, as I've already stated, a one-drop Legendary creature in a Standard format that rewards you for playing Legendary spells is going to be pretty good.

But HOW good will she be? Yes, Dominaria has good additions to Green/White Aggro, and perhaps Mono-Green Aggro, as well. But for Oviya to be worth speculating on, she's going to have to be at least a three-of or four-of in some deck that reaches the top tier of a major tournament. A 1/2 one-drop with decent tap abilities playable at instant speed  is certainly Standard playable. Yes, being a  Legendary Creature triggers historic spell abilities from Dominaria.

But is Oviya going to become a $2.50 card (or more) and make lots of people money? Perhaps.

The logic of speculators here is pretty sound. If you buy a playset for between $1.50 and $2 with shipping costs included, your risk is super low. If you buy a foil copy for $1-2 or so, your risk is even lower. That's because Oviya is playable in EDH and those players who want to make her a permanent shiny part of a token-happy EDH deck will pay that price.

If the nonfoil busts, you're out $2 per playset of four copies, minus the 40 cents or so you could recoup from a vendor. You could try and unload your failed spec at eBay or TCGPlayer; but, after shipping and fees, your net loss will be the same. However, the foil won't lose much if the card doesn't become widely adopted in Standard. Worst case, you break even or lose a minimal amount of value as trade fodder.

If you're starting out in Magic the Gathering collection building, this is not a bad card to have. I've always been more keen on foils as investments, as reprints tend to destroy the value of nonfoil printings quite dramatically. While Oviya doesn't look like a prime reprint target, her inclusion in a Commander related product isn't out of the question.

So, if you want to bet on Oviya becoming an awesome sauce can't miss investment during her time in Standard, I'd pick up a foil copy or two and call it a day. While I'm not remiss to pick up a nonfoil copy as an order tack-on or trade throw-in, I just don't see her as much more than she already is.

That being said, I always love foils of EDH playables, especially those that have seen play in standard.  With a foil multiplier of 2.5x already, if Oviya becomes even just a dollar in nonfoil, you're up to probably $3 on the foil. Even selling that one foil copy is going to net you a profit. Also, while the market for nonfoil copies is larger, people who really want foils really, really want them. People will be willing to pay a premium for a foil of a card they need for their deck. And if Oviya does his $2.50 or $3, you'll have a $5 foil at the minimum. But if she doesn't, you hedged your bets and she's still a decent card to hold in your collection.

Whenever you're considering a card to hold onto for pure speculation purposes, you have to consider the card's floor, its potential ceiling, and your costs of unloading it if and when it does go up in price. Personally, I don't do speculation. I just collect good cards. But if and when you see a card selling like there's no tomorrow, it's cheap, playable, and  potentially a top-table player, there's no reason not to grab a copy or two (preferably foil), sit back, and potentially reap some solid rewards.

Don't speculate. Collect intelligently, instead.

Weathered Wayfarer is one of those cards that you buy for $5, and three years later, it's $10! As of July 5th, 2017, Weathered Wayfarer had a TCG Player market price of roughly $10. Less than a year later, the Wayfarer was pushing $13-15! The 9th edition printing is slightly higher than the original Onslaught, but the price points are a wash when you factor in shipping costs.

Playability

While Weathered Wayfarer has seen occasional play in the Modern format, this creature's value is most appreciated in EDH. The Wayfarer sees play in over 6000 deck lists on EDHrec, and there isn't one commander that favors Weathered Wayfarer.

The reason for this is probably the simplicity of the Wayfarer ability. For just one White mana, you can tap Weathered Wayfarer to add any land card from your deck to your hand. Plus, Weathered Wayfarer is only a one drop creature to begin with. Basically, as long as decks use white mana and play lands, Weathered Wayfarer will be a great way to get some early card advantage.



