Hello and happiest of days to each of you! I have a big question on my mind, and you might not entirely agree with my answer to it. All of these years later, is the Reserved List still serving it's original function of saving Magic and protecting collector confidence?

The Reserved List was created following the disastrous reprint-only White-bordered set (but not Core Set) Chronicles. At the time, Wizards of the Coast reprinted cards that were initially printed in black-bordered expansion sets on ugly White bordered cards to help protect the value of the original printings.

I was playing back then when they were releasing The Dark andRevised (the first iteration on Core Sets that removed the Power Nine and Berserk and such and added in cards from the first two expansions like Serendib Efreet, Atog, Desert Twister, Kird Ape, and Erg Raiders). This was back when Magic was releasing expansions like Legends and Fallen Empires !

Then Fourth Edition was printed and brought tons more changes, like the controversial pulling of the original dual lands. They also pulled tons of powerful cards like Copy Artifact, Wheel of Fortune, Demonic Tutor, and Regrowth. They cut Clone. Braingeyser, Sol Ring, Vesuvan Dopppelganger, Kird Ape and Serendib Efreet too. And Fork! They did add tons of great cards, though, like Strip Mine, Triskelion, Land Tax, Sylvan Library, Mishra's Factory, Ball Lightning and Fellwar Stone. They also added Killer Bees and Carrion Ants, a lot of cards that had high values at the time.

And then Chronicles was added to the mix, intended to be a reprint set alongside Core Sets that would also rotate out of Standard. Magic had exploded in popularity and many fans didn't have card stores selling the earliest sets near them, so WOTC wanted to give players a chance to pick up cards from those earlier sets. Tons of new players had joined the game, like my playgroup in West Virginia that didn't have access to a friendly local game store up until that point. WOTC wanted to give us access to the cards! But they didn't add nasty cards like Juzam Djinn and most of Legends due to its popularity and large card pool.

They packed Chronicles with cards that had high collector value, but low tournament viability, like the five Elder Dragons, Erhnam Djinn, City of Brass, the Urzatron lands, Tormod's Crypt, Feldon's Cane, Blood Moon, Five Color's favorite Jeweled Bird, Ashnod's Transmogrant, Jalum Tome, Boomerang, Concordant Crossroads, Dakkon Blackblade, Sol'kanar the Swamp King, Rubenia Soulsinger, Recall, Nebuchadnezzar, Rabid Wombat, Hell's Caretaker, Fallen Angel, and Divine Offering.

This was a smart move! Enchantress players loved Wombat, but it was pricey at the time. This was the first reprint of the Urzatron lands (Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant), and since you needed a full set of 12, this reprint was great. City of Brass, Cane, and Crypt were all great at the time. Concordant Crossroads gave everything haste, and it was a very difficult to answer 1-drop enchantment.

But, there was mad push-back from fans and collectors over Fourth Edition and Chronicles. "Why is Wizards reprinting cards that drop the value of my collection?" It was to the greater game's benefit, sure, but it upset people nonetheless. So, WOTC swore to not reprint a certain set of cards going forward. The original Reserved List included all cards from Alpha/Beta that hadn't been reprinted in Fourth Edition or Ice Age, all Uncommons and Rares from Arabian Nights and Antiquities that hadn't yet been reprinted in white borders, and all Rares from Legends and The Dark that hadn't yet been reprinted in white borders. They would go on to add cards from several other early expansions to the list, including the rarest 75% of cards from sets like Fallen Empires, Ice Age, Homelands, and Chronicles. Though, in 2002, WOTC would pull all non-rares from the Alpha/Beta off the list that were added and then later stuff too after people voted to do so.

The Reserved List was was sort of an overreaction. It was needed to calm fears at the time, and it worked! The MTG market didn't crash and people kept playing more and more. What's even more impressive about it is that many comics and other non-game collectibles did crash at the time, like sports cards. And starting with Mercadian Masques, Wizards decided that no more cards would be added to the Reserved List, though a handful of cards were added to the list for every set that came out after the formation of the list and then.

Now, in the Era of Reprints, with Masters sets and Commander products pushing for more and more copies of Competitive and Casual cards to enter the market, something like the Reserved List is a distant thought. Cards not protected by the Reserved List have all been fair game to be reprinted many times over, and surely that has affected the prices of their original versions... right?

Let's look at some cards that aren't on the Reserved List and how the prices of the original versions are faring. Let's look at the Classic Commander Nicol Bolas's prices. The original from Legends is at $15, but the white-bordered Chronicles version is $3 bucks. He's also in a From the Vault and Time Shifted in Time Spiral - and that more recent black border version with the same art is $2 near mint. Weird right? But folks prefer the original Black-bordered version, not any of the later versions!

