The Numbers on the Reserved List buyouts
The last weeks I have been a bit fascinated by the buyouts that are happening all across the board, where mainly cards from the notorious Reserved List seem to be targeted. Cards that aren't played like, anywhere, which were only a few dollars are jumping into the hundreds, solely based on speculation.
So what makes these cards so wanted? Just the fact that Wizards isn't going to reprint them. Ever. There's a finite amount of these cards in circulation, while there is a growing userbase. The reserved list came into existence when collectors protested that their cards were rapidly devaluating because of
We've seen some quite explainable price corrections on dual lands, since they're heavily played in Legacy in Vintage, but also spikes like
Let's have a quick look at the financial implications these recent buyouts have on Magic finance. Let's pull out some numbers from the sets that include reserved list cards and let's look at all reserved cards as a whole. Below is a table of the average prices of the sets and the reserved list, based on 1 year ago and today. I also included some categories of reserved list where we filter out the lower segment.
| All cards | Reserved only | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set | 1 year ago | Today | 1 year ago | Today |
| $192.99 | $304.55 | $922.45 | $1464.07 | |
| $213.01 | $232.97 | $1178.26 | $1256.20 | |
| $80.54 | $78.76 | $452.64 | $464.35 | |
| $6.38 | $6.76 | $62.88 | $69.95 | |
| $41.15 | $62.67 | $154.48 | $234.06 | |
| $20.98 | $24.92 | $93.57 | $110.11 | |
| $15.88 | $21.42 | $56.38 | $79.27 | |
| $1.31 | $2.30 | $1.59 | $6.81 | |
| $0.27 | $0.28 | $0.44 | $0.48 | |
| $0.46 | $0.48 | $0.68 | $0.68 | |
| $0.47 | $0.45 | $0.77 | $0.85 | |
| $1.04 | $1.04 | $2.02 | $2.28 | |
| $0.97 | $0.93 | $2.94 | $2.64 | |
| $1.00 | $0.99 | $1.58 | $1.68 | |
| $0.96 | $0.92 | $2.97 | $2.69 | |
| $1.36 | $1.34 | $9.41 | $8.53 | |
| $2.19 | $2.11 | $23.93 | $23.81 | |
| $2.39 | $2.25 | $27.51 | $24.36 | |
| $2.39 | $2.33 | $26.09 | $25.90 | |
| $1.39 | $1.37 | $11.33 | $10.94 | |
| $1.57 | $1.74 | $10.70 | $11.08 | |
| Reserved List | $179.04 | $225.14 | ||
| Reserved List With average above $5 | $443.89 | $463.96 | ||
| Reserved List With average above $50 | $853.41 | $879.49 | ||
Arjen
Arjen has been playing Magic since the Ice Age set released. He primarily plays Legacy format and founded MTGStocks over a decade ago when he and his friends wanted to track card prices to purchase singles at optimal times.