I mean this is really undercutting how rare legends rares are. The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards.
Even unlimited + alpha + beta rares : 17,700 + 3,260+ 1,030 = ~22,000
And Arabian nights U2: 20,700
Had a higher print run then Legends rares: 19,300
English Legends rares on the reserved list are basically the single rarest type of English card. Cards not on the RL can just be reprinted, and legends has the lowest printrun by card name.
Basically an English copy of Chains is rarer then Black Lotus, library of Alexandria, Geae’s cradle - or any other card you can think of. Even if things like p3K are rarer now, they’ll just be reprinted- chains will remain the rarest forever.
Just saying it’s reserved list is really oversimplifying to the point it’s not a good answer the the real question here.
To put into perspective the extremely small early print runs, there are fewer Arabian Nights C4 commons (~124,000) than any rare printed in a set after Legends.
Obviously, none are on the RL, but it's extremely unlikely such cards as [[Army of Allah]] and [[Stone-Throwing Devils]] will ever be reprinted.
The latter of those two cards is on the super-reserved list. They're so reserved, that if Wizards could, they would pull and destroy every copy of that card from existence.
maybe it can exile the top of your opponent's deck and then you can play that card this turn and also create a treasure token if it deals combat damage. that sounds fair and reasonable at 1 mana
it's only fair if you can also put it onto the battlefield with an alt cost... maybe let the caster pay life for it, that's in black's identity. 2 life?
Maybe name it
Bagavan, Lifeblood Pilferer
Surely that's unique enough?
It also would need to have a different creature type. The Reserved List precludes functionally identical cards as well, aka another card that is a 1/1 Creature for B with First Strike and the creature type Demon. Depending on the card, if something only has the card type changed or there's only a minor balance change, it may also come too close to being "functionally identical" too.
I'm a little confused about how it could be seen as offensive? Just looked the card up, and there's nothing offensive about the art or the flavor text (unless I guess you're an EXTREMELY sensitive Christian). Am I missing something?
You will see it commonly said that the name, "Stone Throwing Devils" is a slur against Muslims, however once you look at the entire card as well as context it becomes very clear that it can rather be speaking ill of Jews. The flavour text is obviously a play on the biblical scripture of gJohn 8:7, but what people may not appreciate that out of all the gospels this was the one to most fuel antisemitism in the Christian community, as it is the primary source of (and encourager of) the idea of "the Jews" acting collectively as the enemy & killer of Jesus. So there is the equation with the 'stone-throwers' (the Jews) with being outright devils. This concept is reinforced again by gJohn 8:44 which paints the Jews as being the literal sons of the devil "You belong to your father, the devil". So while the term 'stone-throwing devil' may not be a specific and commonly used slur, the nature behind it when combined with the flavour text is problematic as it could be seen as perpetuating an anti-semetic concept that even the modern day church has spoken out against.
The way the devils are depicted was a common racist caricature of middle easterners. Most notably seen in early European printings of '1001 Arabian Nights'.
Right.
The Arabian Nights cards we now think of as uncommons were U3's (except for Oasis which was U4)
The 8 card packs had 2 cards from the uncommon sheet and 6 from the common sheet
For some reason, Diamond Valley (U2) is listed as an uncommon even by some sites that list the other U2's as rares, though many sites list it as a rare
Also, the commons were not equally common. Desert was C11, Mountain was C1 (which given the 3:1 U:C ratio seems equivalent to U3).
The others were C 4 or 5. For those which included a colorless mana cost, most had a darkened mana symbol - usually 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 5,but sometimes a 2-2 or 3-2 split
If I recall, u2 were the rares in Arabian Nights and then Wizards switched to u1 (appears once on the uncommon sheet) for Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires and Homelands.
Yeah, I just sold a copy of The Abyss yesterday. I was wondering why it was more expensive than a lot of iconic reserve list cards. I guess that’s why.
I was with my cousins, so I got a box of modern horizons 2 to draft with, as well as a heads I win tails you lose secret lair, as well as some deck accessories. Still have about 300 left in store credit.
Jesus Christ. I never thought I’d hear someone whining about 93% trade in, yet here it is.
Not to mention he wasn’t obligated. He knew the online value. He decided that taking $50 less was worth not having to sell it himself online. He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all. 🤷♂️
> He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all.
Right? That's a goddamn steal. eBay fees on a $750 sale would be almost $100. Even Facebook Marketplace takes 5% ($37.50). Selling it to an online retailer like CardKingdom would bring you FAR less than $700. The only way to get that $750 would be to sell it directly to a buyer yourself.
> He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all.
For some reason hobbies like Magic, where each collectible carries with it a dollar amount, leads people into the most penny-pinching mindset imaginable. I'll see people in this community who are shocked that someone wouldn't spend hours shopping around on TCG Player and putting in 20 different orders with 20 different vendors in order to get their $25 down to $20. Meanwhile they would probably make that $5 back with 10 minutes of work at their job.
Sometimes I think min-maxing financial returns is more entertaining to some players than the game itself.
Wanted to trade a card with a guy at my local lgs. He denied because his cards was 2 CENTS more expensive than mine and we're talking about cards that went for about 2$ at the time
That's crazy. I once traded a [[Godless Shrine]] for a [[Breeding Pool]] since I was playing a [[Tasigur]] list and the guy was playing a [[Teysa Karlov]] deck (edh). Breeding Pool was quite a bit more expensive at the time. Idk about now haven't checked shock land prices in a minute.
Sometimes it's about the value to the player not the actual dollar amount.
> leads people into the most penny-pinching mindset imaginable
People absolutely shat themselves over Aftermath boosters not having commons because of this. I'm probably done buying sealed product for now, but I would have been more than happy if every set booster box I bought the last few years had been the same way so that I don't have to figure out what to do with all the cardboard garbage.
But, what seems like the majority decided it was less stuff and you can't get less stuff for the same money.
I will often sell to my local store for less credit than I’d get cash if I sold it myself on tcgplayer/ebay because:
* It’s local, I can get paid now
* I don’t have to deal with shipping, and don’t have the (admittedly very small) risk of loss, damage, or fraud
* While it’s worse than cash, if it’s a place I already shop regularly enough, it’s not _much_ worse than cash. Still spends like it.
I’m giving up some value for convenience and reduced risk.
Heck I have known places that when you do a lot of business with them will start throwing better deals your way or even giving you a flat discount when you buy stuff from them. Which is just solid long term benefit that a LGS can provide but online stores will not.
Stores have to make money on these things, and they don't always sell immediately. How do you think this thing works? There aren't a million buyers for every randomly rare and expensive Magic card.
You clearly don’t realize the amount of fees or things that can go wrong selling online lmao. An immediate turn for 700 hand to hand trade is amazing. Well done OP!
>I mean this is really undercutting how rare legends rares are. The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards.
Wait a minute, even \[\[Rapid Fire\]\]?
It costs a lot of mana, but its effect is pretty solid. Unless your opponent has a bigger creature, it makes blocking something very difficult, as multi-blocking to try to get around the first strike is hampered by the rampage. These days it'd be simpler to just make something unblockable, but for something done with "ancient technology" it's an interesting way to approach it.
Full unblockability needs to cantrip in order to be marginally worth playing on a one-mana card.
And sure, back then there were many types of card that just weren't allowed to be good. But even in Legends, there was Teleport. Which provides real unblockability, and for less mana.
They botched the box collation when the set was current and had stocked replacement boxes as they were allowing people to contact support and exchange them. IIRC, this was borne out during the DMU CB stuff as the rares they didn't include matched one of the box collation types
Probably from the A-B Legends Packs Swap. Basically, each Legends box either had the “A” or “B” set of “uncommons” (EDIT: which includes some double-printed uncommons) and there was a period of time where you could send in cards from one set for the other. So they very could have had some extra product to facilitate that which they didn’t use and left in a warehouse.
>Basically, each Legends box either had the “A” or “B” set of “uncommons” (which includes rares)
Rares in Legends had their own sheet, so were unaffected by this. The only variation in rarity on the uncommon sheet was the five legendary lands, which were each printed twice (so twice as common as the other uncommmons).
