This is another example of why hanging onto modern border cards is generally a losing proposition value-wise if you’re looking to be more of a day trader versus a longer-term holder. We also saw this happen recently with Questing Druid and Quirion Dryad. Fortunately, Quirion Dryad has an old border printing from Planeshift. And it’s a card that sees some occasional play in some older formats like Premodern.
As more time passes, these original old border cards become increasingly more appealing, especially as Magic continues to grow via Universes Beyond efforts like the Lord of the Rings and the upcoming Marvel crossover.
I already mentioned Mox Diamond in my previous article. But another card I like for the longer term is Undiscovered Paradise, since it’s also on the Reserved List. Along with other Reserved List cards, its price has been on the decline recently. So I think this is a decent card to pick up if you’re looking for some longer-term picks.
There are a couple of other cards I like as potential pickups in this list. The first one is Circle of Protection: Red, particularly the Beta Edition and foil 7th Edition copies, since it’s also played in decks like Boros in Pauper.
The other card I’ve been keeping an eye on is Engineered Plague. It has two foil printings and both of them are kind of pricey already. But Urza's Legacy can trigger nostalgia for people since it’s the set that introduced foils in booster packs. And 7th Edition foils are relatively scarce.
There are also a few cards other than Undiscovered Paradise that could be promising. I like Ice Age copies of Karplusan Forest, since it also sees play in Gruul decks in Pioneer.
Another card to keep an eye is River Boa, particularly the Arena promo version. It’s already spiked over recent years but has come down a bit in price recently. This is another card that also sees play in Pauper.
The last card from the main deck to keep an eye on are foil copies of Thornscape Battlemage. I’d be a little more careful with this one though, since it has another old border foil printing via Timeshifted.
In the sideboard, I like Reverent Silence, which is a card we also sometimes see in Reanimator in Legacy and Elves in Pauper.
Similar to Karplusan Forest, I like the idea of picking up Ice Age copies of Underground River.
Meanwhile, Hapless Researcher has seen some spikes in past years. It’s also an old border common with only one printing, which means it has potential to really spike some day if it ever gets reprinted like Opt. Hapless Researcher is also a Wizard, which seems like a pretty popular creature type (a search on Gatherer for Wizards comes back with 1027 results). Meanwhile, a search for Elf comes back with a little more than only half of that at 589 results. And Dinosaur comes back with even less, at 144 results.
And we also see Engineered Plague again in the sideboard, continuing to explain why the price of both Urza’s Legacy and 7th Edition foil versions have held their prices for at least the last couple of years.
The other card in the main deck that I think is a decent pickup is Volrath's Shapeshifter, which is yet another card on the Reserved List that sees occasional play and is relatively inexpensive, similar to Meditate, Paradigm Shift, and Thought Lash.
Lastly, I’d like to mention Mesmeric Fiend to bring up its new cousin, Skullcap Snail, which seems like a card that’ll at least see some play in Pauper.
I hope you enjoyed this article that examined both older and newer cards.
Eddie started playing Magic in 1994 and has been playing competitively since 1997. Soon after he started playing, he used Magic as a way to make money when he was in elementary and high school.