Then we have Sol'kanar the Swamp King, also in Time Spiral. The original printing is $45, Chronicles is $0.50, Time Spiral is $0.30, and Dominaria Remastered $0.50 So, that didn't drop his value too much, right? Vampiric Tutor? The original is $70, and other than a promo art, foil, or full art copy (like the Judge Promo version and the two foils, no other copy reaches that high. Not bad right?

Serendib Efreet: the original is $390 bucks and the cheaper Masters versions are like $0.20 cents.

City of Brass: original is $570 dollars cash, and the cheapest other version is around $18.

All these cards weren't hurt by not being on the Reserved List!

Of course, there are some counters to my argument, exemplified by some non-reprinted Commander viable Legends era cards:

• Adun Oakenshield - $71
• Tetsuo Umezawa - $69
• Rasputin Dreamweaver - $116
• Livonya Silone - $39
• Tuknir Deathlock - $20
• Gwendlyn Di Corci - $199
• Boris Devilboon - $24
• Angus Mackenzie - $259
• Ramses Overdark - $41
• Bartel Runeaxe - $22

All of these Commanders are on the Reserve List and retain some hefty price tags. We have some mega-popular ones like Angus Mackenzie and Gwendlyn Di Corci that are great Commander figureheads and keeping them on the Reserved List probably helped their value. But as for the rest of them? Not so much (save for Adun and Tetsuo).

What this tells me is that players usually, but not exclusively, love initial printings, even the ugly White-bordered Portal Three Kingdoms compared to the later black-bordered versions.

One of the biggest issues the Reserved List has created, though, is a case of the haves and have-nots for key cards that can never be reprinted and are massively good for formats like Commander and Eternal Competitive formats like Gaea's Cradle, Memory Jar, and Grim Monolith. People would play those cards a lot more if they were more available. You don't even have to reprint them! Merely saying you will might cut some value here and there. Also, making proxies legal is a potential solution, but it cannot be a permanent or long-term one.

Another major issue presented by the Reserved List is that Wizards cannot print cards that are functionally identical to cards on the list, like renaming the original Dual Lands and printing them in a new set. That's rough for older formats like Legacy, Vintage, and Commander. I bought 4 Bazaar of Baghdads at 40 bucks each in the 90s, and tons of other stuff that's now massively expensive, but I wouldn't want that investment of mine to stand in the way of players enjoying the game today! There are relatively so few copies of these powerful cards in circulation, and no good solution to that problem in sight.

And the Reserved List has good casual cards for Commander and Multiplayer tucked away, like Deranged Hermit, Gilded Drake, Winding Canyons, and Eladamri, Lord of Leaves. Those are great cards we'd like reprints of since Commander drives sales.

There are tons of cards on the Reserved List that are pretty minor and no one is holding onto, like Yare or Aboroth. There's a large chunk of cards no one would care if you removed from the list. Wood Elemental and Fungus Elemental? Come on... Even something like Autumn Willow is at $0.80.

Remember when something is banned or has action taken against it in Commander, its price falls massively. That's the price driver for modern cards in this post-modern era. Something like the Reserved List feels really unnecessary now despite how beneficial it may have been at the time.

We could do a few different things to fix things:

1. Rotate off all the still cheap cards at or under a buck near mint that no one wants to fight for.
2. Announce that for the next three years, the Reserved List will be abolished. Three years should be long enough to not completely alienate folks that have heavily invested in RL cards.
3. Remember that one of the power 9, Timetwister, is a powerhouse in Commander, but I could see the others staying on the Reserve List just to keep them out of folks's mind.

Remember just because a card comes off the Reserve List doesn't mean it would be quickly reprinted.

Or, Instead of getting rid of the list once for three years, do:

• Rotate off all cheap stuff at or under a buck near mint that no one wants to fight for.
• Announce that in one year, all $15-20 cards come off the list. Things like Baron Sengir, Krovikan Horror, Fungal Bloom, Stone Calendar, and Granite Gargoyle. You might even go to $50.
• We'll scale up to high double digits at $75 for two years. Think cards like Nova Pentacle or Preacher. You might go up to $100 here.
• Then we go up to $500 after 3 years. I could see around $400 instead.
• Then up to $1000 or so after 4 years.
• Then everything at $1000 or more comes off in 5 years.

Both of these options could work, though they'd definitely still be controversial.

The Reserved List was created to save the game and protect collector confidence, which worked marvelously. But, now it's getting in their way. It's preventing people from having access to some of the game's earliest powerful cards, and it's stifling creativity and the formation of new kinds of formats! Remember the format I made called Commander '95 that only has cards printed up through 1995? The Reserve list hurts that too, as well as the Old School format. People deserve to have access to the game's history, and to play with the cards that started it all.

What would you want to do?