Sands of Time
3, Feb, 25

28-Year-Old Reserved List Card Mysteriously Spikes 285.2%

Last week, the MTG financial markets were abuzz with activity thanks to the pair of newly revealed Commander precons. Offering interesting themes to build around it’s little wonder that players quickly rushed to pick up relevant upgrades. In particular, it seems players were particularly enamored with the Eternal Might deck, rather than Living Energy.

Now that all the commander craziness is behind us, it seems the MTG markets are back to being… weird. To prove this point, several cards and printings have spiked for absolutely no reason. The Commander Masters printing of Bane of Bala Ged, for example, is supposedly up over 600%!

Considering Battle for Zendikar copies of this card are still going for just $0.30, this price spike is simply baffling. The same can somewhat be said for the price spike to Sands of Time. Out of nowhere, the price of this card has jumped 320%!

Sands of Time

Sands of Time

Sands of Time is a very unusual MTG card from way back in Visions. On the surface, it’s a unique Stax-esque effect that completely reinvents the untap phase. Instead of untapping as normal, this card effectively swaps what a player has tapped and untapped at the beginning of their turn. 

Unless you’re willing to risk it all by completely tapping out, this essentially forces you to use only half of your resources each turn. This should obviously slow the pace of a game right down, while probably also painting a target on your back. Thankfully, while Sands of Time is a symmetrical effect, it is very much possible to break this card.

For starters, new cards like Unstoppable Plan from Aetherdrift allow you to essentially avoid Sands of Time’s major downside. Couple this with a Wilderness Reclamation, and you can essentially make Sands of Time completely one-sided. As if this wasn’t enough already, Aetherdrift has also given us Veteran Beastrider for extra redundancy.

Ultimately, while these cards can help unlock Sands of Time’s potential, there are better use cases for it. When played alongside Strionic Resonator, for instance, you can set up a combo to create infinite mana. This is thanks to Sands of Time effectively untapping all your mana dorks when its ability is copied.

Considering that Strionic Resonator also creates combos with Unstoppable Plan, it’s safe to say all these cards work well together. This combined strength appears to be the only reason behind the price spike to Sands of Time. Currently, Sands of Time doesn’t see play in any competitive format, and it’s hardly popular in Commander too.

The Spike

Sands of Time Price Spike

While Sands of Time does have some new toys, this synergy alone likely hasn’t driven the entire price spike. Instead, looking at the sales data from TCGplayer above, it looks like this spike is motivated by eager investors. The huge volume of sales on January 30th largely stripped available supply, causing this price spike.

Since Sands of Time is a Reserved List card, buyouts like these are significantly more effective than usual. All investors have to do is hold onto their haul and prices should climb over time. After all, Wizards of the Coast has promised to never reprint this card, along with all those on the Reserved List.

With this in mind, it’s little wonder that the price for a near mint Sands of Time has already jumped to $10.98. Prior to January 30th, prices were as low as $2.85, so it’s been on quite a sudden journey. Given that there are only five near mint copies left available for purchase there’s a real chance this will climb higher.

Only Time Will Tell

At the end of the day, even if it’s investor-based, this price spike is an interesting one. After all, while there are some interesting synergies, Sands of Time is not a popular MTG card. Even if there is demand for it now, there’s a real chance any interest will fade over time.

Should interest die down as expected, the price of Sands of Time will inevitably follow. Even if there are only 21 copies in total available for purchase, it’ll end up being a buyer’s market. If this happens, prices will inevitably have to drop until buyers are willing to part with their cash.

All that said, Sands of Time is still a card on the Reserve List, so it’s not the worst investment. Even if they could, it’s unlikely that Wizards is going to print a new effect like this anytime soon. With this in mind, holding out until a real sudden spike in demand could be a massive boon for current investors.

Admittedly, it’s not often that Reserved List cards suddenly become popular, but it does happen. Just last week, we saw the price of Unfifilled Desires spike to an insane degree, after all. 

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