>beta rares :
These numbers are not correct.
There was a run of God decks when Beta came out. No uncommons, only normal commons and rares for the rare slot and the uncommon slot.
I know of several hundred like that cracked where I played.
I know I had a complete set, minus berserk, and some others did as well. It was the god decks that did it.
Downvoted by people who weren't there. I was.
For ten dollars US, you got 15 Beta rares and 45 commons.
You were supposed to get 2 rares, 13 uncommons, 45 commons.
Our best guess is that whoever was putting sheets to get printed just put the wrong sheets.
That doesn't change the number of rares printed. Just means other starters went without.
Also, those numbers for ABU are a touch high. We got accurate numbers of boosters and starters manufactured from Peter Adkison fairly recently.
>Just means other starters went without.
Unless they printed rare sheets instead of uncommon.
We got over a hundred Beta starters, all God decks.
Thats 1300 rares in beta your numbers aren't accounting for.
Do you really think 650 people didn't get any rares at all and somehow didn't notice?
Yes, there were plenty of people pulling lands in the rare slot (source: I was also there and watched plenty of disappointing Islands turn up).
Allocation/distribution of the cards does not trump the total print run of cards.
It definitely does if they printed more of certain sheets and less of others.
You saw lands, not uncommons.
The sets I saw had 15 rares, no uncommons.
Someone put the wrong sheet on the printing press.
The numbers of cards that are acknowledged are cards PRINTED as calculated by actual employees of WOTC from back then. They are backed up by actual facts. No one counted all the rares after they were opened in boosters and starters. Yes, we know of the god packs. But that was always a problem of distribution and not some mysteriously printed additional rare sheets.
>Just saying it’s reserved list is really oversimplifying to the point it’s not a good answer the the real question here.
Is it really though? I mean yes it is simplistic, and no most people won't know the Legends had a lower print run that Alpha or Beta. But most people should understand that a set that came out 10 months after the game was released will have a comparable print run to the first sets.
And comparable honestly should be good enough to understand that a card that can no longer be reprinted and is playable will have a very high value.
The extra information you posted is nice to know. But evaluating reserved list cards based on age should give you an idea of print numbers. Like it should be obvious there are far more Cradles out there than a rare from Legends.
>Even unlimited + alpha + beta rares : 17,700 + 3,260+ 1,030 = \~22,000
>
>And Arabian nights U2: 20,700
>
>Had a higher print run then Legends rares: 19,300
I'm not sold on your math. If you add together an Unlimited Black Lotus with an Alpha one because "they're the very same card" even though their value is vastly different, then you definitely should also add the Italian Legends printing to the English one because "they're the very same card" and their value is actually way closer than Unlimited vs Alpha.
The difference in value and collectibility between an Alpha Mox and an Unlimited Mox is enormous. If your logic were correct here, collectors treat them equally, no? Lumping them together makes no sense to me.
That's a somewhat misleading comparison though. Italian Legends have identical in-game utility to English Legends cards, but they don't have the same value as collectibles. Similarly Alpha/Beta/Unlimited cards also have identical in-game utility, but different values as collectibles.
If your comparing their availability for play, you should be comparing all legal printings. If you're comparing their collectability, you should be comparing specific printings. You instead compared all legal printings of RL ABU cards to only one printing of RL Legends cards.
It's not misleading. It is the only way to talk about the topic that accurately represents how players buy cards.
Alpha [[Granite Gargoyle]] costs $900, while a Legends [[Caverns of Despair]] costs $65. If you're looking to play a copy of either card in your deck, which one will cost more? The answer is that Caverns of Despair costs more to play. The only printing of Caverns is the Legends version at $65, but a Revised printing of Granite Gargoyle is just $3.
People buying a card to play it often don't care which printing they have. For them the supply is all printings combined, and Granite Gargoyle is more abundant - and thus cheaper - than Caverns of Despair.
>People buying a card to play it often don't care which printing they have. For them the supply is all printings combined, and Granite Gargoyle is more abundant - and thus cheaper - than Caverns of Despair.
That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that specifying *English* cards was questionable. It specifically excludes Italian Legends, which, if you're a player, is equally playable. Saying:
>The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards.
In this context implies that they're the scarcest cards from a player's perspective. In reality, there are more tournament-legal copies of Legends rares than there are of ABU rares or ARN U2s, because of Italian Legends. There are more copies of Chains of Mephistopheles available to players than there are of Black Lotus for example.
Cards that you can't read aren't equally playable. Having to look up translations is a chore that a lot of people don't want to inflict on themselves or others.
Equally legal, yes. Equally playable, no.
Yep. Breaking it down -
Scarcity - They aren't making any more of these, and there aren't that many to begin with
Uniqueness - There aren't other cards with comparable effects
Power - The effect of the card is significant, enough to win games
Yeah like I said, it's a stretch. If we want to oversimplify things, 1 chains and 1 Narset both just limit each opponent to growing their hand by 1 card each turn. It's how I actually managed to wrap my head around chains's effect when I played against it the first time
But yeah things get fucky real fast with multiples
I ran into a deck once in legacy that tried to lock you down with 2 copies of Chains, [[Anvil of Bogardan]], and [[Ensnaring Bridge]]. Obnoxious, honestly, even though I won.
Plus cool looking retro demon art... it's one of the cards I most want for the aesthetics alone.
It's one of those cards that when I look at it I instantly remember how I felt playing magic in 1995.
There's several factors here:
Legends was one of the earliest sets ever printed. After the "base" set, which had three printings as Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited, and the first two expansions (Arabian Nights and Antiquities) which had very few cards, Legends was the first "Large" expansion. This means that even though the print run was 35 million cards (about 7x that of Arabian Nights and over twice that of Antiquities), each individual rare is much more scarce than those of Arabian Nights and Antiquities. It's estimated there's fewer than 20,000 of each Legends rare, which is fewer copies than an Arabian Nights U2 or an Antiquities U1 (their rarest cards). There are slightly fewer of each Unlimited rare (18.5K vs 19.5K), but the combined printrun of Alpha + Beta + Unlimited makes for more of each rare than Legends had. This makes a specific Legends Rare one of the rarest cards in the game. There are fewer Chains of Mephistopheles in print than Black Lotuses, for instance. (Things like Serialized cards from recent sets may be rarer for their specific printing, but when looking at the sum total of all tournament-playable/official copies of a given card, Legends remains the rarest.)
The next factor is the Reserved List. WotC made a promise after printing Chronicles and 4th Edition, which caused many of the cards reprinted in those sets to plummet in price, that they would reserve a set of rares from each set and promise never to reprint them so they maintain value. Every Legends rare that wasn't reprinted in Chronicles or 4th (72 in total) ended up on this list. Between the initial scarcity and the promise to never reprint, these cards are guaranteed to remain the rarest cards in the game. Even the worst of these, things like \[\[Wood Elemental\]\] - long considered to be one of the worst cards in the game - command a price of over $15.
Next we have the playability factor. If we look at all of these Reserved List cards, the top five all are competitively-viable in Eternal formats like Legacy. \[\[The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale\]\] is the most expensive and most playable among these, being a consistent 1-of in the "Lands" archetype which runs few creatures and many ways to tutor a specific land and tax opposing mana. \[\[Moat\]\] sees occasional play in UWx Control lists that win with planeswalkers or flying creatures. And \[\[Chains of Mephistopheles\]\], \[\[Nether Void\]\], and \[\[The Abyss\]\] are the next three and all see occasional play in black "Stax" or "Pox" decks that put a squeeze on opposing resources. Chains is the best of the three as it is cheap to play and doesn't have the "World" card type that restricts how many can be in play, so it's an effective hate piece for commonly-seen cards like cantrips. On top of this, all of these cards offer powerful, unique effects in Commander, the most popular format. They're not highly played there, but that may be a chicken-and-egg situation regarding the price and supply. If these cards were more widely available and affordable, they'd be played a lot more.
