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No elegant preamble this week. Instead I’m grinding some numbers on the best-selling set of all time, Return to Ravnica.
At least, it was before Gatecrash came out. The game is reaching ever higher places this week, and if this is to be believed we’ve picked up more players since we returned to Ravnica.
Which begs the question, are prices coming along for the ride?
I’ve talked for the last two months about how Return to Ravnica had hit its price floor as the market flooded. Now we’re away from drafting it for the moment (though we will… return), and it’s time to find out what prices on staples from the set are doing so we can figure out whether it’s time to buy in.
The Catalyst
Let’s start with the card that’s driving this column: Abrupt Decay. The multi-format all-star just hit a four-month high and seems like it’s going to continue rising.
It's important to note this isn't an overnight spike. The card is rising slowly, and even if there are fits and starts, this is how you tell the difference between a sustainable spike and an unsustainable one.
Thundermaw Hellkite, for instance, is a card I was hot on a few months back when it was $10-12. I advised picking them up then and I advised holding onto them at $20 because it wasn’t done rising. I came to that conclusion because the price would go up a dollar or so a day, sometimes punctuated by $3-4 jumps. But at no point did it spike from a dollar to $10 like we’ve seen too many cards do recently. That’s a telling factor for me.
So back to Abrupt Decay. The card is on the upswing now that its set is no longer being redeemed. Sure, some more product will enter the market in a few months when it's drafted again, but with redemptions basically over this won’t be a huge driver.
I expect Abrupt Decay to be $10 or so in a matter of months, so now it’s time to see if this trend is noticeable with other Return to Ravnica cards.
Supreme Verdict
Likely the best Wrath of God variant we’re going to see for a long time, I’ve been advocating stocking up on these, and the numbers seem to bear that out. Verdict hit an all-time low of $3.69 back in December and is up around 20 percent since then. I still think it’s a great time to move on these.
Slaughter Games
The all-time low on this occurred early before people realized how good it was. Since the beginning of the year it hasn’t moved at all, still sitting just above a dollar. Hard to draw anything from this (though I still think it’s a great pickup at a buck).
Ash Zealot
The all-time low on this card came shortly after release, and it reached a high of $4.83 two weeks ago. Currently sitting a few quarters below that, it’s still up a sizable amount since the beginning of the year.
Chromatic Lantern
I think this is an important one to evaluate because it’s pretty much just a Commander card right now. Again, we see an all-time low in the middle of December, and it’s up a dollar, or 50 percent, since then.
Deathrite Shaman
This is influenced quite a bit by Modern, but it’s still worth evaluating. The all-time low came right after the set release, which is a testament to how players misevaluated it more than any supply-sides issues.
The all-time high was set on January 23 at $15, and it’s currently sitting right around $14. For a card that, like Abrupt Decay, fits into every format, I think this is a very safe card to acquire at this point. It has similarities to Noble Hierarch, which keeps getting more expensive, and to Snapcaster Mage, which retails for about $9 more right now. There’s nothing to not like here.
Shocklands
Almost all of these are setting new all-time lows every day now. This cannot go on for much longer, even with more coming in a few months. I’ve been aggressive on these and I’m trying to stock up. It’s hard when people want them constantly, which is a sign of how important they are.
This is probably the single safest investment you can make in RtR right now, and I’m going to continue to stock up.
The Mythics
I’m lumping these together because the data is just so consistent. Outside of Sphinx's Revelation, every mythic in the set is at or very near an all-time low. Given the mixed set of data we have from the rares, this is an interesting development that probably speaks more to the fact that none of these besides Revelation are seeing play.
That said, does anyone really believe Jace, Architect of Thought is going to remain at $12.81 (an all-time low) forever? There’s just no way. It may not be until after rotation, but that seems way too low to me.
Conclusions
Looking over the data, we’re able to draw a pretty good lesson from all of this. Prices on Return to Ravnica are beginning to pick up in places, but others are still bottoming out.
So it would appear that Abrupt Decay may be the anomaly of the lot, for now. My biggest takeaway from this exercise is that there’s no reason to hit the panic button yet on your RtR picks. Prices on the whole aren’t rebounding yet, so you still have some time to pick up on what you want to speculate on, which is a good thing for those who haven’t stocked up yet.
It’s probable that I’ll come back to this list in six months or a year from now and see what data we have to work with. I believe the comparisons at that time will allow us to better pinpoint a time when prices hit the floor (I believe we’re at time right now), and exactly when they began rebounding (which I expect will be in a month or so).
Thanks for reading,
Corbin Hosler
@Chosler88 on Twitter
Great article as always, straight to the point.
Thanks much!
I like Sphinx’s Revelation here even though it’s not at a bottom. The card has demonstrated robustness even as the Standard metagame evolved to absorb Gatecrash. As supplies dry up in the coming months, this card will be well positioned for gains should it remain a relevant staple (which I think it will).
Agreed, but how much higher do we think it can go?
I’d say range would be $30 (solid Mythic staple) to $50 (see: Bonfire). It’s tough to predict but as long as it remains relevant, Sphinx’s Revelation won’t drop.
I agree, so long as turn 3 kills doesn’t become even easier with Dragon’s Maze Sphinx’s Revelation will remain a staple. The problem I see in this is that its already pretty highly priced already at ~20$. I can see it going up a couple of dollars, but I’m not sure about much more than that.
Agreed. 70$ or less for a playset on Ebay is a great deal right now.
I really like Armada Wurm as a long-term RtR pick. It’s hard to imagine that $2-3 isn’t the bottom for a mythic that provides 10/10 worth of trample damage for 6cmc. Moreover, since this efficiency is spread across two bodies with different attributes, it’s a better investment vs. spot removal.
I agree on this one as well…I’ve had a lot of people in my local shops requesting these and I imagine his price will get back to the 8-10 range when the format slows down some.
I agree it has to be near its floor.
Would you say any of the lands are cash buys at this point?
Not when they’re so easily available in trade and the price appears to still be heading downward.
With Snapcaster and flashback spells rotating soon, wouldn’t Ash Zealot be a sell? Assuming R/x aggro isn’t light on 2-drops come rotation.
I mean, the card’s pretty good even without that second ability right? Haste, first striking 2/2 for 2 is pretty good in any aggressive Red list.
I’m curious what your thoughts on detention sphere and lotleth troll is, I’ve picked up a number of both recently anticipating a price increase after rotation as they are both strong cards not in high demand right now (i posit because of metagame reasons) and at a low price which causes the potential % return on investment to be larger.