The Trash-Tier RL
As we come near to a conclusion on single card price history, we enter the trash-tier reserved list. These are all mass printed ( probably 150-200k+ copies at LEAST ) and many are completely unplayable.
However the FOIL copies of some of these cards ( promos, from the vault and Urza’s Destiny/Legacy ) likely have far fewer copies out there, possibly in the 5-10k range and are some of the most played ones ( Grim Monolith, FTV mox diamond, judge Cradle etc. ).
Anyway first let’s just look at a graph with all the sets:
The only relevant thing to notice here is how the Index just destroyed this completely and utterly right up to the 2016 mark where some of the prices of the more desirable / rare / expensive cards from this category skyrocket.
The judge promos did ludicrously well here, with many listed at 20-40$ in 2009 and going up to 1000-2600$ in 2023. Similar story for the Urza block foils.
That goes to show that scarcity is very crucial and that you might as well just go for the expensive rare thing because it almost always has a way higher multiplier when everything’s going up.
Now let’s just look at the last 10 years from some of these blocks ( because the early years are all garbage ).
First off, Fallen Empires + Ice Age block.
Alright, pretty clear. If you trace this all the way back to 1996 it gets even worse. These sets have always been shit. They have no widely played cards and as such the price trend reflects this pretty well. A lot of people bought into the hype here and hoarded tons of 1-2$ cards hoping to exit at 5-10$ or more. Sadly the buylists are back down to 10-30 cents for most of these cards. Anyone who got this crap at retail in the last 6-7 years just got slayed unless they flipped at the exact right time. Why go through that risk and effort?
Stay away from this garbage.
Now Mirage Block:
The only card you should hold long-term from these 3 sets is Lion’s Eye Diamond. That’s it. The rest is just junk.
Even if you isolate just the Diamond, it didn’t do great. It got a nice bump due to Rudy in 2016 hype era but that’s not happening again is my guess.
Anyway onto Tempest Block:
Woah now we’re getting somewhere! Two sets beating the Index here. Stronghold mostly off the back of Sliver Queen and Mox Diamond and Exodus thanks to City of Traitors and Survival of the Fittest. These sets have much fewer cards on the reserved list and they are on average much more playable than previous blocks.
Mox Diamond is probably the strongest hold of any of these for the longer term.
Lastly, Urza Block:
Clear story there: If it’s foil, it went up a lot. Urza’s Saga did very well too and not just because of the Cradle even though it is worth 3x its nearest competitor, Gilded Drake.
It might be worth doing a separate article to see which of these RL cards did well or not. I suspect you’ll find once again that the more expensive the card, the better it did.
Last graph, the promos:
Sadly I only have data going back to 2010 for these, which also coincides with the last year they printed any reserved list cards as promos and changed the Reserved List policy. However many of these cards had been around for quite some time before that, I just don’t have their price data.
However I would guess they did not do very well since the 2009 prices are very low ( 40$ for Judge Gaea’s Cradle that came out in 1998… ).
Most of this gain is however driven by just a few cards: Judge Wheel of Fortune, Judge Gaea’s Cradle, Judge Survival of the Fittest, Judge Intuition and FTV: Relics Mox Diamond.
Here’s the full graph with them ranked in order. You can see some of them did not beat the Index and you can see that Wheel just did absurdly well, but part of that was starting from a very low point ( 20$) whereas the Cradle started from 40$.
CONCLUSION
Further deconstruction could be useful but the picture is pretty crystal clear so far: Get the expensive shiny cards and stay far away from the low cost junk.
I’d even consider something like a Judge Foil Cradle on par with an Alpha/Beta card. It’s super rare, very beautiful and has organic collectability. Yes some of its value comes from the price, but it likely has a 20x or even 40x lower print run than the non-foil version. Which one’s going to tank hardest if playability is an issue?
Special shout out to Judge Foil Survival of the Fittest which got its own unique and beautiful art. I wish it had the old border as well:
Source/ Method for the MTG data: https://www.thepoxbox.com/posts/whats-my-card-worth
Other MTG related content:
Data Analysis:
Deconstructing Alpha - What rarities did the best in Alpha?
Deconstructing Beta / Unlimited - What rarities did the best in B/U?
4 Horsemen Deconstructed / Compared
Final Look at A/B/U - Best categories from each set compared to each other
Comparing A/B/U - Which set did the best as a whole?
General MTG content:
What’s a fair comparison? - Trying to fairly compare MTG to stocks
Omg should I grade this? - How rare is your card, really?
Magic Post-Covid market bloodbath - Coming off the 2021 cocaine high
Where do I sell my cards? - A flowchart for Timmy
Should I buy this collectible? - Another flowchart for Timmy
Investing in Collectibles - Is it dumb? - Initial look at the suspiciously high ROI of MTG