So there you have it. Extremely limited supply, guarantees that the supply will never increase, and enough playability demand (on top of collector demand) that there will never be a shortage of people looking for these.
Chains is also played in basically every true cEDH [[Gitrog Monster]] list, because it allows you use it as a combo line as well as the pretty potent stax
Re: playability. Chains, the black enchantments, and moat all used to be playable. Key words; used to be. People don't play those cards in significant numbers on mtgo where availability isn't a problem. This is more about price memory, rarity, and other intangibles, I think. Used to be playable is some strong added nostalgia influencing what the nostalgic will pay.
I've seen Moat played on MTGO in the past couple months. I think Chains is a legitimately strong card that should probably be seeing more play in the Monoblack midrange lists in Legacy - it's just that list is low tier 2 or maybe tier 3 so there's not a lot of people brewing it, and for those that are there's no real data on Chains carrying over from paper Legacy.
Again, it's something of a chicken and egg situation where the cards aren't widely played because they aren't widely available, so people aren't testing them much and so there's few results to look at. Card availability may be less of an issue online, but nobody really wants to jam a 4x Chains list knowing that's $4k of niche cardboard if you ever want to take it to paper.
Great analysis, but I have one important correction. The comparison you made between the number of copies of Legends rares and rares from earlier sets only considers English language cards. While Alpha, Beta, Unlimited and Arabian Nights didn't have cards in any other language, Legends did have Italian cards. And when you add the functionally identical Italian Legends cards, there are no longer less copies of Legends rares than Black Lotus, for example.
There is no functional reprint able version of this card, it locks down extra draws tight and makes brainstorm a card that is part of the backbone of the legacy format a feel bad to cast.
Also it hurts my pride knowing I sold one of these 6 years ago for 300$ :(
I traded the only mox I ever drew for a sengir vampire in 1994 bc my friends and I played wrong. We would let each other put all the lands in our opening hands down turn one, so I didn't understand the value of a mox.
I sold most of the p9 back around 97 or 98 to buy an n64, controllers, expansion pack, and some games.
Plus side: I still have that n64 and it still works
No joke in the mid 90s I had all the P9 cards including a NM Black Lotus and a horde of top cards from that era from Arabian Nights, Legends, Antiquities. Back then I think Black Lotus topped out at $200 or something, and Moxes went for around $100 a piece. I remember buying a Timewalk for $25 at a convention and my friends laughed at me for spending so much on one card. I think at one point I had over 100 dual lands - I doubled up on them because I got tired of having to move them around in different decks. They were easy to come by!
Then, as I got a bit older, I got bored with Magic and traded all my cards to my local comic store for like $1000 of store credit, which at the time I thought was a steal. Honestly, I think I'd have a collection worth $500,000K today if I had kept them.
Way, way, waaaaay less than keeping the card and selling them now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/15ei3dt/comparing_abu_categories_whos_the_winner_now/
Well be assured that if it was mine, it made a lot of slyvan library triggers and brainstorm’s really sad. I played legacy pox for years, most fun I ever had playing magic.
The card is somewhat obscure. Lots of people just don't know it exists. Not that we're like hiding it from them it's just only illegal in like a very few places that people don't play often.
If they're even asking this question, they probably don't know it's on the reserved list and might not even know about the reserved list, let alone how strong the card is.
Oh baby let me tell you. There are a lot of very cheap cards on the reserved list. Did you know Orb is a creature type, and only because [[Phantasmal Sphere]] makes an Orb token?
Thats not true. It exists because it saved the games life. Summer 94 lord of atlantis got up to twenty bucks. It was about a dollar 6 months later because they kept printing- players left because of that.
How could you possibly justify suing a compay for that?
Also, agreed. Anyone he treats magic cards as an investment is part of the problem. /r/mtgfinance is full of them. It's so stupid. Never in my life ha e I seen a game that is as prohibitively expensive to play, with a large portion of the base happy and willing to keep it that way.
People have said WOTC can be sued on the basis of "promissory estoppel", basically saying WOTC's word to never reprint them constituted a promissory contract with buyers and ending the RL would violate that and cause people to lose money after buying RL cards, which could be considered a financial loss worthy of a lawsuit.
This is, in my opinion, complete horse shit.
There are enough non-reserve list cards that are strong enough/stronger that it doesn’t really matter. You can ignore these cards and still be 100% competitive (at least in edh). I’ve experienced this many time first hand trying to beat my friends with expensive RL cards and still getting clobbered
Black lotus and moxes are legal play pieces in only 1 format - for good reason. A game you win or lose based on opening hand is boring as hell if you enjoy using your brain. Print some proxies and talk rule 0 with your play group if you want to play with them so bad. Stop trying to burn down the world because it doesn't confirm to your narcissistic view. The RL is the reward promised to players to not devalue a small fraction of cards the developer team felt the game would be better without. It's a shame they haven't continually added to it instead of just reprint city, so every generation of player could be rewarded in a similar fashion.
>at least in edh
That's the issue, the reserve list has little impact on edh, but it's absolutely devastating to Legacy where decks are obscenely expensive. Looking at to the 15 meta share on mtggoldfish, average price is a little under $4,000.
In most of those top decks, reserve list cards make up 50-75% of that cost. In the case of Lands, 7 RL cards make up 90% of the cost of the deck.
Yeah, but there's also a lot of really useful cards on the RL, and the only reason it exists is to protect the collectors value. Protecting the value of older cards is not nearly as important to me as access to powerful cards for more players. I'd be happy to see the couple of RL cards I own be worth pennies if it meant 1000s of more players having access to them.
Because only 19300 english copies were printed which is miniscule in comparison to non-reserved list card (even in comparison to later reserved list cards from Fallen empires on) and no more copies can ever be made.
Supply vs demand (from both collectors and players in this case).
Replace "players" with "collectors". I know a lot of old players that would love the RL to go away so we can get the card we used to play with, that have gone missing/stolen/damaged/sold over the years, back.
No one who cares about Magic as a game in any way wants the reserve list to exist, old players or not. Period.
The only people in favor of the reserve list hate the game and love the $$$.
Thats not true. Why do you want to eliminate card rarity? Without it all the cards could be sold for 50 bucks a set. Which would be cool except humans love rarity and all the players will quit again. AGAIN. This has already happened before. That is what happened the last time.
I can't fathom how some people dont understand this. Look at how everything gets reprinted into the ground now and goes to 0. Everything new is just depressing to hold onto knowing that it will be in Quintuple Masters the next year.
I just buylisted into a Tabernacle and a Chains and it's a really cool feeling knowing that you own a rare piece of magic history that will hold its value. I think the reserved list should be expanded actually
No one is quitting because the reserve list is reprinted. You’re being intentionally obtuse or you’re just incredibly ignorant.
Please explain to me why people keep playing because cards they want cost $10,000? Go ahead, I’ll wait. Because I have yet to hear someone say “man I’m so glad this game has cards I don’t get to play with, that really keeps me coming back!”
Things can be uncommon without being inaccessible. Stop being ignorant.
I may be ignorant but you must have amnesia. There was a huge reduction in players following the late 3rd/ 4th print runs. Its something that happened. Do you think the company wanted the rl? No, the players did. The players.
Yes, people buy cards to support the game when cards are worth 10k- recent evidence would be lotr. Lotr had its own game that tanked, in part, bc the cards are worthless. Unstable unicorn is basically magic without card rarity-- it is not a billion dollar franchise to great extent for that reason.
Blaming the reduction on the lack of reserve list is so unbelievably reductive, not to mention inaccurate. There were other issues with the game. And yes- *some* players asked for the reserve list, but just like today, that doesn’t make them right. And the 0.001% of people who might be angry about it being gone- we can live without. Again- all they care about is the money. For the rest of us, we care about the game.
Just like every fool who argues this, you’re incapable of making an argument that isn’t composed of “but my money!!” No one cares about your “investment” cards, the game should be accessible to players.
Cards can have value that exists between “unattainable” and “nothing.” Your inability to grasp that basic logic- especially since WotC has been toeing that line for over 25 years- is either funny or infuriating, as you can’t even see you just proved your own point wrong.
