Hello readers! I’m Ryan, and I’m here with a new series of articles for MTGStocks, titled “Where Are They Now?” In this series we’ll dive through each month's “Weekly Winners” from 12 months previous and look at which cards most poorly stood the test of time with regards to their market value. Arjen is busy helming the wheel over with the “Weekly Winners” showcase he puts out each Friday, which means I’ll be heading up this new project. So without further delay, let’s get to it!
On November 5th, 2021, “Weekly Winners” shined a spotlight on this card, from early in MTG history, that flowed well with landfall decks, especially the recently previewed Cultivator Colossus from Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Abundance is very easy to abuse with Cultivator Colossus’ second ability, allowing you to essentially draw through all the lands in your deck and then stack your deck in whatever order you see fit. The price for Abundance went up to between roughly 6 and15 dollars, depending on the printing, and started becoming a ready staple in games of Modern and Commander. But that rise came with a pretty big fall. One year later and the card has declined in price by 75 percent, due to the steady increase in decks prepared to fend off Cultivator Colossus. As early as December 2nd, the card began to see a drop in price. This is just two months after the release of Crimson Vow, which indicates that its spike was due entirely to Cultivator Colossus and its decrease in price due to players attempting to maximize their gameplay using both. Abundance is useful in many decks and styles of gameplay but its synergy with Cultivator Colossus appears to be what created the inflation and now that people are ready for the creature (and tired of it too), Abundance is seen in fewer decks.
This Alliances card was featured on November 12th of 2021 because of its almost overnight spike in price, mixed with its spike from the year prior. The card’s ability makes it both nice for getting your lands back from the graveyard and for flooding your opponents draws with nothing but lands on it’s own, but again the mighty Cultivator Colossus made this card soar when people rushed to buy them up and some fans decided to buy this card out in order to drive the price. When there’s potential for a reserve list card to grow in price, the public seems to jump at any chance to get as many as they can before the market becomes barren of them. Right around February 14th Bauble started to slowly lose value, indicating that (just as with Abundance) the worth of this card was riding on the coattails of Colossus, which helped to draw people’s eyes to it in the first place. Now it’s dropped down to 60 percent of its worth from last year, sitting at roughly 5 dollars today, partly because people saw this wasn’t going to become the next Black Lotus, but also because of newer sets giving people other options for stacking or playing their lands rather than shelling out the cash for an overpriced reserve list card. Given that these new sets have a ton of artifact love in them, maybe Lodestone Bauble will rise again!
Featured on November 19th, this Innistrad: Crimson Vow card was undervalued by players and took an upswing only in the few days before it was released. This 7 CMC, 7/8 Kraken Horror made waves with its uncounterable flash ability combined with its selectable cast triggers allowing its caster to repeatedly bounce either oppressive cards from the opponent's field or rescue endangered spells from their own. The card started to take on the form of a staple in many formats, but hasn’t stood the test of time well. March 25th, 2022 was the last day the card sat in a steady place on our tickers of close to 10 dollars before it took a two month dive straight from there closer to 2 or 3 dollars. In the last nine months it seems that players who once believed it would always be the go-to for spell removal realized that there are better options for both of those abilities than waiting for the 7 open mana available to cast Hullbreaker Horror, with it losing 34 percent of its original spike value, giving it the same style of fall from a price spike as Abundance saw, not quite hitting rock bottom but falling to a realistic price for the niche it was fulfilling.
Excellent though these cards may be, they just didn't have what it takes to stay in the limelight forever, so we commemorate their achievements here at MTGStocks in being the biggest losers over November 2021. See you all next month!