Future Value

The supply of both printings of Weathered Wayfarer isn't all that high. Buy list prices weren't extremely high in 2017, and there was an over 40 percent spread between retail and most buy list prices. This was because despite being such a good card, most vendors don't seem concerned about running out quickly. Looking at the rapid growth of EDH, however,  the supply wouldn't last. In 2018, the spread dropped to around 20 percent and prices of the card rose by around that same amount.

There is a real chance that Weathered Wayfarer could be reprinted,  however. The Wayfarer doesn't have any flavor restrictions that would keep it from being in an expansion set down the road. It definitely makes sense in a Commander deck. However, this card would have to be printed on a.major set release to see its value tank in the long-term, however. A lot of players will soak up the supply of it in Commander decks, because most players will just keep their copies.

As far as foil prices are concerned, Weathered Wayfarer is probably a good one to pick up. 9th edition foils push $30 and Onslaught foils about $28. That's not high considering how playable this card is in non-rotating formats and how much rarer foils were with those sets.


Magic Online Cues

With the rising popularity of 1v1 Commander on Magic Online, Weathered Wayfarer nearly doubled in price online. It wasn't really expensive there to begin with, and it had an additional theme deck printing on MTGO. But being around 0.5 tix and jumping to 1 ticket a copy in a few days is obviously a sign of something.

There are Breya, Etherium Shaper decks that play Weathered Wayfarer. She's one of the top commanders in the 1v1 Commander leagues right now. The Wayfarer is good in a lot of 1v1 Commander decks, actually. Obviously, the value is high in multiplayer EDH, as well. But it seems that the 1v1 Commander demand is driving the price online. If Wizards adopts 1v1 Commander as a sanctioned competitive format in paper Magic (who knows, it could happen!) then Weathered Wayfarer’s price would probably spike.


Potential Price Spike and Reprint Risks

Honestly, the multiplayer EDH community in paper Magic is probably enough to make this a $20 card some day, especially if there’s no reprint incoming. But so many people are probably holding their copies right now that if there is a price spike, it could right itself very quickly.

When I think about reprint risk, I’d definitely be investing in a foil copy if I needed one for an EDH deck or if I wanted to try it in Modern Death and Taxes. It’s also a pretty fair deal on Magic Online at anywhere around 1 tix; the supply isn’t great there, either. I really like Weathered Wayfarer going forward, and this is definitely a card that without a reprint will become $18 to $20 very quickly once the current supply runs dry.

If Weathered Wayfarer does get reprinted in the near future, I’d definitely be picking up the new copies. This is just a really, really solid creature that does something that will be good forever.

Ever since he was released, I've been a big fan of Bontu the Glorified. Oketra the True is probably my favorite, but clearly Hazoret the Fervent and Rhonas the Indomitable are the true powerhouses. Rhonas sees tons of play in Standard and has crept into Modern. Hazoret is in not only Standard and some Modern decks, he even pops up in Legacy Dragon Stompy decks! Even Kefnet the Mindful has made some cameos in Control decks in Standard.

But Bontu seems to be vastly underappreciated at the moment, and it's because of how you have to build around him. He can only attack or block if a creature under YOUR control has died in a turn. The best way to do this is to use his ability, which costs 1B - you sacrifice a creature, get to scry 1, then you gain 1 life and each opponent loses one life.

As a 4/6, he can be quite a powerhouse for only 3 mana. But what deck can consistently sacrifice creatures like this? The best example is a Mono-Black Aggro deck like this one at Pro Tour Ixalan. As a one-of, it's not bad in an aggro deck. Since you can use the sacrifice ability at instant speed, you can sacrifice creatures that would have otherwise died to removal or in combat, anyway. Bontu also has great synergies with creatures like Bone Picker, Dread Wanderer, Scrapheap Scrounger and Yahenni, Undying Partisan.

I was able to pick up a copy of Bontu the Glorified on CardSphere for $1.36, which is roughly $0.35 less than his TCGPlayer market price at the time. This sounds cheap, but Bontu's stock is relatively low at the moment. But with his price bottoming out at $2, as a useful mythic rare from a good set, this is a reasonable floor. It's possible for him to hit $4 again during his time in Standard. But, $6 or even $8 is possible if Bontu lands in a top 8 Standard list.

