Magic the Gathering

Theory

Legacy Cards and The Time Value of Cardboard

By Kelly Reid ⋅ November 5, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Most play­ers focus on Stan­dard when build­ing their col­lec­tion at first. Why? Stan­dard is the most com­mon FNM for­mat and the most acces­si­ble for­mat to new play­ers. Because of this, the val­ues of cards are widely known and under­stood and prices in stores are usu­ally kept up-to-date. If we travel back in the game’s his­tory a few years, prices get a lot more hazy. Out­side of ded­i­cated Legacy play­ers, few know accu­rate val­ues of older cards. While Legacy sin­gles may be more dif­fi­cult to move, there is usu­ally a good cash mar­ket for them on the internet.

Pre­tend you’re look­ing through a Bulk Box at a local card store in which com­mons are 10 cents and uncom­mons are 25. You see a few good cards along the lines of:

That’s about 2 bucks by the bulk pric­ing scheme. Do you have any idea what those cards are worth? $5? $10? How much can a few com­mons and uncom­mons really cost?

How’s $30 sound? Yep, those 13 cards are all worth at least $2 each. Priest of Tita­nia, a com­mon from Urza’s Saga, clocks in at $5 in NM con­di­tion, and a sim­i­larly high $4.25 in played shape. You see, most newer play­ers never had a chance to play with those cards when they were in Stan­dard. Peo­ple who don’t focus on Extended will likely have no idea how good the Wire­wood Sym­biote was at gen­er­at­ing extra mana, or real­ize that Daze is often a hard counter in Legacy. In addi­tion, it’s been a long time since those cards were rel­e­vant to the Stan­dard for­mat and so many deal­ers would not have had rea­son to pull them from the Bulk Box.

This is where some really ridicu­lous deals can hap­pen. Many deal­ers and game stores have these unsorted boxes of older cards, and unless the store is focused on sell­ing Magic sin­gles, they will prob­a­bly never sort through these boxes. Next time you go to a game store, take a half an hour before­hand to peruse online prices of some older sets. Some cards that look oth­er­wise unre­mark­able can be worth well more than the dime, quar­ter or nickel you may have to pay for them. A few of note, with aver­age prices:

• Sea Drake — Por­tal II Uncom­mon — $40
• Chain Light­ning — Leg­ends Com­mon — $12.50
• Moun­tain — Ara­bian Nights Com­mon — $20
• Aether Vial — Dark­steel Uncom­mon — $6
• Crys­talline Sliver — Strong­hold Uncom­mon — $6
• Enlight­ened Tutor — Mirage Uncom­mon — $7
• Gob­lin Lackey — Urza’s Saga Uncom­mon — $8
• Isochron Scepter — Mir­rodin Uncom­mon — $6
• Per­sonal Tutor — Por­tal Uncom­mon — $10
• Stand­still — Odyssey Uncom­mon — $7
• Waste­land — Tem­pest Uncom­mon — $12.50
• Ancient Tomb — Tem­pest Uncom­mon — $5

Some of these, like Waste­land, might be com­mon knowl­edge, but many peo­ple are still shocked to find out that Stand­still, a mid­dling card in Stan­dard, is now a Legacy sta­ple worth more than 90% of the cards in Zendikar. Review a price guide before you go out next and it’s almost assured that you’ll find some hid­den trea­sures in the stacks of unsorted miscellany.

When it comes to rares in older for­mats, the facts remain the same. Some rares, which were pop­u­lar in Stan­dard, are now worth 2–3 times as much. In some cases, a for­mer crap rare has risen to star­dom and is now worth 10–20 times as much as it was. Cards like City of Trai­tors, which was never an expen­sive card when it was new, are worth $15 due to their abil­ity to ramp out tons of arti­fact mana.

Although they are very dif­fi­cult to find, foil copies of Legacy sta­ples are very expen­sive and can be a tremen­dous bar­gain when you locate one. Tin­ker, nor­mally a $4 uncom­mon, clocks in at $20 when you foil it out. Mis­di­rec­tion, the Force of Will style Deflec­tion, weighs in at $60 for the foil copy, $120 of that foil is Japan­ese. While most dealer have some aware­ness that foil rares are more valu­able, you might find a 60 dol­lar rare marked as 20. It might not be as good as find­ing a foil Tin­ker in the dol­lar bin, but tripling your money or acquir­ing a real trea­sure of the game for 66% off is noth­ing to scoff at.

Knowl­edge is every­thing when it comes to mak­ing savvy trades and acqui­si­tions. Make sure you research the prices of older sets and their foil ver­sions before going to a tour­na­ment, game store, or con­ven­tion. Some of the most explo­sive deals can be found in col­lec­tions of older cards, and these kinds of trades can really cat­alyze the growth of a col­lec­tion. Until next week, leave a com­ment below with some of your expe­ri­ences and lucky finds when dig­ging through unsorted cards!

Kelly Reid, editor of financial news site http://www.quietspeculation.com, has been playing Magic the Gathering since 1994. With 15 years experience in the game, his goal is to teach others to fund their gaming through proactive speculation and intelligent trading.

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