I am newer to Magic and play casual with my friends. Some cards like Mishra's Workshop caught my eye, but that damn card is like $900.
Do any cards in this ballpark range ever have a history of dropping a ton in price? Probably not, but I hope so. Card is awesome.
unless someone develops something that makes Mishra's Workshop obsolete.
The Reserved List protects against that too. Not only can these cards never be reprinted, but Wizards cannot print new cards that makes them obsolete, to prevent their market value from declining for collectors.
For example, Underground Sea can never be made obsolete by the printing of basic land-typed duals that are equivalent or better. The best they can do is print typed duals with a drawback, like Watery Grave and Sunken Hollow.
OP: If you want to play with powerful cards, either stick to a format unaffected by the Reserved List (Modern) or make proxies of $900 cards for your casual playgroup.
The Reserved List protects against that too. Not only can these cards never be reprinted, but Wizards cannot print new cards that makes them obsolete, to prevent their market value from declining for collectors.
Source? I've never heard that before and it's not part of the reprint policy. They won't print functionally identical cards and have doubled down on that, but I have seen anything that prohibits better cards. Not trying to call you out, trying to make sure I have a complete picture of WotC communications on the RL.
Regardless of that particular policy, I can't see them ever printing something that obsoletes Workshop so I wouldn't hold your breath either way.
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unless someone develops something that makes Mishra's Workshop obsolete.
The Reserved List protects against that too. Not only can these cards never be reprinted, but Wizards cannot print new cards that makes them obsolete, to prevent their market value from declining for collectors.
For example, Underground Sea can never be made obsolete by the printing of basic land-typed duals that are equivalent or better. The best they can do is print typed duals with a drawback, like Watery Grave and Sunken Hollow.
OP: If you want to play with powerful cards, either stick to a format unaffected by the Reserved List (Modern) or make proxies of $900 cards for your casual playgroup.
This is not exactly true. If Wizards wasn't allowed to obsolete Mold Demon we'd have some very anemic creature options in Black. They just aren't allowed to print things that are functionally equivalent.
The Reserved List protects against that too. Not only can these cards never be reprinted, but Wizards cannot print new cards that makes them obsolete, to prevent their market value from declining for collectors.
Source? I've never heard that before and it's not part of the reprint policy. They won't print functionally identical cards and have doubled down on that, but I have seen anything that prohibits better cards. Not trying to call you out, trying to make sure I have a complete picture of WotC communications on the RL.
It's not part of the official printed WotC policy for all Reserved List cards (because it would be silly if they couldn't print a better version of jank like Storm Spirit), but it seems to be an unofficial understanding they've had with the community since 1996.
The purpose of the Reserved List has always been to protect the value of old collector staples from huge price drops, to avoid alienating collectors and stores. It's an appeasement policy for loyal long-term customers throughout the history of the game. Players were reassured that they weren't going to make cards like Underground Sea obsolete, only print worse versions like Watery Grave, cards that would not threaten U Sea's value. The same applied to the Power 9 and other powerful old cards (e.g. Temporal Mastery is the closest thing to Time Walk, Day's Undoing the closest to Timetwister).
The official wording of the original policy allowed for some wiggle room if WotC wanted to Rules-Lawyer about it. For example, they were still allowed to reprint cards as limited-release promotional products: Judge foils or From The Vault cycles. While the policy allowed it, it upset the collectors too much, so Wizards amended the policy to close this loophole in 2011.
There are other potential loopholes, like printing strictly better versions of ABUR duals. They are "allowed" to do it. The "official" reason they haven't yet is that the cards would be too powerful for Standard. However, they could still print them in Commander and Conspiracy products for casual and Eternal players. The reality is that they don't want to disrupt the secondary market and piss off collectors. That's always been the underlying motivation behind the Reserved List.
So... don't expect them to print large quantities of a better version that drops Mishra's Workshop down to a casual-friendly $10. If they wanted to, they had sneaky ways to do this before. They don't want to and aren't going to.
Do any cards in this ballpark range ever have a history of dropping a ton in price? Probably not, but I hope so. Card is awesome.
The Reserved List protects against that too. Not only can these cards never be reprinted, but Wizards cannot print new cards that makes them obsolete, to prevent their market value from declining for collectors.
For example, Underground Sea can never be made obsolete by the printing of basic land-typed duals that are equivalent or better. The best they can do is print typed duals with a drawback, like Watery Grave and Sunken Hollow.
The Reserved List means you can never enjoy the broken artifact mana of Mishra's Workshop + Candelabra of Tawnos without giving up a few months of rent. Wizards has tried to print or reprint many (inferior) alternatives to appease the player base: Urza's Tower (with Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant), Cloudpost (with Glimmerpost and Vesuva), Ancient Tomb, Eldrazi Temple, Crystal Vein.
OP: If you want to play with powerful cards, either stick to a format unaffected by the Reserved List (Modern) or make proxies of $900 cards for your casual playgroup.
Regardless of that particular policy, I can't see them ever printing something that obsoletes Workshop so I wouldn't hold your breath either way.
This is not exactly true. If Wizards wasn't allowed to obsolete Mold Demon we'd have some very anemic creature options in Black. They just aren't allowed to print things that are functionally equivalent.
It's not part of the official printed WotC policy for all Reserved List cards (because it would be silly if they couldn't print a better version of jank like Storm Spirit), but it seems to be an unofficial understanding they've had with the community since 1996.
The purpose of the Reserved List has always been to protect the value of old collector staples from huge price drops, to avoid alienating collectors and stores. It's an appeasement policy for loyal long-term customers throughout the history of the game. Players were reassured that they weren't going to make cards like Underground Sea obsolete, only print worse versions like Watery Grave, cards that would not threaten U Sea's value. The same applied to the Power 9 and other powerful old cards (e.g. Temporal Mastery is the closest thing to Time Walk, Day's Undoing the closest to Timetwister).
The official wording of the original policy allowed for some wiggle room if WotC wanted to Rules-Lawyer about it. For example, they were still allowed to reprint cards as limited-release promotional products: Judge foils or From The Vault cycles. While the policy allowed it, it upset the collectors too much, so Wizards amended the policy to close this loophole in 2011.
There are other potential loopholes, like printing strictly better versions of ABUR duals. They are "allowed" to do it. The "official" reason they haven't yet is that the cards would be too powerful for Standard. However, they could still print them in Commander and Conspiracy products for casual and Eternal players. The reality is that they don't want to disrupt the secondary market and piss off collectors. That's always been the underlying motivation behind the Reserved List.
So... don't expect them to print large quantities of a better version that drops Mishra's Workshop down to a casual-friendly $10. If they wanted to, they had sneaky ways to do this before. They don't want to and aren't going to.