There's so little risk with Bontu, especially as he sees a fair amount of play in EDH; the popular Meren of Clan Nel Toth likes to have him. If he even hits $3, I'm more than happy. You can be happy to be a buyer at $2 and below, as his price is trending in the right direction.

Nimbus Maze is one of those cards that people expected to hit a $20 price for a long time. Why is that? It’s a decent dual land that can give you White mana if you control an Island, and Blue mana if you control a Plains. That sounds kind of backwards, but it is what it is.

The Maze is actually rather similar to the dual lands from Battle for Zendikar in that it cares about what basic land types you already control. But it’s a unique land in that it was one of those one-of oddities from Future Sight. Another land from that set, Grove of the Burnwillows, became widely successful and very expensive. So why not Nimbus Maze?

Why not, indeed? It’s a valuable land in EDH, where people play Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream, and other lands with the basic land types Plains and/or Island. But as far as competitive play is concerned, especially Modern, you just never really see it. So why did this once $5 land slowly creep up to $8 over the course of 2016, and suddenly spike to nearly $40 (before settling around $25 for a bit) in late June of 2016?

Copies of Nimbus Maze were slowly trickling off of the internet for some time. Usually it’s one at a time, which is why the price increase has been so slow, but steady. A few speculators have bought multiple copies over the past few years, which has eaten up some of the supply. But these sales are rare enough that it’s made the card widely unavailable. It’s not a card that’s in high demand. Still, there is enough of a desire to have it available for Commander decks that people have been hoarding their copies.

What is a fair price for Nimbus Maze? Clearly, $25 is most certainly not. This simply isn’t a sustainable price for this card. The race to the bottom on TCGPlayer would be fairly quick. By “race to the bottom,” I mean sellers continuously undercutting each other until a price equilibrium is found.

At best, Nimbus Maze is probably a $10 card long-term. We saw the market price of this card fall to around $8-12 by June 2017, depending on condition. What made this a fair price is based mostly on the card’s overall scarcity. It was doubtful that this land would be reprinted as there is really no expansion set that it makes sense to include within. There was once speculation that it would be included as part of a new land cycle in Theros. But nothing ever came of that.

However, it would be reprinted in Iconic Masters, a set that sort of came out of nowhere... and that spelled the end of this card's steady rise...

Still, if Wizards of the Coast decides to create a cycle of lands similar to it, which is totally possible, Nimbus Maze would definitely become a lot more valuable. Vendor buylists weren’t willing to pay much more than $4 to $5 after the spike, with the outlier being high as $7. In mid-2017, the buylist price was closer to $8, which was a good sign for the future of this card.

While the market did regain some sanity in regards to Nimbus Maze, and there was a fairly substantial reprint, there may yet be another spike in its future. For quite some time,  there weren't a bunch of near-mint copies left on the open market. The reprinting led to quite a sell-off, though. Still, with this spike in its price history, we can take away a few things from  this event which can tell us a lot about what people think about this card.

Clearly, lands that are unique in some way are going to be worth something. White & Blue is a popular color combination, especially in Control-type decks. It’s actually a bit surprising that we don’t see Nimbus Maze more often in Modern. This may be due to the fact that the filter land, Mystic Gate, is much more playable in Modern. Being able to fix your mana by filtering the color you don’t need is very, very valuable when you need to cast cards that require 3 White or 3 Blue or some other tricky combination of colors.

Another factor that's still holding back this card is Mystic Gate. That’s about a $20 card as of November 2017, about the same price as Nimbus Maze was post-spike. So if you want to put your $20 into a good dual land, I’d put it on the "strictly better" Mystic Gate. It’s already been reprinted as a foil Expedition in Oath of the Gatewatch, and it’s unlikely we’ll see these filter lands reprinted again soon. Filter lands in general seem to be a pretty solid investment. Nimbus Maze is a cool land, but the reprint really cratered it as an investment.