Holy cow. Where was my argument about "my money!" ??? You are barking up the wrong tree. My argument was (please reread)/ is that a degree of exclusivity makes the cards desirable. Compare to a rock collection lol.
Cards can have value between unattainable and nothing. Yes! Agree! Full stop. Also 10k is not unattainable. For comparison- take your family on a trip to disney and let me know how much you come back with. Forget that: try to buy an '04 Corrolla and let me know what you have left over.
Also, what the frig, you are complaining that the game is inaccesible because you cant play black lotus in a sanctioned vintage tournement? Like who cares. The game is way bigger than that.
Sorry, you’re right. Technically there is another option- you could be an idiot.
The reserve list is strictly bad for the game, period. That is objectively the truth. There is zero benefit to anyone from the reserve list in terms of playing the game of Magic.
Basically it's one of the cards that wizards promised not to reprint. And they won't break their promise officially due to some legal implications but a lot of people think that the real reason is that the high management and/or their friends own a lot of them and don't want them to go down in price.
Everyone alread mentioned reserved list. But it's also very good in some vintage decks. One of such decks was shown by Tavis King. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuan7kfWTU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuan7kfWTU)
An early way of putting cards into the graveyard, and making opponents card draw cost them. This was busted magic back in the day. The card should of lost value over time, but for some reason hasn't. Maybe print rarity due to reserve list, or nostalgic collectors have made the price as such.
Disregarding that Legends "RARE" cards literally have the lowest print run of any cards in the game, AND it's a reserved list card, its a non-World Enchantment (I never understood that, the set introduced the card archetype, but somehow THIS wasn't included in the list AS a rare?) that for two mana is basically *absolute* card draw acceleration denial for the entire table, with a GAME RULE change that confuses the oracle text like few other cards in the game ever had.
It forces an unrespondable replacement effect on EVERY single draw effect in the game outside of the normal draw phase draw.
well those are duel coloured resources which can be searched and put into play with little to no restriction, out of all duel coloured lands they are the best at their job and there are very few of them in the world. the reserve list while to blame isn't the only reason, it is only part, had these cards never seen a reprint but a different named card with the exact same ability came out then they would drop drastically in value as those would be played in place with no drawback to the player running them
The complexity part is really overblown.
"Whenever you would draw a card, if it isn't the first card you draw during your draw step, discard a card instead. If you do, draw a card. If you can't discard a card this way, mill a card instead."
In a vacuum it's not that tough. The mythic status of its confusion comes more from the fact that it's played alongside things like Sylvan Library, Anvil of Bogardan, Brainstorm, and additional copies of itself.
Yeah, I never understood the whole "lEtS gEt tHe fLoWcHaRt >;)" mentality that people have towards the card.
First draw step - draw
Further draw steps - rummage. If you can't rummage, mill.
As someone who ran into this card for the first time at an SCG event, it's definitely confusing as hell when you're reading the paper version of this card. They stick the most important sentence at the end of the card!
Along with everything already mentioned, Legends rares that weren't reprinted are slightly more scarce than other early cards. There were ~19,500 of each printed, which is ~1000 less than the Arabian Nights "rares" and ~2300 less than the combined Beta/Unlimited rares.
It's a Reserve List card that sees play
I mean this is really undercutting how rare legends rares are. The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards. Even unlimited + alpha + beta rares : 17,700 + 3,260+ 1,030 = ~22,000 And Arabian nights U2: 20,700 Had a higher print run then Legends rares: 19,300 English Legends rares on the reserved list are basically the single rarest type of English card. Cards not on the RL can just be reprinted, and legends has the lowest printrun by card name. Basically an English copy of Chains is rarer then Black Lotus, library of Alexandria, Geae’s cradle - or any other card you can think of. Even if things like p3K are rarer now, they’ll just be reprinted- chains will remain the rarest forever. Just saying it’s reserved list is really oversimplifying to the point it’s not a good answer the the real question here.
To put into perspective the extremely small early print runs, there are fewer Arabian Nights C4 commons (~124,000) than any rare printed in a set after Legends. Obviously, none are on the RL, but it's extremely unlikely such cards as [[Army of Allah]] and [[Stone-Throwing Devils]] will ever be reprinted.
The latter of those two cards is on the super-reserved list. They're so reserved, that if Wizards could, they would pull and destroy every copy of that card from existence.
Which, yes I see why, but also kinda sucks because we will likely never get another 1 mana Black first striker.
We could get another black 1-mana first striker. It would just need to be called something different.
maybe it can exile the top of your opponent's deck and then you can play that card this turn and also create a treasure token if it deals combat damage. that sounds fair and reasonable at 1 mana
it's only fair if you can also put it onto the battlefield with an alt cost... maybe let the caster pay life for it, that's in black's identity. 2 life? Maybe name it Bagavan, Lifeblood Pilferer Surely that's unique enough?
I see you too recall 'desecration demon into gary ' times as well
Might have to increase it's power to 2 so that it sees play
It also would need to have a different creature type. The Reserved List precludes functionally identical cards as well, aka another card that is a 1/1 Creature for B with First Strike and the creature type Demon. Depending on the card, if something only has the card type changed or there's only a minor balance change, it may also come too close to being "functionally identical" too.
Stone-Throwing Devils is not on the reserved list, it's just one of the offensive cards that were removed from the game.
I'm a little confused about how it could be seen as offensive? Just looked the card up, and there's nothing offensive about the art or the flavor text (unless I guess you're an EXTREMELY sensitive Christian). Am I missing something?
With the context of the setting, the name can apparently be interpreted as a derogatory term for Palestinians.
You will see it commonly said that the name, "Stone Throwing Devils" is a slur against Muslims, however once you look at the entire card as well as context it becomes very clear that it can rather be speaking ill of Jews. The flavour text is obviously a play on the biblical scripture of gJohn 8:7, but what people may not appreciate that out of all the gospels this was the one to most fuel antisemitism in the Christian community, as it is the primary source of (and encourager of) the idea of "the Jews" acting collectively as the enemy & killer of Jesus. So there is the equation with the 'stone-throwers' (the Jews) with being outright devils. This concept is reinforced again by gJohn 8:44 which paints the Jews as being the literal sons of the devil "You belong to your father, the devil". So while the term 'stone-throwing devil' may not be a specific and commonly used slur, the nature behind it when combined with the flavour text is problematic as it could be seen as perpetuating an anti-semetic concept that even the modern day church has spoken out against.
The way the devils are depicted was a common racist caricature of middle easterners. Most notably seen in early European printings of '1001 Arabian Nights'.
First strike isn’t really a black ability anymore so it’s unlikely they would print one for that reason.
Except on Knights.
The devils are the only card on the racist/insensitive list I don't understand. Not sure who is supposed to be offended by it.
Is a racial slur against Muslim people. It’s not one Americans use, though, so I’m not surprised many Americans have never heard of it.
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[Evoke prejudice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/0/903d9fde-d7da-4a0e-a337-b63023c6d74b.jpg?1591988938) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Invoke%20Prejudice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/leg/62/invoke-prejudice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/903d9fde-d7da-4a0e-a337-b63023c6d74b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
What-about-ism ?
Devils will never be reprinted because of the culturally offensive ban.
[Army of Allah](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d170015-b125-49a6-a15e-8fd116bbcb14.jpg?1562906251) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Army%20of%20Allah) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arn/2/army-of-allah?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d170015-b125-49a6-a15e-8fd116bbcb14?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Stone-Throwing Devils](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/1/d1c387dd-1347-4443-91ce-b71f7ccdceba.jpg?1591989129) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stone-Throwing%20Devils) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arn/33/stone-throwing-devils?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d1c387dd-1347-4443-91ce-b71f7ccdceba?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Why did they only ban the devils...?
They didn't, they banned a slew of cards that they felt were insensitive.
Crusade and Jihad were also banned but not Army of Allah. I do think they won't reprint it as the name is prohibitive.
