Menendian: Kill the Reserved List

by News | posted at 2010-03-01 13:36:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, StarCity, SCG, Steve Menendian, StarCityGames.com, Reserved List

As a lawyer, Steve Menendian is a guy who knows a thing or two about arguing. As a specialist in "old formats" like Legacy and Vintage, he's also an expert on the world of dual lands, Moxes, and first turn kills. On Monday he wrote an opinion for StarCityGames.com arguing fervently for the abolition of the Reserve List.

What's the Reserve List? Early in Magic's history, when Wizards of the Coast released the Chronicles set, prices on Magic singles tanked. Angry dealers and customers threatened to leave the game forever as a result, and Wizards of the Coast created a list of cards they would agree to never reprint. Fast forward a decade and that list has, in Steve's eyes, become a detriment to the game. Here are some of the problems he has with the list:

-It doesn't protect the value of old card's single prices (he even presents data to demonstrate this)

-Card prices are rising far faster in comparison to rises in price for cards like the Power 9

-The price on some cards on just some 4% of the Reserved List is making formats prohibitively expensive to enter

The kicker? Some important voices are taking him seriously. The initial portion of his article is a travelogue of a trip he took to Wizards of the Coast's offices in Renton, Washington to discuss the matters with Wizards of the Coast staff in person (alongside Eric Reasoner of CardHaus and Ben Bleiweiss of StarCityGames.com).

Read the full article on the premium side of StarCityGames.com to get Steve's full analysis.

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