Where Are They Now: December
Hello again all, it’s Ryan over here at MTGStocks coming to you with another edition of Where Are They Now, the article that tells you if last year's top picks by our man Arjen conquered the test of time and stayed in their top seat. When they inevitably don’t, they end up here in my world, with cards that sit in the cheap seats waiting for their next shot at the limelight. New cards are printed all the time with new dynamics and gameplay features, so you never know when one of these guys will spike. For now we salute them here, bring your attention to the Island of Misfit Cards, and let you see some things that might now be cheap pickups for your ever-growing collection if you’re a player, or your portfolio if you’re an investor.
This month's selection was hard to quantify due to so many cards having roughly the same percentage of loss in their price history over this last year, and I want to show you all the three biggest losers before somehow everything evens out in price and I’m left writing to you about twelve cards at once!
#1 Grim Hireling
This card definitely had a seat in commander decks due to its two abilities working so well together. Making you treasure tokens and then rewarding you for getting rid of them? It’s like the Magic gods are sitting at the table saying “Hey, clean up this overcrowded board and we’ll give you a treat.” while they continue to overcrowd the board. Playing with this card was and still is fun, but it has had several reprints since it was first released and that is the cause of its downfall here, going from $12 USD down to only $2.70. I can see nothing saying that people don’t enjoy playing this card, as in no real hate on Reddit, no bans, and no general discussions on cards to hate, but I do see an overflooded market. This one is plain and simple, they have too many on their hands, so we get them cheaper and with a smile on our faces. It doesn’t help either that only four percent of decks play the card; there are better ways to get treasure for cheaper and other things you can do with sacked tokens. That being said, I like this one, I need to pick one up myself and put it in my
#2 Hunted Horror
Oh boy this guy got it bad. Last year this card was sitting at $20 USD and in just this past year has dropped down to only $4.20. That’s roughly an 87% drop in price in just 365 days. Looking at this one, I see a little bit of why. It isn’t necessarily my style to give my opponents anything while playing. I’m not a group hug player and even though this is a 2-drop 7/7, I still think I’d shy away from it. But this isn’t about my preferences, it’s about what happened to make it drop in the public eye, though that seems to fit with my reasoning as well. And on top of these playability factors, having a reprint during the year doesn't make it easy to hold the price tag. But mostly it got dropped by players for better options. Sorry
#3 Gravestorm
This one makes me both happy and sad. To see this card drop kills me because I can remember pulling one from a pack when I was 13. At the time none of my friends saw any potential in it so it didn’t stay in my collection long, but I remember having it, loving the art, and wishing it was a better card. 30 years later and I’m suddenly mad at my high school best friend for taking it off my hands. Last year it sat at a nice $23 USD, making it a hefty pickup for the budget player, but this year it has fallen all the way down to just $6, making it the penny pincher's next buy. It isn’t on the reserve list so it isn’t an impossible buy, but according to EDHREC this card is seen in a whopping 0 percent of decks. Its need for another card to make its ability work every time is what put this beast down, and what’s keeping it above five is its limited printings and its old style border. This is 100% another card I’ll be grabbing today, maybe I’ll even add it to my next A Penny Saved article. Who knows.
Alright kids, this was another Where Are They Now and I will have plenty more for you in the future. Make sure to head over and read Arjen's Weekly Winners articles for some insight into your deck builds, and the articles by Harvey are a great read as well. So don’t just stop by to hear this old man ramble, kick it on over to their brighter side of the site and read till your eyes bleed. (Not really, if that happens seek medical attention immediately and for god sakes get some tissues.) Until next time remember, no one likes a sore loser, be a gracious winner, and always, ALWAYS, be very careful looking through old collections. You DON’T want to be the guy who accidentally folds a Black Lotus. Trust me.
Ryan Cole lives in Canton, Ohio with his new wife Julia. He began playing magic in 1995 with cards he bought with money he found odd jobs for, just to play the game. At 35 he is happy at home and living as full a life as is possible. He is starting a career in freelance writing and works as a cook while he pursues that dream.