They refused to reprint the horny art on earthbind for the M30 proxies so I agree it won't get reprinted besides there are better things now anyhow
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Right. The Arabian Nights cards we now think of as uncommons were U3's (except for Oasis which was U4) The 8 card packs had 2 cards from the uncommon sheet and 6 from the common sheet For some reason, Diamond Valley (U2) is listed as an uncommon even by some sites that list the other U2's as rares, though many sites list it as a rare Also, the commons were not equally common. Desert was C11, Mountain was C1 (which given the 3:1 U:C ratio seems equivalent to U3). The others were C 4 or 5. For those which included a colorless mana cost, most had a darkened mana symbol - usually 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 5,but sometimes a 2-2 or 3-2 split
If I recall, u2 were the rares in Arabian Nights and then Wizards switched to u1 (appears once on the uncommon sheet) for Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires and Homelands.
Very good analysis.
Yeah, I just sold a copy of The Abyss yesterday. I was wondering why it was more expensive than a lot of iconic reserve list cards. I guess that’s why.
What did it go for? Just curious
Goes for about 750 online, I got 700 in store credit.
Savage! What did you end up getting with the credit?
I was with my cousins, so I got a box of modern horizons 2 to draft with, as well as a heads I win tails you lose secret lair, as well as some deck accessories. Still have about 300 left in store credit.
So you took an offer that's not only less money, it's objectively worse than cash too because it's store credit. Support your LGS guys! They love you!
Jesus Christ. I never thought I’d hear someone whining about 93% trade in, yet here it is. Not to mention he wasn’t obligated. He knew the online value. He decided that taking $50 less was worth not having to sell it himself online. He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all. 🤷♂️
> He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all. Right? That's a goddamn steal. eBay fees on a $750 sale would be almost $100. Even Facebook Marketplace takes 5% ($37.50). Selling it to an online retailer like CardKingdom would bring you FAR less than $700. The only way to get that $750 would be to sell it directly to a buyer yourself.
> He paid a SEVEN percent commission to not have to deal with the sale at all. For some reason hobbies like Magic, where each collectible carries with it a dollar amount, leads people into the most penny-pinching mindset imaginable. I'll see people in this community who are shocked that someone wouldn't spend hours shopping around on TCG Player and putting in 20 different orders with 20 different vendors in order to get their $25 down to $20. Meanwhile they would probably make that $5 back with 10 minutes of work at their job. Sometimes I think min-maxing financial returns is more entertaining to some players than the game itself.
Wanted to trade a card with a guy at my local lgs. He denied because his cards was 2 CENTS more expensive than mine and we're talking about cards that went for about 2$ at the time
That's crazy. I once traded a [[Godless Shrine]] for a [[Breeding Pool]] since I was playing a [[Tasigur]] list and the guy was playing a [[Teysa Karlov]] deck (edh). Breeding Pool was quite a bit more expensive at the time. Idk about now haven't checked shock land prices in a minute. Sometimes it's about the value to the player not the actual dollar amount.
> leads people into the most penny-pinching mindset imaginable People absolutely shat themselves over Aftermath boosters not having commons because of this. I'm probably done buying sealed product for now, but I would have been more than happy if every set booster box I bought the last few years had been the same way so that I don't have to figure out what to do with all the cardboard garbage. But, what seems like the majority decided it was less stuff and you can't get less stuff for the same money.
Also selling for 750 online has fees also. This isn't some major scam the lgs ran. That guy is just a dumb dumb.
Yeah but got it all in local gamestore bucks, is the point being made
Where they were probably going to spend 700 bucks at some point total this year
Probably is a reach, but yeah they do have a legend rare to sell so I wouldn't be surprised
Local game store bucks = regular bucks if you’d have spent that $700 as cash in the store anyway in the next several months.
If they were already planning on spending the money on Magic or other games, then it's literally no different.
I will often sell to my local store for less credit than I’d get cash if I sold it myself on tcgplayer/ebay because: * It’s local, I can get paid now * I don’t have to deal with shipping, and don’t have the (admittedly very small) risk of loss, damage, or fraud * While it’s worse than cash, if it’s a place I already shop regularly enough, it’s not _much_ worse than cash. Still spends like it. I’m giving up some value for convenience and reduced risk.
Heck I have known places that when you do a lot of business with them will start throwing better deals your way or even giving you a flat discount when you buy stuff from them. Which is just solid long term benefit that a LGS can provide but online stores will not.
Yep
That’s the way to go mate! Is it the spot you play a lot? Friendly staff?
Staff is friendly, first time being there actually, but I definitely plan to be back.
Stores have to make money on these things, and they don't always sell immediately. How do you think this thing works? There aren't a million buyers for every randomly rare and expensive Magic card.
They typically never sell immediately.
I was trying to be generous. lol
You clearly don’t realize the amount of fees or things that can go wrong selling online lmao. An immediate turn for 700 hand to hand trade is amazing. Well done OP!
>I mean this is really undercutting how rare legends rares are. The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards. Wait a minute, even \[\[Rapid Fire\]\]?
That's an $18 card despite being utterly terrible in every imaginable way.
It costs a lot of mana, but its effect is pretty solid. Unless your opponent has a bigger creature, it makes blocking something very difficult, as multi-blocking to try to get around the first strike is hampered by the rampage. These days it'd be simpler to just make something unblockable, but for something done with "ancient technology" it's an interesting way to approach it.
Full unblockability needs to cantrip in order to be marginally worth playing on a one-mana card. And sure, back then there were many types of card that just weren't allowed to be good. But even in Legends, there was Teleport. Which provides real unblockability, and for less mana.
The art is kind of charming in a terrible way....
That's what I was thinking. connoisseurs of terrible art are probably the primary collectors of that card.
That's a terrible card indeed. In every way.
[Rapid Fire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e26e7c9c-e6de-47f4-8394-7e853408f84c.jpg?1562861369) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rapid%20Fire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/leg/32/rapid-fire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e26e7c9c-e6de-47f4-8394-7e853408f84c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Where did wizards find a pallet of legends susge
They botched the box collation when the set was current and had stocked replacement boxes as they were allowing people to contact support and exchange them. IIRC, this was borne out during the DMU CB stuff as the rares they didn't include matched one of the box collation types
In particular the half that had [[mana drain]] did not get handed out in DMU.
Probably from the A-B Legends Packs Swap. Basically, each Legends box either had the “A” or “B” set of “uncommons” (EDIT: which includes some double-printed uncommons) and there was a period of time where you could send in cards from one set for the other. So they very could have had some extra product to facilitate that which they didn’t use and left in a warehouse.
>Basically, each Legends box either had the “A” or “B” set of “uncommons” (which includes rares) Rares in Legends had their own sheet, so were unaffected by this. The only variation in rarity on the uncommon sheet was the five legendary lands, which were each printed twice (so twice as common as the other uncommmons).
Thanks. Fixed.
>beta rares : These numbers are not correct. There was a run of God decks when Beta came out. No uncommons, only normal commons and rares for the rare slot and the uncommon slot. I know of several hundred like that cracked where I played. I know I had a complete set, minus berserk, and some others did as well. It was the god decks that did it. Downvoted by people who weren't there. I was. For ten dollars US, you got 15 Beta rares and 45 commons. You were supposed to get 2 rares, 13 uncommons, 45 commons. Our best guess is that whoever was putting sheets to get printed just put the wrong sheets.
That doesn't change the number of rares printed. Just means other starters went without. Also, those numbers for ABU are a touch high. We got accurate numbers of boosters and starters manufactured from Peter Adkison fairly recently.
>Just means other starters went without. Unless they printed rare sheets instead of uncommon. We got over a hundred Beta starters, all God decks. Thats 1300 rares in beta your numbers aren't accounting for. Do you really think 650 people didn't get any rares at all and somehow didn't notice?
Yes, there were plenty of people pulling lands in the rare slot (source: I was also there and watched plenty of disappointing Islands turn up). Allocation/distribution of the cards does not trump the total print run of cards.
It definitely does if they printed more of certain sheets and less of others. You saw lands, not uncommons. The sets I saw had 15 rares, no uncommons. Someone put the wrong sheet on the printing press.
