lol .. The difference is, Pokemon has a much higher demand so it eats away the pop report to a degree. If Magic gets half the traction you’d be sitting on a gold mine right there. Always wanted to collect a few Magic cards, but I’m clueless in that category
Post by Admiral XYZ™
magic is all about playability
the most popular format is commander, which allows MOST cards from the inception of the game
some of these cards can get reprinted, but others are on the "reserve list", which means they won't get printed anymore
that haven't added any cards to the RL in couple decades, so most of those cards have already gone 20-30 years without a true reprint
up until about 2010, they made exceptions to the rule for special foils given out to judges, which is the case for the two in the pic above (Judge Foil - Reserve List)
only a few JFRL cards out there, and an even smaller subset that are playable in commander
as for the cards off the RL, they can still maintain value if they're highly playable
for example, the cheapest mana vault you can find is about $50 for a damaged foreign white border copy
the value for non-RL cards comes in rare versions of playable cards. not sure what the goin rate is at the moment, but there's a Fallout variant of Mana Vault that goes for $2k+ last I checked
If the tcg market continues to thrive, I think the new card value is going to in "universe beyond" special prints of highly playable cards - see also, Spongebob Squarepants Smothering Tithe.
the big risk for a lot of cards is WOTC reducing the playability by printing more powerful cards or by banning the playable cards or other cards that synergize well (see Mana Crypt, Dockside Extortionist ban 2024)
happy to share more info if you're interested
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But for example in Pokemon it’s not just about playability when it comes for most collectors, like a lot of the older cards are much weaker than newer cards despite being the same character but primarily collected based on overall pull rates, low pop, and good arts in addition to fan favored characters.. What’s an example for such a Magic card?
And rarity tears
those cards are pretty rare
unplayable, but maintains value
the ones that exist will fall into one of three main categories
old and nostalgic (juzam)
old and banned (lotus)
new and created as collectible (lotr)
also, the original "alpha" and "beta" variants of cheap cards tend to carry a premium - lightning bolt is a <$1 card, but a damaged alpha version is a few hundred bucks
originally, there were 3
rare
uncommon
common
then they added mythic
however, rarity tier won't give a good estimation of value, aside from maybe a ceiling
note the badgermole cub, both rated "M" for mythic (bottom left)
left one is about twice the price of the right because it's a borderless foil, while the right is the standard print
unlike pokemon in this regard which tells you the variant in the rarity
Mr. B 1mo
And rarity tears
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if you're looking for a speculative bet, this might be worth a look
not sure what the population is, but it's the only foil version of any of the "banned for cultural offensiveness" cards, and you can find them for a fair amount cheaper than its Alpha/Beta counterparts
foils can be had for under $75 while the black border OG cards are in the hundreds
most similar cards (special foil of Alpha/Beta/early set) have seen the foils rise much closer to the OG value (Swords to Plowshares, City of Brass)
historical significance, resurgence in crusade-esque beliefs, might help here too