VIDEO: Reserved List Buyouts – What Does It Mean?

Video Transcript:

Hello everyone and welcome to Cardmarket’s YouTube channel. I am Pablo and today I bring you a very interesting topic, a controversial topic as well - the Reserved List and the buyouts. Before jumping directly to the topic, we’re going to have a little bit of story time.

The Reserved List was introduced by Wizards of the Coast in around 1996. It was an attempt to try to tackle the protests happening around players and collectors that saw the devaluation of their cards with reprints that happened in Fourth Edition and Chronicles. It was a good solution for the time being however it was a short-term solution that proved bad or inconvenient, at least, in the long run. The content of the list is a bit random. We have some cards like , which are uncommon, so not every single card on the list is rare. Not every single rare in the sets covered, up to Mercadian Masques, are on the Reserved List and since then some of the cards were removed, somewhat randomly, during the last 25 years.

Currently, there are 567 cards on the Reserved List. There have been two revisions of the list, one in 2002 and the second in 2010. Out of the two, the 2010 revision is the most interesting and impactful. At that time, Wizards of the Coast decided to reprint cards that were part of the Reserved Lists in premium products. For instance, From the Vault, Judge Promos, FNM Promos, or whatever. There was a legal loophole that allowed them to do that. But after some discomfort in the community, they decided to basically remove that exception.

You probably remember Judge Promos like , , and , that were reprinted as promo or premium cards but that’s no longer the case, they could do it legally, but Wizards is committed to not doing so anymore. Speaking of buyouts of Reserved List cards, it’s important to understand why this happened and, again, we must share a bit of history to understand exactly why.

The first major buyout involving the Reserved List happened in August of 2017. It basically involved some of the most popular cards that were a part of the Reserve List. Good examples include the dual lands; alpha, beta, limited, and revised. But there were other cards that were bought out that were not as popular or powerful as the dual lands. We’re talking about cards like or . Those cards are just part of the Reserved List and they were bought out just for that reason. Fast forward three years, August of 2020 we again see a new wave of Reserved List cards being bought out both in Europe and in the US. And to be fair, the Reserved List cards resonate very well within the Magic community. Some of them are extremely powerful, all of them are extremely rare, and they will most likely never be reprinted again, depending on Wizards of the Coast. They are part of Magic history, there is a lot of nostalgia around it, and while the demand is ever growing, the supply is actually going only one way - downwards.

These cards are taken out of the market constantly. People buy them to play them in their decks, especially Commander. Or to sell them at a profit in the future. But there’s also natural reasons like fires or accidents or floods where the cards disappear from the market. The truth is that the stock of Reserved List cards is shrinking constantly every single year. All these situations cause a little bit of inflation. Sometimes it’s artificial inflation, such as when people just buy them by the bucket just to speculate on future prices. But also, sometimes it’s true inflation where people just buy them to play them and never resell them again.

There’s a lot of FOMO, fear of missing out, in people and basically the selling and buying of these cards can get out of control really quickly because of that fear of missing out. Just during last month, August 2020, I identified a dozen cards that were bought out and spiked in price. Cards like , , , , , but also some other cards that are slightly less popular like , , which are part of the Reserved List. They are probably some of the cheapest cards, and they were likely bought out just for speculation.

I know what you’re probably thinking, “Hey, Pablo, I’m a Commander player, a Legacy player, and a Vintage Player. What should I do now? Did I miss out? Did I miss the train of buying all these format staples, which are now extremely expensive? What’s next?” History tells us that the price of these cards normally tends to return to the original price. Some harder than others, for example, is likely going to return to its original price faster than cards like {Gaea's Cradle}. You might expect in cards like , , and a price increase of between 10% and 20% compared to the original and it might take a little longer, one or two years rather than a few months, to revert. But the prices tend to normalise eventually due to supply and demand. Remember that these cards, when they get a really high price in the market, the liquidity goes down and makes it harder to actually sell, which eventually decreases the price.

So probably the best course of action if you’re after these cards is to let the situation cool down a little bit. Most of the prices are going to go down, if not all of them. Eventually they’re going to go down. Sometimes it might take a few months, sometimes it’s going to take a few years, but they eventually return to closer to the original price. So, again, if you are after some of these cards, probably just play it cool, don’t fall into the FOMO that I mentioned before, and eventually you will get the cards a little bit cheaper. However, if you cannot control yourself and you really want the cards, then that’s fine. You can buy them. You’ll pay a bit of a higher price than if you waited, but if you do want them, just have some consideration for my recommendation. Probably the best way to do it is buy powerful cards that may be more expensive but will have much better liquidity, meaning if you do ever decide you want to cash them, you will have an easier time selling them. Again, cards like , , have much better liquidity than cards like or .

Not only do you have better liquidity in these cards, but the price will preserve a little better. If you compare graphs of price swings for cards less popular like , they return to the original price quickly. You will eventually lose money in the long term and it’s going to be much harder to sell. However, if you see the graphs for , the price rarely goes down. Most of the time the price increase remains. At best, if the price increases by 100%, they might go down by 80%. It’s a much better price preservation and will give you a better return in the long term.

So that’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed the video, hope that you learned a little bit more about the Reserved List and all the fuss around it. If you like the video, please share a like, that will help us grow. If you’re not subscribed to the channel, I recommend that you do so, because you’ll be able to be on top of the videos we post. Of course, leave a comment if you are interested in more videos about the Reserved List or have any questions, I read every comment and try to answer them. Thank you again for your time, and see you next time.

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