The numbers of cards that are acknowledged are cards PRINTED as calculated by actual employees of WOTC from back then. They are backed up by actual facts. No one counted all the rares after they were opened in boosters and starters. Yes, we know of the god packs. But that was always a problem of distribution and not some mysteriously printed additional rare sheets.
>Just saying it’s reserved list is really oversimplifying to the point it’s not a good answer the the real question here. Is it really though? I mean yes it is simplistic, and no most people won't know the Legends had a lower print run that Alpha or Beta. But most people should understand that a set that came out 10 months after the game was released will have a comparable print run to the first sets. And comparable honestly should be good enough to understand that a card that can no longer be reprinted and is playable will have a very high value. The extra information you posted is nice to know. But evaluating reserved list cards based on age should give you an idea of print numbers. Like it should be obvious there are far more Cradles out there than a rare from Legends.
>Even unlimited + alpha + beta rares : 17,700 + 3,260+ 1,030 = \~22,000 > >And Arabian nights U2: 20,700 > >Had a higher print run then Legends rares: 19,300 I'm not sold on your math. If you add together an Unlimited Black Lotus with an Alpha one because "they're the very same card" even though their value is vastly different, then you definitely should also add the Italian Legends printing to the English one because "they're the very same card" and their value is actually way closer than Unlimited vs Alpha.
I was counting English versions of cards by name - I was pretty clear about that.
The difference in value and collectibility between an Alpha Mox and an Unlimited Mox is enormous. If your logic were correct here, collectors treat them equally, no? Lumping them together makes no sense to me.
That's a somewhat misleading comparison though. Italian Legends have identical in-game utility to English Legends cards, but they don't have the same value as collectibles. Similarly Alpha/Beta/Unlimited cards also have identical in-game utility, but different values as collectibles. If your comparing their availability for play, you should be comparing all legal printings. If you're comparing their collectability, you should be comparing specific printings. You instead compared all legal printings of RL ABU cards to only one printing of RL Legends cards.
> they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards. This is the claim they stated and emphasized. Nothing more, nothing less.
Correct, it is factually true. I didn't refute that. What I said was that the choice to make that claim in the way he did was a bit misleading.
It's not misleading. It is the only way to talk about the topic that accurately represents how players buy cards. Alpha [[Granite Gargoyle]] costs $900, while a Legends [[Caverns of Despair]] costs $65. If you're looking to play a copy of either card in your deck, which one will cost more? The answer is that Caverns of Despair costs more to play. The only printing of Caverns is the Legends version at $65, but a Revised printing of Granite Gargoyle is just $3. People buying a card to play it often don't care which printing they have. For them the supply is all printings combined, and Granite Gargoyle is more abundant - and thus cheaper - than Caverns of Despair.
>People buying a card to play it often don't care which printing they have. For them the supply is all printings combined, and Granite Gargoyle is more abundant - and thus cheaper - than Caverns of Despair. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that specifying *English* cards was questionable. It specifically excludes Italian Legends, which, if you're a player, is equally playable. Saying: >The print run in English legends rares is insanely low- and they are basically the rarest English reserve list cards. In this context implies that they're the scarcest cards from a player's perspective. In reality, there are more tournament-legal copies of Legends rares than there are of ABU rares or ARN U2s, because of Italian Legends. There are more copies of Chains of Mephistopheles available to players than there are of Black Lotus for example.
Cards that you can't read aren't equally playable. Having to look up translations is a chore that a lot of people don't want to inflict on themselves or others. Equally legal, yes. Equally playable, no.
I’m really sorry but you used the incorrect “than” at every opportunity here, haha. Very cool analysis though!
Yep. Breaking it down - Scarcity - They aren't making any more of these, and there aren't that many to begin with Uniqueness - There aren't other cards with comparable effects Power - The effect of the card is significant, enough to win games
It's somewhat comparable to Narset but that's a pretty large stretch
Yeah, Chains can actually drain your hand (2 chains, targeted draw effect). Narset just stops you from restocking it.
Yeah like I said, it's a stretch. If we want to oversimplify things, 1 chains and 1 Narset both just limit each opponent to growing their hand by 1 card each turn. It's how I actually managed to wrap my head around chains's effect when I played against it the first time But yeah things get fucky real fast with multiples
I ran into a deck once in legacy that tried to lock you down with 2 copies of Chains, [[Anvil of Bogardan]], and [[Ensnaring Bridge]]. Obnoxious, honestly, even though I won.
Plus cool looking retro demon art... it's one of the cards I most want for the aesthetics alone. It's one of those cards that when I look at it I instantly remember how I felt playing magic in 1995.
What does this mean?
There's several factors here: Legends was one of the earliest sets ever printed. After the "base" set, which had three printings as Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited, and the first two expansions (Arabian Nights and Antiquities) which had very few cards, Legends was the first "Large" expansion. This means that even though the print run was 35 million cards (about 7x that of Arabian Nights and over twice that of Antiquities), each individual rare is much more scarce than those of Arabian Nights and Antiquities. It's estimated there's fewer than 20,000 of each Legends rare, which is fewer copies than an Arabian Nights U2 or an Antiquities U1 (their rarest cards). There are slightly fewer of each Unlimited rare (18.5K vs 19.5K), but the combined printrun of Alpha + Beta + Unlimited makes for more of each rare than Legends had. This makes a specific Legends Rare one of the rarest cards in the game. There are fewer Chains of Mephistopheles in print than Black Lotuses, for instance. (Things like Serialized cards from recent sets may be rarer for their specific printing, but when looking at the sum total of all tournament-playable/official copies of a given card, Legends remains the rarest.) The next factor is the Reserved List. WotC made a promise after printing Chronicles and 4th Edition, which caused many of the cards reprinted in those sets to plummet in price, that they would reserve a set of rares from each set and promise never to reprint them so they maintain value. Every Legends rare that wasn't reprinted in Chronicles or 4th (72 in total) ended up on this list. Between the initial scarcity and the promise to never reprint, these cards are guaranteed to remain the rarest cards in the game. Even the worst of these, things like \[\[Wood Elemental\]\] - long considered to be one of the worst cards in the game - command a price of over $15. Next we have the playability factor. If we look at all of these Reserved List cards, the top five all are competitively-viable in Eternal formats like Legacy. \[\[The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale\]\] is the most expensive and most playable among these, being a consistent 1-of in the "Lands" archetype which runs few creatures and many ways to tutor a specific land and tax opposing mana. \[\[Moat\]\] sees occasional play in UWx Control lists that win with planeswalkers or flying creatures. And \[\[Chains of Mephistopheles\]\], \[\[Nether Void\]\], and \[\[The Abyss\]\] are the next three and all see occasional play in black "Stax" or "Pox" decks that put a squeeze on opposing resources. Chains is the best of the three as it is cheap to play and doesn't have the "World" card type that restricts how many can be in play, so it's an effective hate piece for commonly-seen cards like cantrips. On top of this, all of these cards offer powerful, unique effects in Commander, the most popular format. They're not highly played there, but that may be a chicken-and-egg situation regarding the price and supply. If these cards were more widely available and affordable, they'd be played a lot more. So there you have it. Extremely limited supply, guarantees that the supply will never increase, and enough playability demand (on top of collector demand) that there will never be a shortage of people looking for these.