Clearly, Nimbus Maze’s price spike was due to a buyout. Yes, it was due to hit $10 eventually. But as the market sometimes does, there’s an opportunity seen by a few people who have the cash to buy out a ton of copies at once. Oddly enough, this usually benefits those who are holding onto single copies more than it does those that actually initiate the buyout. It also benefits those who had the foresight to stash away copies in anticipation of a price jump. There are a lot of happy people right now, and you have to give them credit for their foresight.

This is a card that simply wasn’t widely available any more. Anytime that happens, silly price spikes can occur. While the story of this Nimbus Maze price spike has come to an end, it may not be the last for this unique land. However, having been reprinted in Iconic Masters has really put a damper on this card's price ceiling.

But for all those that have called this card a great investment over the past few years, it wasn't a bad idea. Congratulations on your crazy gains if you sold out at the right time and bought back in when it came back to earth. If you wait to let the Iconic Masters versions bottom out, you may have a chance to make a bunch of money again eventually.

Even if this card never enjoys a second spike, Nimbus Maze was definitely worth a $10 price tag before it was reprinted. Maybe it will get there again one day.

Another day, another price spike on a Magic the Gathering Reserved List card from Arabian Nights... but, WAIT! This card ISN'T on the Reserved List! Ebony Horse has reprintings in Revised Edition and 4th Edition. So why did this humble beautiful horsey go from $3 to $8 overnight???

Let's blame Old School Magic and their love of old black-bordered cards... I mean, Ebony Horse isn't a terrible card by early Magic standards. This 3-mana artifact has a 2 mana ability that allows you to remove one of your attacking creatures from combat. It's a nice way to save one of your creatures from being destroyed in combat.

But why the crazy price movement on a card of which there's plenty of copies out there? The simple explanation is that the other versions are white-bordered and the black bordered version looks a lot better. The artwork is classic and gorgeous. This is an Old School Magic card if I ever saw one. And apparently, this isn't the first price spike our equine artifact friend has enjoyed. Ebony Horse hit $6 back in September '17.

Plain and simple, Ebony Horse is an awesome collectible Magic card and while it's not on the Reserved List, they don't print cards like this anymore. So if you find a good deal on one of these and you like horses, I'd grab one just out of appreciation for the Old School MTG.

With the printing of Modern Masters 2017, there will be plenty of cards often played in the Modern format that will see huge drops in price due to their being reprinted in the set. One of the cards that will obviously not be in Modern Masters 2017 is Matter Reshaper. This rare creature from Oath of the Gatewatch is probably one of the more underrated Eldrazi, in my opinion. Sure, he sees a good amount of play in a variety of Modern and Legacy Eldrazi decks. But with many copies still available under $2.50 as of October 2017, he's rather underpriced for an Eternal playable.

The Matter Reshaper only costs 3 mana to cost, but one of those must be a true "colorless" mana. In Eldrazi decks, this is really never going to be a problem. Best of all, when the Reshaper dies, he either puts a free permanent onto the battlefield or draws you a card. Either way, he can easily replace himself. Sure, if he gets exiled by a Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares, you won't get the ability. But more often that not, you'll make sure that he dies. Keep in mind that he can also put a land into play, which is a nice gain in tempo.

Matter Reshaper was $6 in February 2016 at the height of his popularity. After dropping considerably in price, he was still $4 back in July & August 2016. But then, after basically disappearing from Standard play completely, his price cratered. However, in early March 2017 there was a mini price-spike to about $2.50, and after a slight dip afterwards back under $2, he's been on a slow, but steady rise again.

As part of a smaller set that was opened a lot, there are a lot of copies out there. But in a couple of years, with his consistent play in Modern, he could easily be a $4-5 card again. This is a card I definitely want a play-set of on-hand. Eldrazi is his best deck, and while you never know where else he may pop up, that's an archetype that's not going anywhere.

