Futures Markets for Cards

Economics forum

Posted on Nov. 24, 2017, 9:22 a.m. by StardustDragon11

Which card do you see being worth a good chunk of change one, five or ten years from now?

For me it is a single card that I am hoarding at an ungodly rate, I probably have 100+ of these at this point.

Yahenni's Expertise

Here are my reasons for feeling this way.

  1. The card is inexplicably underplayed right now. At this moment I have yet to see it in any deck other than my legacy zombie and my modern pox deck. Many cards that have gone on to be ten or twenty bucks have been dollar bin cards before.

  2. I do not see it being reprinted. Being a signature card if you will, it is tied to the character of Yahenni and unless that character is in the setting of a core set, it unlikely to be rolling off of the presses.

  3. Game day foil promo. Nerds are vain, it is why foils and foreign language cards are so much more expensive. The full art foil gameday card is absolutely goregeous and it could totally be a chase item if this card gets some love.

  4. Most of all. This card is absolutely fucking nuts. A board wipe with cascade. A BOARD WIPE WITH CASCADE. read that again slowly. This card has applications in every single format and every single deck that can create two black mana.

Boza says... #2

Well, let me offer up 4 counterpoints on that, then I will offer my own suggestions:

  1. It is underplayed because in every format it is in, there are better alternatives. Damnation in modern, Sweltering Suns and Bontu's Last Reckoning in standard, Toxic Deluge in Legacy, all of the above in Commander.

  2. Sure, but that is not really a huge price indicator. Acquire is a card that has not been repeated with a signature mechanic that has rarely, if ever been replicated, yet it is still a buck at most.

  3. Game day foil promo - sure that might be worth more. To follow on the Acquire example, it was reprinted as media insert with the IDW comics and that printing is worth 8x the original card, but it is also several hundred times more rare than a Game day promo. Quantity of GD promos is just so high these days too.

  4. Cascade only from your hand though, which does not put you ahead on CA, just tempo, which is kind of moot if you are playing boardwipes. Actual cascade would be miles better. Once it exits standard, it gets outclassed on everything by other cards.

My vote goes for card from current standard to be expensive once outside of standard to be ...

Any of the more powerful Dinos - Carnage Tyrant, Gishnath, 4/5 for 4, even Regisaur Alpha - the time to invest in those is now, before Rivals of Ixalan spoilers start and make the tribe good in standard. The cards will also retain value because of Commander.

As for a single card, it will have to be...

Smuggler's Copter

Super powerful card that will see play in a lot more decks with time. Being banned in standard helps on its price.

November 24, 2017 10:09 a.m.

Arvail says... #3

Some of the precon generals offer rather unique abilities and might not see reprints until later on. They will likely gain value over time although not considerably.

Similarly, there are lots of good hate cards that aren't modern legal that bring lots to EDH but aren't noteworthy elsewhere. Think Cursed Totem type cards. As time passes, those types of cards will naturally gain value as their effects are hard to replicate and it's difficult to find spots to reprint non-modern relevant hosers. You can even extend that to non-hate cards. As long as they offer a unique ability that isn't noteworthy, they'll climb. A good example would be something like Hall of Gemstone or Eladamri's Vineyard.

November 24, 2017 11:45 a.m.

xyr0s says... #4

Yahenni's Expertise isn't all that bad, Catalog9000.

  • It actually casts something from your hand (you just don't have to pay for it). The text reads "You may cast a card...". Play and cast are used interchangably, and what you mean is "put into play", which is wording for moving a card from hand to table, without using the stack, f.ex. with Aether Vial.

  • It casts the cast as part of resolving. This is different from f.ex. cascade, which triggers from being cast (and therefore the card you cascade into goes onto the stack while your cascading card is still on the stack, and the new card will resolve first.

  • You're right that it's not being played. Hadn't modern been filled to the brim with toughness-a-lot-more-than-3 creatures, it could have been ok (Yahenni's Expertise to clear out the rabble, free-casting Liliana of the Veil and make opponent sac a creature, if he has any left). And in modern, there aren't much space for sweepers with powerlevel between Anger of the Gods and Damnation.

November 24, 2017 2:45 p.m.

CastleSiege says... #5

I'm in the same boat as OP and feel that someday, maybe, Yahenni's Expertise will see love. I have a pack foil playset and a game day promo playset lol.

November 25, 2017 1:50 a.m.

UrbanGirlScout says... #6

Altar of the Brood Toolcraft Exemplar Harsh Mentor

these are all cards that are fairly recent, cheap to cast,cheap to purchase, and have some decent to sick abilities depending on the board state.

November 27, 2017 6:35 p.m.

Ruffigan says... #7

Dinosaur lords. I see Dinosaurs becoming a supported tribe through supplemental sets due to their popularity and casual players love stuff like that. I could see the lords dropping in value after they rotate out and then climbing up to like $5 over a couple of years.

November 30, 2017 6:19 p.m.

Gleeock says... #8

Selvala's Stampede, Rishkar's Expertise, Tectonic Instability - once people understand the greatness and uniqueness of that weirdness of that card. Etali, Primal Storm - again, unique, weird, powerful

March 24, 2018 10:24 p.m.

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