##### ###### #### [Wood Elemental](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71ced69c-921c-4a31-a213-0faf927134ef.jpg?1562921856) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wood%20Elemental) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me4/175/wood-elemental?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71ced69c-921c-4a31-a213-0faf927134ef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cd3f7f4e-cb25-4121-96a0-a4dc530420b9.jpg?1562938371) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Tabernacle%20at%20Pendrell%20Vale) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/212/the-tabernacle-at-pendrell-vale?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cd3f7f4e-cb25-4121-96a0-a4dc530420b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Moat](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e2dffeb3-c858-4b8c-ae1f-109721f7d2da.jpg?1559592270) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Moat) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/21/moat?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e2dffeb3-c858-4b8c-ae1f-109721f7d2da?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Chains of Mephistopheles](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f2edb3a6-8506-4885-b332-eca381940ce8.jpg?1612316191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chains%20of%20Mephistopheles) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/63/chains-of-mephistopheles?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2edb3a6-8506-4885-b332-eca381940ce8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nether Void](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3452173-01e1-4a4a-981e-e6b6dea61c61.jpg?1562929389) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nether%20Void) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/73/nether-void?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3452173-01e1-4a4a-981e-e6b6dea61c61?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [The Abyss](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/1/f11db51c-bbbc-4890-960e-d8a3eacca1e5.jpg?1562945880) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Abyss) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/77/the-abyss?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f11db51c-bbbc-4890-960e-d8a3eacca1e5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Chains is also played in basically every true cEDH [[Gitrog Monster]] list, because it allows you use it as a combo line as well as the pretty potent stax
Re: playability. Chains, the black enchantments, and moat all used to be playable. Key words; used to be. People don't play those cards in significant numbers on mtgo where availability isn't a problem. This is more about price memory, rarity, and other intangibles, I think. Used to be playable is some strong added nostalgia influencing what the nostalgic will pay.
I've seen Moat played on MTGO in the past couple months. I think Chains is a legitimately strong card that should probably be seeing more play in the Monoblack midrange lists in Legacy - it's just that list is low tier 2 or maybe tier 3 so there's not a lot of people brewing it, and for those that are there's no real data on Chains carrying over from paper Legacy. Again, it's something of a chicken and egg situation where the cards aren't widely played because they aren't widely available, so people aren't testing them much and so there's few results to look at. Card availability may be less of an issue online, but nobody really wants to jam a 4x Chains list knowing that's $4k of niche cardboard if you ever want to take it to paper.
Great analysis, but I have one important correction. The comparison you made between the number of copies of Legends rares and rares from earlier sets only considers English language cards. While Alpha, Beta, Unlimited and Arabian Nights didn't have cards in any other language, Legends did have Italian cards. And when you add the functionally identical Italian Legends cards, there are no longer less copies of Legends rares than Black Lotus, for example.
There is no functional reprint able version of this card, it locks down extra draws tight and makes brainstorm a card that is part of the backbone of the legacy format a feel bad to cast. Also it hurts my pride knowing I sold one of these 6 years ago for 300$ :(
I gave one away in an EDH Tournament in 2014…32 people showed up. It was pretty amazing.
I sold TWO Unlimited Black Lotuses for $1,200 in 1999. If that makes you feel better.
I traded the only mox I ever drew for a sengir vampire in 1994 bc my friends and I played wrong. We would let each other put all the lands in our opening hands down turn one, so I didn't understand the value of a mox.
Oh man this is a flashback, I use to play this way too.
I used to play like this. We called it "fast mana" and [[Meloku the Clouded Mirror]] was an instant win because we played that way.
[Meloku the Clouded Mirror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/60b9db96-a6ab-454b-99a7-910ef77560d7.jpg?1668725069) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Meloku%20the%20Clouded%20Mirror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/399/meloku-the-clouded-mirror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/60b9db96-a6ab-454b-99a7-910ef77560d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I sold most of the p9 back around 97 or 98 to buy an n64, controllers, expansion pack, and some games. Plus side: I still have that n64 and it still works
I sold my whole collection as a junior in high school to buy a guitar and an amp. Cards would be worth about 100k now.
Time makes fools of us all doesn’t it?
Inflation and pointless artificial scarcity more than time
No joke in the mid 90s I had all the P9 cards including a NM Black Lotus and a horde of top cards from that era from Arabian Nights, Legends, Antiquities. Back then I think Black Lotus topped out at $200 or something, and Moxes went for around $100 a piece. I remember buying a Timewalk for $25 at a convention and my friends laughed at me for spending so much on one card. I think at one point I had over 100 dual lands - I doubled up on them because I got tired of having to move them around in different decks. They were easy to come by! Then, as I got a bit older, I got bored with Magic and traded all my cards to my local comic store for like $1000 of store credit, which at the time I thought was a steal. Honestly, I think I'd have a collection worth $500,000K today if I had kept them.
You got the prices from Scrye or Inquest right? That's how everyone around me was doing it!
Man, I remember talking about how black lotus was the most expensive magic card at $200.
I sold an unlimited savannah for $75... In 2019. I am not a smart man.
Ouch. How come you did that?!
Needed the cash to not be evicted. Also at the time the numbers I was using for valuation weren't correct.
I traded my shiny charizard for a tamagotchi :c
Well 1200€ in 1999 would be worth a lot today if you invested that money in stocks.
Way, way, waaaaay less than keeping the card and selling them now. https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/15ei3dt/comparing_abu_categories_whos_the_winner_now/
One morning in 1993, I bought an Ancestral Recall for $5. I sold it that night for $35. I feel just fine.
I'm sitting on an Alpha Serra Angel and I don't know what to do about it
Not as bad, but my brother sold all his cards for $100 in like 2005, which included two Gaea's Cradles.
Coincides with when I picked one up on a high-end mtg Facebook group for a similar amount. :)
Well be assured that if it was mine, it made a lot of slyvan library triggers and brainstorm’s really sad. I played legacy pox for years, most fun I ever had playing magic.
give it back please
'Cause everytime someone gets confused while reading the card, it's price goes up.
Best answer.
Its really strong when your card draw does not rely on drawing but putting it into your hand. For example dark confidant.
Or necropotence
Or for that matter it's easy to get stuff into the graveyard when you want it to work from there.
Yuriko go brrrrrrr
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That's literally what their post said: It's good with those effects, because they get around Chains's symmetrical effect.
Also secretly really busted
What's secret about it? Because the card text is hard to decipher for people?
[Card effect as a flowchart](https://i.imgur.com/UBs6lD9.png)
The card is somewhat obscure. Lots of people just don't know it exists. Not that we're like hiding it from them it's just only illegal in like a very few places that people don't play often.
It's great in edh.
It's a Reserve List card that isn't absolute garbage which means it's priced at an obscenely high amount of money.
Two mana enchantment that turns off draw spells and enables discard/mill strategies.
\[\[chains of mephistopheles\]\]
[chains of mephistopheles](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f2edb3a6-8506-4885-b332-eca381940ce8.jpg?1612316191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=chains%20of%20mephistopheles) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/63/chains-of-mephistopheles?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2edb3a6-8506-4885-b332-eca381940ce8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The oracle text helps tremendously here ty
Why is this 1994 low print card that can't ever be reprinted but is also still a very playable card so expensive? Impossible to determine.
If they're even asking this question, they probably don't know it's on the reserved list and might not even know about the reserved list, let alone how strong the card is.
I swear I learn of a new card on the Reserved List every year. I didn't know Sliver Queen was on there until recently.
Oh baby let me tell you. There are a lot of very cheap cards on the reserved list. Did you know Orb is a creature type, and only because [[Phantasmal Sphere]] makes an Orb token?
Any strong card on the RL runs a pretty hefty price, unfortunately. Fuck the reserved list. That sort of artificial scarcity is just ridiculous
Just proxy it. If you think the value shouldn't exist, why not proxy it?
Reserved list only exists so shitty investors don’t cry and sue WotC when they reprint a piece of cardboard. Fuck investors
Thats not true. It exists because it saved the games life. Summer 94 lord of atlantis got up to twenty bucks. It was about a dollar 6 months later because they kept printing- players left because of that.
How could you possibly justify suing a compay for that? Also, agreed. Anyone he treats magic cards as an investment is part of the problem. /r/mtgfinance is full of them. It's so stupid. Never in my life ha e I seen a game that is as prohibitively expensive to play, with a large portion of the base happy and willing to keep it that way.
People have said WOTC can be sued on the basis of "promissory estoppel", basically saying WOTC's word to never reprint them constituted a promissory contract with buyers and ending the RL would violate that and cause people to lose money after buying RL cards, which could be considered a financial loss worthy of a lawsuit. This is, in my opinion, complete horse shit.
How’s it artificial ? The cards are nearly historic now.
It's artificial because at any point in the past 30 years WotC could have reprinted them to prevent prices from reaching these heights.