Back in October of 2016, Authority of the Consuls was one of 5 cards under $5 to watch in Kaladesh. Every card on that list are still good investments, including Depala, Pilot Exemplar, Insidious Will,  and Toolcraft Exemplar. In particular, Panharmonicon, has become a smash hit in Commander.  

Authority of the Consuls is a great one-drop Enchantment that sees a bunch of Commander play, too. But, unlike Panharmonicon which only saw strong Standard play early on in Kaladesh Standard, Authority of the Consuls is a strong sideboard card that has usability beyond Standard.

One major indicator that Authority of the Consuls is a Magic card to watch is the consistent disparity between its price on Amazon and TCGPlayer. Authority of the Consuls was consistently a Top 100 best seller in Trading Cards on Amazon. While it was a $1 card on TCGPlayer for most of its life, Authority of the Consuls was a $4 card at one time. Then, it was seeing consistent sideboard play in two of the better decks in Standard at the time, Copy Cat Combo and Mardu Ballista. Copy Cat Combo is no longer a deck, so that has seen its play greatly decline. Still, we know that this card can be $4.

Blind Obedience and Authority of the Consuls

What’s so good about Authority of the Consuls? It’s really a bit better version of Blind Obedience, an Enchantment that many players once thought would be a great answer to aggro decks. But at two mana, it was often a turn too late. Forcing your opponent’s creatures to come into play tapped is huge, and an Enchantment that costs only 1 mana to do this is significantly better.

The other upside to Authority over Blind Obedience is that you also gain 1 life each time an opponent has a creature enter the battlefield (even tokens!) Blind Obedience had extort, which is a nice ability, but it first required your to cast a spell and also pay one mana to drain your opponents. In most cases, Authority of the Consuls is simply going to be more efficient.

Authority of the Consuls in EDH

Blind Obedience actually sees about 50 percent more play than Authority of the Consuls in EDH (as of November 2018), but that’s because it also causes artifacts to come into play tapped. Also, in Commander, the Extort mechanic is more relevant, since mana is more plentiful and plenty more spells will be cast over the course of a game. Plus, Extort affects all opponents, so a single activation of Extort can drain each opponent for 1 life and gain you that much life. That’s often at least a 3 point life gain. So it’s much more cost effective.

Still, Authority of the Consuls and Blind Obedience see play in the same exact decks in Commander. They complement one another instead of merely being redundant. There is definitely demand from the Commander crowd, which explains the higher price on Amazon; many Commander-friendly cards see higher prices on Amazon.

Authority of the Consuls in Modern?

It’s a bit surprising that Authority of the Consuls hasn’t been seen more in Modern. There are so many aggro decks in the format, too, so it seems like a no-brainer. The best part is that even if you happen to draw a second copy of Authority, the lifegain it can provide is still relevant. There’s also a good chance that it returns to more Standard sideboards after the rotation of the Battle for Zendikar and Shadows Over Innistrad blocks.

In any case, this is a really good card to pick up for $1 or less. There’s also long been tons of interest in both non-foil and foil copies of Authority of the Consuls on PucaTrade. If people want foil playsets of a card, they plan to have them for a long time. This is a card that could easily find itself being played more in Modern  and has room to grow in Commander. Authority of the Consuls is definitely a Magic card worth picking up and holding for the long term.

I don't know about you, but I haven't seen many Magic: the Gathering players tripping over themselves to build Legacy Enchantress decks. The once very popular archetype ran four copies of Enchantress's Presence, a rare from Onslaught, in order to speed up their draws. Well, it's late May 2017, and suddenly the price has jumped from $6 to over $13 on TCGPlayer and the card has all but disappeared entirely from Amazon. What caused this strange and sudden buyout?

 The last time that a deck with four copies of Enchantress's Presence topped a tournament was in March of 2017. This has been a $5-ish card for a very long time, despite how clearly good it is. So this is a price correction of sorts. Did a bunch of Magic financiers suddenly decide, hey we can afford to buy these out? Maybe. It's a good card in Commander, but there's no new Commander that's demanding this card.

