Do Lands Affect Sealed Magic Prices?

Key to the successful design of any Magic set is the rare land cycle, the glue which holds multicolor decks together in Standard for their brief moment in the sun as players adjust to playing with the newest cards. Sometimes these lands flash and fizzle, doing something and then nothing – like the Theros Temple cycle - while others live on in Magic infamy, like Ravnica’s Shocklands. 

But how much do these lands actually matter for the long-term prices of the sealed product in which they can be found? Let’s take a look.

Case One: Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

First up, let’s take a look at a set that – power level controversies aside – was by all measures a smash hit. Strong prices, stronger cards, player excitement, all the things a Standard set can hope for.

Looking at the most expensive cards in Ikoria’s roster of normal-printing cards (ignoring the Godzilla crossover), eight cards currently rise above $10: the Triome land cycle, plus The Ozolith, Drannith Magistrate, and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. Below these, cards drop to the $5-and-below range; not prices to ignore, especially in a Draft Booster Box, but also not the value that can prop up a set’s price line.

Beyond just carrying a high price tag, the Triome land cycle represents one of the most powerful and most popular land cycles of recent memory. Entering the battlefield tapped is a real downside - just ask anyone who has ever found it as their only land on turn one - but the flexibility brought by the cycling ability, as well as carrying three basic land types, is more than enough to make these cards desirable across formats. Commander, Pioneer, Modern, you name it – these cards are seeing play.

Moving to the sealed prices, Ikoria has continued its strong price trend ever since release date. In the past year alone, Ikoria Draft Booster Boxes are up 9%, an impressive trend for a recently-printed non-Collector product. So, how much can we attribute this to the Triomes? Let’s compare.

Case Two: Streets Of New Capenna

Streets of New Capenna, meanwhile, is everything Ikoria wasn’t. Whereas Ikoria came out and quickly rocked the Magic world with broken cards and a flavor that players loved, New Capenna fell flat. The response to the world design was tepid at best, and even the set’s most important cards couldn’t hold a candle to the fairer cards from Ikoria. Still, the set contains the other half of the Triome cycle; so how are things fairing?

In the past year, Draft Booster Boxes of New Capenna are effectively flat, having only appreciated by less than 2%. This continues the overall price trend which they’ve suffered from since release, either eroding or not moving at all year after year. 

But what about the cards within? 

Looking at the price of singles, we find a similar story. The most expensive card in New Capenna, Jetmir’s Garden, is cheaper than the cheapest of our aforementioned Ikoria contenders (roughly $12 vs Kinnan’s $13). Continuing down the list, we run out of cards worth more than approximately $10 by the time we reach sixth place, Halo Fountain.

All in all, the single cards in Streets of New Capenna just make it a cheaper set, and that’s reflected in its price tag. It may have the same cycle of lands (albeit in different colors), but that isn’t enough for it to escape the trappings of the rest of New Capenna’s baggage.

Case Three: Shocklands in Return to Ravnica

We’ve now seen a set with one half of an excellent land cycle which went on to appreciate substantially, and we’ve also seen the other half of that same land cycle continue on with little, if any, progress since its debut. But what about something in between – the pinnacle of modern land designs in a well-received set, but that hasn’t appreciated as substantially as something like Ikoria? 

For such a set, let’s turn to Shocklands and Return to Ravnica. 

Neither Ravnica nor the Shocklands need an introduction, but since they’ve become so ingrained into Magic it’s worthwhile to take a step back and appreciate just how impactful they have been for Magic as a whole. 

The plane of Ravnica has defined two-color Magic for two decades, while the Shocklands have gone on to dominate the manabases of every format they’re legal in, provided they’re not competing with Magic’s original dual lands. Suffice it to say, modern Magic is inseparable from Ravnica.

Given this success, it’s no surprise that Magic’s first return to this world was met with adoring fanfare, primarily due to the world design, but not without significant appreciation for many card designs within. Jace, Architect of Thought, Sphinx's Revelation, Deathrite Shaman, Cyclonic Rift, and, of course, the return of the Shocklands – all of these were welcomed with open arms. So, how did the set do?

Since release, Return to Ravnica has appreciated roughly 50% from the secondary-market price of $90, with 9% of that appreciation coming from this year alone (just like Ikoria). However, unlike Ikoria, the repeated reprints of Return to Ravnica’s marquee cards has led to stalls and dips in the product’s appreciation timeline, as is evident from the fact that the prices of its single cards look a lot more like those of Streets of New Capenna than they do Ikoria (except for Cyclonic Rift, mind you).

Wrap Up

All in all, it appears that the land cycle within a sealed product can be a good indicator for its long term success, but by no means is it a true divining rod. World design, macroeconomic conditions, print run sizes – these are all things which can severely impact the success of a sealed product, and land cycles can only hold so much weight. The good thing, however, is that these lands tend to move together, so if the overall design is well received then that’s at least five – if not ten – cards that can be added to the list of noteworthy singles after a set rotates out.

Further Reading

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