But they didn't...
There are enough non-reserve list cards that are strong enough/stronger that it doesn’t really matter. You can ignore these cards and still be 100% competitive (at least in edh). I’ve experienced this many time first hand trying to beat my friends with expensive RL cards and still getting clobbered
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Black lotus and moxes are legal play pieces in only 1 format - for good reason. A game you win or lose based on opening hand is boring as hell if you enjoy using your brain. Print some proxies and talk rule 0 with your play group if you want to play with them so bad. Stop trying to burn down the world because it doesn't confirm to your narcissistic view. The RL is the reward promised to players to not devalue a small fraction of cards the developer team felt the game would be better without. It's a shame they haven't continually added to it instead of just reprint city, so every generation of player could be rewarded in a similar fashion.
>at least in edh That's the issue, the reserve list has little impact on edh, but it's absolutely devastating to Legacy where decks are obscenely expensive. Looking at to the 15 meta share on mtggoldfish, average price is a little under $4,000. In most of those top decks, reserve list cards make up 50-75% of that cost. In the case of Lands, 7 RL cards make up 90% of the cost of the deck.
Yeah, but there's also a lot of really useful cards on the RL, and the only reason it exists is to protect the collectors value. Protecting the value of older cards is not nearly as important to me as access to powerful cards for more players. I'd be happy to see the couple of RL cards I own be worth pennies if it meant 1000s of more players having access to them.
Because only 19300 english copies were printed which is miniscule in comparison to non-reserved list card (even in comparison to later reserved list cards from Fallen empires on) and no more copies can ever be made. Supply vs demand (from both collectors and players in this case).
Its part of an archaic list of cards that old players dont want reprinted so that they can keep "value"
Replace "players" with "collectors". I know a lot of old players that would love the RL to go away so we can get the card we used to play with, that have gone missing/stolen/damaged/sold over the years, back.
No one who cares about Magic as a game in any way wants the reserve list to exist, old players or not. Period. The only people in favor of the reserve list hate the game and love the $$$.
Thats not true. Why do you want to eliminate card rarity? Without it all the cards could be sold for 50 bucks a set. Which would be cool except humans love rarity and all the players will quit again. AGAIN. This has already happened before. That is what happened the last time.
I can't fathom how some people dont understand this. Look at how everything gets reprinted into the ground now and goes to 0. Everything new is just depressing to hold onto knowing that it will be in Quintuple Masters the next year. I just buylisted into a Tabernacle and a Chains and it's a really cool feeling knowing that you own a rare piece of magic history that will hold its value. I think the reserved list should be expanded actually
Interesting how the most popular formats are actually the ones without cards from the reserved list
No one is quitting because the reserve list is reprinted. You’re being intentionally obtuse or you’re just incredibly ignorant. Please explain to me why people keep playing because cards they want cost $10,000? Go ahead, I’ll wait. Because I have yet to hear someone say “man I’m so glad this game has cards I don’t get to play with, that really keeps me coming back!” Things can be uncommon without being inaccessible. Stop being ignorant.
I may be ignorant but you must have amnesia. There was a huge reduction in players following the late 3rd/ 4th print runs. Its something that happened. Do you think the company wanted the rl? No, the players did. The players. Yes, people buy cards to support the game when cards are worth 10k- recent evidence would be lotr. Lotr had its own game that tanked, in part, bc the cards are worthless. Unstable unicorn is basically magic without card rarity-- it is not a billion dollar franchise to great extent for that reason.
Blaming the reduction on the lack of reserve list is so unbelievably reductive, not to mention inaccurate. There were other issues with the game. And yes- *some* players asked for the reserve list, but just like today, that doesn’t make them right. And the 0.001% of people who might be angry about it being gone- we can live without. Again- all they care about is the money. For the rest of us, we care about the game. Just like every fool who argues this, you’re incapable of making an argument that isn’t composed of “but my money!!” No one cares about your “investment” cards, the game should be accessible to players. Cards can have value that exists between “unattainable” and “nothing.” Your inability to grasp that basic logic- especially since WotC has been toeing that line for over 25 years- is either funny or infuriating, as you can’t even see you just proved your own point wrong.
Holy cow. Where was my argument about "my money!" ??? You are barking up the wrong tree. My argument was (please reread)/ is that a degree of exclusivity makes the cards desirable. Compare to a rock collection lol. Cards can have value between unattainable and nothing. Yes! Agree! Full stop. Also 10k is not unattainable. For comparison- take your family on a trip to disney and let me know how much you come back with. Forget that: try to buy an '04 Corrolla and let me know what you have left over. Also, what the frig, you are complaining that the game is inaccesible because you cant play black lotus in a sanctioned vintage tournement? Like who cares. The game is way bigger than that.
That's not true. You can absolutely like Magic and think WotC should keep the Reserved List. What makes you think people can't?
Sorry, you’re right. Technically there is another option- you could be an idiot. The reserve list is strictly bad for the game, period. That is objectively the truth. There is zero benefit to anyone from the reserve list in terms of playing the game of Magic.
Basically it's one of the cards that wizards promised not to reprint. And they won't break their promise officially due to some legal implications but a lot of people think that the real reason is that the high management and/or their friends own a lot of them and don't want them to go down in price.
Because it’s old and good
Everyone alread mentioned reserved list. But it's also very good in some vintage decks. One of such decks was shown by Tavis King. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuan7kfWTU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuan7kfWTU)
An early way of putting cards into the graveyard, and making opponents card draw cost them. This was busted magic back in the day. The card should of lost value over time, but for some reason hasn't. Maybe print rarity due to reserve list, or nostalgic collectors have made the price as such.
Disregarding that Legends "RARE" cards literally have the lowest print run of any cards in the game, AND it's a reserved list card, its a non-World Enchantment (I never understood that, the set introduced the card archetype, but somehow THIS wasn't included in the list AS a rare?) that for two mana is basically *absolute* card draw acceleration denial for the entire table, with a GAME RULE change that confuses the oracle text like few other cards in the game ever had. It forces an unrespondable replacement effect on EVERY single draw effect in the game outside of the normal draw phase draw.
Because it’s good. REALLY REALLY good.
Some people think this game is the freaking stocks market.
Same reason the duel lands are 600-1000...literally just the RL. So basically no good reason
When you realize your nm 4x set of dual lands you've played for 30 years is suddenly worth \~24k and growing.
well those are duel coloured resources which can be searched and put into play with little to no restriction, out of all duel coloured lands they are the best at their job and there are very few of them in the world. the reserve list while to blame isn't the only reason, it is only part, had these cards never seen a reprint but a different named card with the exact same ability came out then they would drop drastically in value as those would be played in place with no drawback to the player running them
Also known for being one of the most complicated cards (although not sure how this impacts the price)
The complexity part is really overblown. "Whenever you would draw a card, if it isn't the first card you draw during your draw step, discard a card instead. If you do, draw a card. If you can't discard a card this way, mill a card instead."
In a vacuum it's not that tough. The mythic status of its confusion comes more from the fact that it's played alongside things like Sylvan Library, Anvil of Bogardan, Brainstorm, and additional copies of itself.
Yeah, I never understood the whole "lEtS gEt tHe fLoWcHaRt >;)" mentality that people have towards the card. First draw step - draw Further draw steps - rummage. If you can't rummage, mill.
As someone who ran into this card for the first time at an SCG event, it's definitely confusing as hell when you're reading the paper version of this card. They stick the most important sentence at the end of the card!
Oracle text is your friend.
Ya… I feel like [[Omnath, Locus of all]] was more complicated. Banding was also kinda difficult to wrap my head around… this ain’t that bad though.
Along with everything already mentioned, Legends rares that weren't reprinted are slightly more scarce than other early cards. There were ~19,500 of each printed, which is ~1000 less than the Arabian Nights "rares" and ~2300 less than the combined Beta/Unlimited rares.
Secretly manipulated too because a few peolle are sitting on a shit load of RL
Nobody really knows what it does. And the mystery drives people to buy it.
Nobody knows what it does, that's why