So I guess this is a buyout/price correction. If you have any copies of this card laying around that you're not using, I'd happily sell into the spike. There's just no real demand for this card to stay this high.

Quietus Spike is a Magic card from Shards of Alara quietly enjoyed a rise in price from around $2 to $4 over a couple of years. However, with a reprint in Commander 2017 and later in Planechase Anthology, the original printing fell under $2. Quietly, it's been a very solid Equipment for quite a long time.

Appearing first in Shards of Alara, and also included in a Planechase pre-constructed deck, Quietus Spike is a 3-drop Equipment that gives a creature deathtouch. Also, whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, that players loses half of his or her life, rounded up.

Voltron strategies, those that involve loading up one creature with a bunch of Equipments and/or Auras, are extremely popular in Commander. This would explain why a great many Kemba, Kha Regent decks have included this equipment. A card like Quietus Spike is especially good on a Commander like Rafiq of the Many, who much of the time has double strike. That means the effect of Quietus Spike activates twice, which means a ton of life lost.

Quietus Spike is also fun on any creature that has trample or otherwise gains trample. This is because when you assign damage on a trampling creature, only 1 of that damage has to be dealt to a defending creature. Now, not only can you deal more damage, but greatly sap your opponent's overall total, as well.

Sadly, the Spike's ability doesn't trigger Gisela, Blade of Goldnight's double damage dealing ability. This is since the Spike's ability is life loss, not damage. The Spike also doesn't grant you additional combat damage when totaling the 21 Commander damage (also known as general damage) necessary for an invididual Commander to take out a player. It also doesn't double infect damage, which is a good thing, because 10 Poison Counters to kill a player is a low enough total to begin with.

The Spike was also quite good in the short-lived but massively popular Tiny Leaders format, the 50-card Commander variant in which you can only play cards with converted mana cost 3 or less. With how prevalent Voltron strategies are in that format, and the lack of lethal Commander damage, having an Equipment like this can end games quickly. Your opponent only starts with 25 life in Tiny Leaders, so it won't take much for any creature equipped with this to land a heavy blow.

The Tiny Leaders format didn't last all that long, but a lot of people bought Quietus Spike that didn't have use for them before. The price has been on an even steadier rise since then. It took a big jump from $3 to almost $4 between February and April of 2016 and the price has been wavering between $3 and $4 since then.

Even without Tiny Leaders, Quietus Spike sees play in a wide variety of Commander decks. Interestingly, the Commander who utilizes it the most is not one with Double Strike. It's actually Olivia Voldaren. Olivia is usually a Vampire Tribal Commander who is definitely focused on life loss, so you could see the Spike fitting into that strategy quite well. Another Commander bent on life loss is Vela the Night-Clad, so it's little surprise that the Quietus Spike shows up in some of her decks, as well.

Also, both of these decks have access to an Enchantment called Wound Reflection. This card has a player-killing combo with Quietus Spike, since it causes each opponent to lose  life equal to the amount of life lost that turn at the end of each turn. It's probably the best combo available with Quietus Spike.

Quietus Spike is a fairly valuable equipment in a wide range of Commander decks. While it hasn't become a staple in the format, it's widely played. You can't really go wrong picking this card up if you're fond of Equipment-based decks.

The Pact cycle from Future Sight is pretty good for the most part. Technically, they are all "free" spells. While they have a pretty big drawback of having to pay a certain amount of mana during the next upkeep or you lose the game, they are usually worth it. Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact, and Summoner's Pact are all cards that see play in Modern and other formats.

Even Intervention Pact sees occasional play and saw a spike when Madcap Experiment decks began to be brewed. But the red Pact, Pact of the Titan, hasn't seen much play since being a part of some Hive Mind Legacy lists back in 2011 to 2013.

