Reprint Recovery

With a reprint set like Double Masters 2022, there’s no question that the prices will go down. That’s a given, since that’s why Wizards bothers making a reprint set in the first place. More copies means lower prices.

When these reprint sets land, there’s two things we want to know: How low will prices go and how quickly will they rebound? For some reprints, the latter question stretches out into infinity, and for other reprints, the answers are ‘not far’ and ‘really quickly’.

Sometimes we have to consider how many reprints there have been, the number of premium offerings, and other such factors into our estimation, but right now I want to look at 2X2 with an eye towards what I want to get now and what I want to get later.

As an example of what I want to avoid, let’s look at Academy Ruins, a card from the first Double Masters, it’s in over 45,000 decks on EDHREC, a site where people want to show off their powerful builds. This was about $30 when the reprint hit:

At a low of $7, it’s now up to $13 but over two years, so if you bought at $7, plus taxes, fees, and shipping, you’re going to just about make your money back and I want to do better. This is growth, but it’s agonizingly slow and is hard to maximize.

One other caveat here: It’s rare but not impossible for Wizards to double-dip with reprinting staples. Austere Command and Blasphemous Act are two examples of cards that would be quite pricey if they hadn’t gotten several printings in a row. There’s no real way to predict what’s coming–I thought Doubling Season was a lock to be in Double Masters 2022, but c’est la vie.

Phyrexian Altar (currently down to $34 for the cheapest versions, 56k decks on EDHREC) - I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom here, but when this card grows, it goes up marvelously. Let’s look at the graph for the UMA version for what I mean:

If you’d bought in at the start of the pandemic, you got in under $20 and two years later it was pushing $100. Yes, the pandemic made all sorts of prices go up, but this is one of the best returns you could have asked for.

I don’t think we have gotten to the floor yet, but this should regain some high prices (above $60) because of the combo potential. Borderless foils should go a little lower too, and those are a prime target to grow very nicely.

Food Chain ($29, 8400 decks) - The biggest mover on this card is an infinite combo in Legacy, and I am always very leery of getting in on cards that need paper Legacy play. This has potential, aside from infinite mana with Misthollow Griffin, Eternal Scourge, or Squee, the Immortal. Mostly the card is played as infinite creature mana, which isn’t terribly exciting. There’s a judge foil and the OG foil is crazy expensive because of the Legacy players, representing a topline number that’ll be hard to match. I wouldn’t buy in on this at anything over $5, so it’s likely I never will, and I’m okay with that.

Consecrated Sphinx ($25, 43k decks) - I’m really excited for the concept of $20 or even $15 for these cards. Gonna have to be patient, and check in with this card around Thanksgiving, but the card has rebounded well every time:

I know blessed few blue mages who don’t play this, as it tends to draw removal quickly and get you killed for your impertinence, but drawing 6+ cards a turn cycle is pretty great and you can even choose not to if you don’t want to. I’m not expecting regular versions to hit $80 or anything, but buying in at $15 and reselling at $45-$50 is very appealing.

Oracle of Mul Daya ($8, 42k decks) - This is intriguing, because it’s a busted card in Cube and Commander, but doesn’t have huge stats. There was a reprint in 2020, and that trended the card downwards, except for the Zendikar foils, which kept going up.

Jumpstart wasn’t a huge product in terms of raw numbers, but clearly it was enough to trend this downwards. Now with a real reprint, I’m hoping we get to silly prices like regular nonfoils for $4 or borderless foils under $10. I admit I’m going to be cautious, though, because good $5 cards often end up in Commander products and stay super cheap.

Divine Visitation ($6, 18k decks) - Full disclosure, I bought 6 of these in foil in April 2020 at $14 each, and I’m never going to make that back. There’s an etched foil here, and now twice as many regular foils, so I’m going to write it off soon. This will take forever and a half to gain any value, and you’ll be better off picking up other cards.

Sensei’s Divining Top ($24, 105k decks) - I am a believer that this will recover. Yes, it’s got a few printings going on, but this is the first time it’s been given some real quantities. The EMA version got to nearly $10 for a while:

If I bought in at $15 and was able to resell at $40, great. If I kept holding, I could have gotten out at $75! I don’t think it’ll get that high again, but the downward trend is real here and I think $10-$15 is in play eventually, and that’s a price I’m happy to indulge at. The older foils are around $100, not counting the OG which is triple that, but I’m much less interested in trying to track borderless foils from $55 or so and hoping they go above $100 too.

Concordant Crossroads ($20, 16k decks) - The thing about the other versions of this card is that someone has to want to buy a Chronicles version and according the TCGPlayer, very few do. This is an example of a card that got a double whammy: a Secret Lair printing in April and then this 2x2 hits, for a card with pretty low demand.

I don’t want to buy at $20, or even $10. It’s going to take an extremely long time to recover, so I’d recommend you stay away too. Don’t get beguiled by ‘This was a $75 Chronicles version and now it’s $7!’ because you’ll be sitting on it forever.