Have you ever been browsing a Magic store or checking prices for a trade, picked out a random card, and thought to yourself “That’s worth HOW MUCH?!” It’s an increasingly common situation.

Hundreds of seemingly unassuming cards command huge prices today, and it’s not always clear why.

If you want to start maximizing the value of your collection and minimizing the cost of playing Magic, understanding the forces and factors that influence a card’s value is the first step. Spotting these factors early can help you stay ahead of price spikes, make savvy trades, and acquire tomorrow’s £50 mythics for £20 today.

Supply versus demand

Magic cards, much like any other commodity with finite supply, obey the basic rules of economics. The more demand there is for a product, the greater its value is, and the more you can charge for it. When a card explodes in popularity and stores start running low on stock, prices go up, and the people who got in last, end up paying the most. It’s simple.

From a player’s perspective, it’s a hard system to game. Demand isn’t always predictable—some cards that appear great at first glance fail to make an impact, and trying to stay ahead of demand can often lead to bad speculations and a folder full of garbage in the long term.

What you can predict however is supply. Supply works in the opposite way to demand i.e. the more supply there is of something, the less you can effectively charge for it because of how readily available it is. In Magic, supply always follows the same basic trajectory with the release of every set, and if you understand it, it’s simple to spot when a card is at its cheapest.

[]  At prerelease, all card prices are inflated by the very limited supply available

[]  Shortly after release, prices start to deflate due to the huge volumes of product opened by big stores

[]  Prices continue to drop while the set is being drafted and used in sealed deck events

[]  When the set stops being opened for limited events and a new set is printed, this is the point of peak supply

[]  After that point, players keep buying the cards for standard, but very few people continue to open the set, and demand begins to outstrip supply, sending prices back up

Understanding this is especially useful when you’re dealing with standard reprints of eternal playable cards such as Thoughtseize or Mutavault. Because the cards are already known to have life beyond standard, their supply is the major contributing factor to their price. Buy when supply at its highest and reap the rewards later down the line!

Casual appeal

It’s very easy to think that the only reason a card becomes expensive is because every competitive player immediately rushes out and buys 4 copies when a pro discovers that it’s good. That’s a big factor sure, but there’s another group out there that have an equally significant impact on prices—and just because you don’t seem them every Friday at your FNM, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t constantly impacting the game you play.

I am of course talking about THE CASUALS.

Ever wondered why an old rare angel from 10 years ago that sees approximately zero play in any competitive format costs a ton of your hard earned cash? That’s the casuals. An average planeswalker with no eternal playability? That’s them too. A gigantic creature with a converted mana cost that you can’t count on your fingers? You guessed it.

If you can’t work out why a card is expensive, chances are that its price is purely held up by casual appeal if it:

[]  Isn’t standard legal

[]  Doesn’t appear in any eternal format decklists

[]  Is of a collectable tribe (think angels, dragons, elves, goblins, planeswalkers etc.)

[]  Does something fun and/or weird (think doubling season, elvish piper, Shahrazad etc.)

[]  Is an EDH staple

Card quality in the context of its set

This is a big one to keep in mind. If a card is in high demand and stores don’t have many of them, they should just open more of their sealed product, right? Well if that’s the only valuable card in the set, then the answer is probably no.

Think back to Dragon’s Maze. When prices of the set settled down, Voice of Resurgence rose head and shoulders above the rest. Was the card good? Well yes, of course it was, and it continues to see play in modern, but it wasn’t really format defining in standard. The fact that it was one of few playable cards in the set put a lot of upwards pressure on its price.

If a shop opened a box of Dragon’s Maze to sell, Voice of Resurgence was one of their few chances to recover the price they paid for it, ergo it ends up costing a lot.

Eternal playability

Magic is a much bigger game than just Standard. Some cards just play better in the metagames of eternal formats, which drives up demand for them, and subsequently impacts their price. Avid players of true eternal formats like Legacy and Vintage famously have pretty deep pockets, so if you’ve ever wondered why some standard foils cost as much as five times the amount of their non-foil counterparts, you have the old-school aficionados to thank for that!

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy: The perfect storm

Currently, Jace, Vyrn’s Prodigy is acting as a sobering reminder that these price-driving factors can sometimes stack on top of each other. If you want a concrete current example of any of these factors in action, just take a look at our favourite little $75 flippy Planeswalker:

[]  The card is considered one of the best in the current standard format, driving huge demand

[]  Magic Origins is no longer being opened for limited play, indicating that it is past its point of peak supply

[]  With the recent event deck putting downward pressure on the price of Hangarback Walker, stores now have very little incentive aside from Jace to open more Magic Origins product

[]  Jace is both a Planeswalker and a Jace, giving him huge casual appeal

[]  He’s been seeing fringe eternal play in both Modern and Legacy, with many predicting that he’s set to see a lot more

If you’ve struggled to understand his price up to now, I hope that puts this perfect storm of or price-shaping factors into perspective.

Wrapping up

The prices of Magic cards are influenced by a ton of different factors, and the ones I’ve discussed here are just the beginning. I’d love to revisit this in a later article and explore some of the lesser-known or under-appreciated ones, but I hope this has been a helpful introduction for you. I know some people don’t like to think of their cards in term of cash value, but it really does pay to view your trade folder as an investment portfolio. Understanding the factors that determine card prices is the first step towards making smarter Magic investments and acquiring the right cards at the right time for the right price.