Weekly Update (Jan 31): Standard Vorinclex

This week, apart from the constant and accelerating buyouts of basically any card on the Reserved List, most of our big finance news is attached to the release of Kaldheim. Perhaps the biggest winner was Death Cloud (up 171% to nearly $8) which is an absurd payoff for Tergrid, God of Fright Commander decks, essentially letting you steal all the permanents from your opponents' hands and battlefield assuming you can cast it for enough mana. While the synergies is likely too slow for competitive 60-card formats, that doesn't matter anymore. It's Commander's multiverse; the rest of the formats are just living in it.

Speaking of Kaldheim, we're starting to see the key cards from the set reorder themselves into winners and losers. The biggest gainer this week was Mystic Reflection which shot up 57% to almost $11. While I'm still not 100% sure what people intend to do with the instant, it is super unique and fun, and cheap enough that it could have a role in both Commander and 60-card formats. On the other side of the ledger, Toski, Bearer of Secrets dropped 58% on the week despite being one of the most popular Commanders from the set according to EDHRec. Orvar, the All-Form also sunk 42% to under $10 after a disappointing showing during Kaldheim's early access event on Magic Arena. Meanwhile on Magic Online, which can often be an early indicator of future paper price movement, Valki, God of Lies has separated itself from the rest of the Kaldheim pack and is now - by far - the most valuable card in the set, increasing 37% to $51. Keep in mind that the set doesn't officially release in paper until next weekend and the prices of most cards in the set will trend down as the set is opened.

Finally, the trend of Reserved List buyouts continued this week and we've reached the point where even the worst possible Reserved List cards are being bought out. Skeleton Ship shot up from near bulk to nearly $20. Gustha's Scepter followed. At this point, the Reserved List is almost completely disconnected from the game of Magic itself. These cards are being bought out not because they have any gameplay value, but because they are considered collectable and have artificially low supply thanks to the Reserved List itself. It seems like we are quickly heading into a world where the minimum price of a Reserved List card will be $10 to $20, regardless of how bad or unplayable it might be. Whether these price spikes push Wizards towards dissolving the Reserved List because they could make an absurd amount of money selling Reserved List reprints, or makes it harder for the list to ever go away because a potential lawsuit would be even more painful, remains to be seen. For right now the Reserved List feels a lot like the GameStop of Magic finance. Prices are spiking not because the fundamentals of the cards are good, but rather due to hype and limited supply theoretically making them a profitable buy. 

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