Fetch Lands in a Year's Time
Economics forum
Posted on April 14, 2014, 1:35 p.m. by forestlore44
Assuming we don't get a reprint before then, what will the Zendikar fetch lands most likely fetch price wise a year from now?
Servo_Token says... #3
Because the whole "You have perfect mana, do what you want" mindset is starting to fade due to the price of fetches at the moment, I believe that people will start to dull it down on the multicolor decks, and start leaning more toward a dual color or even mono color + splash plan. The pain lands are very efficient in these strategies, and are also very cheap. This means that people who are newer to the format will be more inclined to lean toward these types of strategies, and the price of fetches will stop growing, if not start a slow decline.
This is just my own belief, though it makes a bit of sense considering that more and more people are trying to get into the format, and want budget options.
April 14, 2014 1:47 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #4
I have to believe $100 is a little high for Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest so I can't imagine it staying there. That being said the blue Onslaught fetches (Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand ) are pretty stable if not slowly increasing. I think there is something to be said for perfect mana. Having unhindered access to whatever color you need is very valuable for game play. If you don't believe it proxy some into your decks.
That being said I believe people are getting greedy with their "good stuff" style deck building. There has to be strong incentives to play fewer colors to make it easier for people to resist the urge to cram the best removal in and the strongest creatures and the best instants and sorceries. Cheap (mana wise) splashable offenders like Goyf, Bob and Mr Chan make it that much worse.
I think cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel
could make a difference for this. That being said, I feel like the reality is, less efficient mana bases separate tier 1 from tier 2 or you know...jank.
April 14, 2014 1:58 p.m.
If Wizards is successful in sparking more interest in the Modern format (Modern Event Deck... and possibly Modern Masters 2??), and there is no reprint, then I can see them continuing to rise... But if they do, the increase will be minimal. They are already too high to reasonably be maintained.
More likely, they will drop as the current modern season ends, and then possibly rise again at the beginning of the following season... to the same or just slightly higher prices.
This will vary, of course, depending on the deck types being played. Currently, many/most decks require them to be competitive... if mono-color decks strengthen, or decks with strategies which don't require them become common, then they could simply drop.
April 14, 2014 2:12 p.m.
if there are no reprints in the next year then expect the price to be about the same, maybe with a slight increase. As each year passes things happen (people hold onto them, some are destroyed, some are lost) and that means as each year passes they'll become increasingly more rare. They definitely won't have a significant drop in price without a reprint, no matter how much people want them to go down. Even if newer modern players started playing more dual and mono-colored decks it wouldn't effect the price because anyone who can get a hold of them will still want to and without a reprint the number of supply can only go down. That's how supply and demand works and why Black Lotus is worth so much. It's not because everyone who wants to play vintage is going out and buying them up and driving up the price, its because of how low the total number in circulation are. If there were as many copies of Black Lotus available as there are Forest then it wouldn't be worth as much as it is now, no matter how good it was and no matter how much play it saw. The same goes for the fetchlands. As the total number in circulation continues to drop from year to year the price will continue to rise.
April 14, 2014 2:14 p.m.
CommanderOfBolas says... #7
Assuming no reprints, I would actually expect the price to drop. People do not want to pay such a high price for fetches, and a card is only worth what someone is willing to pay. The demand is dropping from these high prices. Scalding Tarn can be easily gotten for $70 on ebay in mint condition. I have seen a few even cheaper. I am predicting a steady decline over the next year, with maybe a bump in price after they become more affordable
April 14, 2014 2:19 p.m.
Rayenous makes a good point that I forgot to mention, as modern season ends demand will drop slightly so you may see a slight decrease in price. Don't get excited when that happens though because it doesn't mean the price is finally falling back to what you call reasonable. It just means there aren't as many people actively seeking them out. Then as the next modern season comes around the number of people actively seeking them out will go back up because they're trying to prepare for tourney season. This price fluctuation will happen with almost all of the staple cards. There will be some that fluctuate but you won't notice it because something dropping from $20 to $18 isn't as noticeable as something dropping from $100 to $80. Knowing and understanding how and why these fluctuations happen though can really help you when it comes to knowing when to acquire and unload cards during trades and could help you get the stuff you want for what would be less than full price.
April 14, 2014 2:25 p.m.
You'll always find them cheaper on ebay, it's a secondary market with a lot of unknown factors. Think about it, if I offer you Scalding Tarn
for the same price as your LGS is offering it, then who are you gonna buy from? Most people would buy from their LGS they are familiar with than the complete and total stranger they know nothing about. That is why when people list things on ebay they aren't listed at full retail value, and if you actually look around you'll notice that the ones that are, aren't selling. So just because you can find them cheaper on ebay than you can on something like Star City doesn't mean it's an indicator the price is dropping.
How many people do you think want to pay $8000 for an alpha Black Lotus ?? The answer: NO ONE. But that doesn't mean the price of Black Lotus everywhere are gonna start to drop. Similarly people aren't going to boycott buying fetchlands so even though you feel there are lots of people who aren't willing to pay the price for them, there's more than enough who are willing to pay that price. With out a reprint (or fetchlands becoming completely useless), their price will not have any kind of significant drop in price. That's just how economics and supply and demand work, and it's not gonna suddenly change because you wish the price of fetchlands would drop. How does the old saying go.... you can wish in one and and shit in the other and see which hand fills up first. So you can either accept that this is how the world works or in a couple years you can sit there wishing you had gotten them before they had gone up another $50+.
April 14, 2014 2:48 p.m.
Even if/when fetch lands are reprinted, I don't see them doing below $50. Why? Because I believe wotc will do the same print run as tarmogoyf and they will be printed as mythic lands. It's a business after all. This would cause more people to buy it while keeping the originals at a fairly high price. I believe the days of $12-20 fetch lands are long gone.
April 14, 2014 3:26 p.m.
Without reprints, the price of Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest will likely stay above $80.
However, if they get reprinted, they will not be mythic rare. Maybe "Rare 1," but a set with several mythic rare lands is wasting a lot of its flavor space on fetch lands and in draft, fetches aren't game breaking. For that reason, they will continue to occupy the rarity of Rare.
If they are printed in something like the first set of a block and not a Core Set, then they will have a 2-year lifespan in standard which will allow their prices to drop very significantly. I would say about $15-30 each. With the ability to receive several in a box, there's no reason for them to be worth $50+.
April 14, 2014 6:26 p.m.
one question is weather or not WOTC wants to make reprints for fetch lands. i could see them doing it for maybe something similar to modern masters, but not in a block, atleast not for a little while. Look at the gap between the printings for the fetch lands.
April 15, 2014 3:44 a.m.
KrosanTusker says... #13
I'm hoping they will eventually reprint them in a block. Wizards have said that they're keen to support modern and help it grow as a format so increasing availability of fetchlands is surely an inevitability. For this purpose, a Modern Masters -set reprint is not good enough.
To answer forestlore44's question, barring reprints, they will only go up. Sadly, prices tend not to drop at the end of modern season by as much as they went up at the start. They can't go up too much, however, because there must surely be some ceiling at which people become unwilling to pay for a piece of cardboard. Apparently, that's higher than $100!
kintighd says... #2
I can't imagine that we will see them go much higher. People are really upset with the prices already, meaning that they may not be willing to pay much higher for them.
April 14, 2014 1:39 p.m.