2025 MTG Year in Review
It’s been three years since I started writing for MTGStocks. Much like my previous anniversary articles, I wanted to go over some of my findings from the previous year.
So, if you’ll indulge me, let's look back at everything that caught my eye in 2025 - the wins, the losses, and some statistics sprinkled in along the way.
Curtains' Call
Starting off. I’d like to take a quick review of last year's articles. In a similar fashion to the previous year, we had the Innistrad Remastered release, and we wrapped up with the Secret Lair: An Encyclopedia of Magic. Throughout the 12 monthly articles, I’ve covered all major set releases along with several Secret Lairs, concluding in a total of 73 cards being reviewed or mentioned.
From these, I've calculated a ~67.1% accurate prediction rate and a ~24.7% failure rate on whether their price will increase, decrease, or remain the same. I also totalled a ~8.2% undecided rate, where I have mentioned a card but hadn’t provided a clear prediction. I don’t think these rates are great, however, I would be less critical if that undecided percentage had been at least allocated in either of the other categories.
For cards that have exceeded my expectations, there are a few that come to mind. Starting with the largest gainers, the Hatsune Miku Secret Lair
On the other hand, [card]Thrumming Hivepool[/card] and [card]Spider-Punk[/card] were my biggest losers, dropping 86-89% of their market value. These gains and losses are still in line with what I have seen in 2024 and 2023.
Pendulum of Patterns
This year, we’ve seen a good utilization of the bonus sheet and a good course correction for the serialized cards. The price-capping bonus sheet has been a nice addition, and I have often found myself looking for more singles from these rather than from the main set.
As for serialized cards and the condition affecting only a single card, it feels like the community at large has moved away from paying too much attention to this. Of course, this may not be the case in your local area, but, at large, coming down from the high that [card]The One Ring[/card] was, Collector Boosters and their prices have largely cooled off. On the other hand, Collector Boosters crashing out is a separate topic of conversation.
From a pure numbers perspective, this year has seen 1928 new cards printed on paper. From these, there were 527 new legendary cards, of which 479 were creatures. About 18% more than in 2023 and 49% more than in 2024.
The focus on different IPs and Commander players won’t slow down anytime soon. At this point, more and more people are open to a pseudo-counter-culture of going back to 1v1 play, or, as proven by some major investments, Limited play.
Diminishing Returns
Wrapping up, I want to go over some of my own investments from the last 12 months, although I took it very easy on purchasing cards. I didn’t make any major penny stock investments or grab anything from the mid-price category. My main investments have been picking up cards that I felt were nice additions to my own collection, rather than resale.
Most of the cards purchased were from
More recently, after seeing the Blight Curse deck, I bought four foil [card]Carnifex Demon[/card]. My reasoning was that it may have been low on the reprint priority list. I was wrong, but in my defence, it has been a while since Wizards did a really good job with reprints.
Highlights from the Year 2025
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Favorite Article To Write
My favorite article to write was the Cards to Watch From Edge of Eternities. Just the sheer amount of cards I wanted to talk about and even some of the ones that didn’t make the cut either.
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Favorite Product Release
My favorite product is
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Best Limited Environment
This is going straight to
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Best New Thing
A little bit of a new segment that I want to add here. I really wanted to talk about Magic Limited Championship. In my opinion, this is the best move for the game, focusing on the Draft and the skillset associated with it. This is what I find most joy in, for me all the Pro-Tours start and finish with Limited; Constructed is always a secondary aspect.
Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the lovely people reading and supporting my articles. Writing for MTGStocks over the past three years has been an incredibly rewarding experience so here’s to another great year ahead.
Join me next time as we Day/Night Cycle through
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Matt Grzechnik
Matt Grzechnik started playing Magic with the release of Dragon's Maze. Since then he has tried and experimented with all of the formats before discovering his love for EDH and Pauper. Piloting the same Jund deck for the last 10 years, he now tries to both understand and break Sealed as a format.