What Hive Mind does is make a copy each instant or sorcery spell that a player casts for each player. With the Pact spells, if you cast a Pact that the opposing player can't pay for during his or her upkeep, that player instantly loses. All the Hive Mind player had to do was cast the Pact that the opposing player had no way of being able to pay for. It's a mean way to win. While Pact of the Titan wasn't close to the best of the 5 pacts for this purpose, it did see play in some lists.

Hive Mind decks aren't really much of a part of the Legacy metagame anymore, so Pact of the Titan went by the way side. It's easily the weakest of the Pacts. While creating a 4/4 creature at instant speed for no mana sounds awesome, having to pay 4R at the next upkeep is rarely worth it. However, when Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact and Summoner's Pact were reprinted in the original Modern Masters sets, Intervention Pact and Pact of the Titan were not. This meant that their supplies have remained relatively low.

So it was only a matter of time before Intervention Pact's price spiked. But while that spike make some sense, when Pact of the Titan was bought out on TCGplayer on 10/29/16, many heads were scratched. The TCG Player mid price hit almost $7 before falling to about $6 a couple days later. But no one is really biting at this price, which means it's pretty clear that this was an intentional buyout for speculative purposes.

Is this card ever going to be good enough to justify more than its original price of about $1? It's doubtful. This was really just a case of someone buying out a card that had low supply that may see play again at some point. This card is fine for what it does, but it's not something that most decks want. Some Commander decks will play it, but it's not something that you're going to see on a regular basis. This is one I'd sell high on if you happen to have any copies laying around. There should be a race to the bottom sooner or later, but this card will now always be worth more than it was before.

June 2017 Update: Pact of the Titan still has a market price of almost $5 on TCGPlayer. I would still recommend selling this card, as I can't see it maintaining this high of a price long-term. Although, after being at this price point for a long time, it's not anything you have to sell in a hurry.

Intervention Pact is one of the cycle of five (mostly) powerful Pacts from Magic the Gathering's Future Sight set. Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact, and Summoner's Pact are the ones that many Magic players know about. There's the also unplayably bad Pact of the Titan in Red, but Intervention Pact is actually playable. It has seen occasional pay in Modern Eldrazi & Taxes and in Commander. However, in late September of 2016, Intervention Pact went from being a $1 rare to having a TCGPlayer Mid price of nearly $12! What happened!? 

Many price spikes occur due to what are known as "price corrections" meaning that the card's price relative to its demand finally normalizes as supply diminishes. However, many other price spikes occur to the dreaded buyout, as in one or a few speculators buy out the internet of a particular card with low supply that may or may not actually have future demand. In the case of Intervention Pact, it doesn't seem that many people were willing to actually pay more than $5 for this card when the price spike occurred. So in this case, we can assume this was a buyout target.

by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid has been a part of Elf decks in Commander for quite sometime. He's even popped up in competitive formats once in awhile as part of a combo deck built around his second ability: the one to gain control of all lands a target player controls.

But for the most part, the Archdruid is a role player in Elf decks like Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury, and Rhys the Redeemed. They run enough Druids that the draw a card ability on the Archdruid is enough reason to run him. The Archdruid is also part of the win condition for the ultimate Druid Tribal Commander, Seton, Krosan Protector. The ability to steal all those lands is just a bonus in an Elf deck. With a dedicated Druid build, this creature becomes very un-fun to play against very quickly.

The interesting thing about this card is that its sell price seems to hover between $3 and $4 depending on who you ask. It's a card with only one printing, Morningtide, but since most people are only picking up a copy at a time, the price has never really taken off. But recently, buylists have jumped from $2 to $2.50 and even $3.50. It's really just a case of supply finally running low on this card.

This card is definitely a strong pick-up right now. It's hard to say where this card's price goes. But as it hasn't been above $4 for years, Gilt-Leaf Archdruid is definitely due for some price growth. Definitely watch the buylist prices on this card, as soon there may be some chances to buy these at arbitrage prices (as in buy them from one vendor and sell them to another for a profit).