Okay... I was thinking of doing a full coverage in speculating what cards that would come out but in the end, it is too time-consuming. I had to wade through hundreds of cards just to pick and list, which after that comment on every single one? C'mon! I'm not doing that! It's too boring and it's gonna eat up a lot of my time..
In short, I don't have the time to churn out articles that took would take too long.. So, I decided to take a different route from others. Many articles and forum posts out there are going around in several cards on the potential reprints that we would see and yes, I'm going to do just that. But, I'm going to pick those that are relatively less discussed and/or those that are ignored due to recent reprints or well, just because people think they are not viable to be reprinted..
First up, Spellskite made into my list of rares that would likely see reprints. I personally think this would be a viable candidate to see reprint in Modern Masters 2015. It's functionality as a card to hose decks is really incomparable. It can take down decks like Burn, Auras, Twin, Bloom Titan, Infect and the list just continues to climb... It is one of the best sideboard card in Modern. Splashable and cheap in its casting cost and activation ability, it's definitely a darn good pick for future modern usage.
In the past 3 years, it has seen 2 spikes and it actually only continued to climb ever since it was released. I did mention in the one of my earlier articles that Spellskite would easily hit $22-$25 range and I wanted to hold them out until they hit $25 range. I sold them last year at about $22, making a small profit of about $5 each. Should I have kept them? Hmm.. well maybe... But, if it is going to see reprint, it would be a good decision to sell them then right?
In the past 3 years, it has seen 2 spikes and it actually only continued to climb ever since it was released. I did mention in the one of my earlier articles that Spellskite would easily hit $22-$25 range and I wanted to hold them out until they hit $25 range. I sold them last year at about $22, making a small profit of about $5 each. Should I have kept them? Hmm.. well maybe... But, if it is going to see reprint, it would be a good decision to sell them then right?
Aven Mindcensor picked up a lot of grounds over the past few years as we see fetches and other tutor effects come into Modern Format. It for one, shuts down strategies on a evasive beatstick and on top of that, it can be casted on instant speed. It is one of my favourite sideboard cards, which effectively can shut down or at least give these decks problems; Bloom Titan, Tron, Scapeshift, or probably just decks which fetches a lot and are 1-2 lands behind you. Right, even if the opponent kills it the next turn, it still has done its job in slowing down or shutting down the tutor ability, making the deck less consistent at least by a turn. It's enough to cause games to tilt favours in the right moments!
While we couldn't see the clearly on the graph, it was around $0.50 when I first started playing Magic in the rotating Alara block (~2011 era). It spiked to $2, $4, and then to $8 when RTR was released. It later climbed to what we see in the graph above, at around $10-$11.
Gauging it as a uncommon, it's too expensive and really, it's really expensive for an uncommon. Yes sure, Force of Will, Wastelands and some other overpowered commons/uncommon piles beat the $50/$100 marks, and well yes, this is $10 for the same reason; scarcity. Imagine if there was a reprint for those cards. Would the prices still stay that high? Maybe actually... So I'm just shooting myself here...
The point is that it is because these cards run mainboard, in Legacy, in multiple decks. The demand hence would be high enough to make the prices to be that high. Similarly, the demand for aven mindcensor did go up, but not to that level of breaking the $100 or even $50 mark is only because of the relative scarcity and the supply/demand for the card. Nevertheless, what I'm trying to say here is that if this really gets reprinted, just don't expect it to go back up to $8 for no reason!
Finally, this one is a little more controversial. I have done discussions with other players about the possible uncommon reprints in Modern Masters 2015, and many listed Lightning Bolt, Gitaxian Probes, Forked Bolt, Aven Mindcensor (much lesser, but still relevant), shattering spree, etc.. But, almost no one actually mentioned this card. It's not like they have forgotten this card. No. They were very very convinced that this card will not see reprint in MM2015.
I for one, reject the idea that this would not see reprint. A very good example would be Path to Exile; that card saw several reprints within a rather short period of time. Yes, they came in mostly supplement products like Duel decks, archenemy, commanders, etc. But, it still saw a reprint in the first Modern Masters! The reason given to me was exactly that; Remand was reprinted in a Duel Deck not too long ago and it doesn't make sense to see reprint so soon. Heck! We get Negates and Duress every year... Your point?
Okay, seriously, this card fits the bill to be reprinted because it's really one of the best counterspells we have in Modern (Cryptic Command is definitive, but we can argue on that another day...) and the thing is that this card barely saw much reprint other than the recent duel decks. Also, do note that MM2015 may be a larger print, but it is still significantly a much smaller print run than the main expansions. If we can put it in another way, it's another supplement product, but of a premium price. So, if we are going to be worried in crashing the price market overnight, it's not going to happen.
All I can think of is the reason why this is not to be reprinted is that people just don't believe that a reprint can occur that fast and that soon. But, realistically speaking, there is no stopping wizards from doing it. If that reprint makes the product much more appealing, why not?
