I'm not new to Magic, but after the new Masters 25 came out, was kind of disappointed but then someone brought up that a lot of the cards we are missing are on the Reserved List. Then I took a look at the reserved list. Some cards, like the Power Nine and Mox Sapphire etc made sense to me, but other cards like Natural Selection or Weatherseed Treefolk really don't. What's the criteria for the reserved list? A lot of cards on there the power level just isn't as high as modern cards. Also why wasn't Mana Drain or Force of Will on the reserved list? The Reserved List only has cards from Urza's Destiny and before. There are have been numerous cards printed since that time that are WAY more powerful than those old cards. And some of those old cards would honestly be amazing if reprinted. But Wizards apparently cannot modify or change the Reserved List at all. I don't get the point of it existing is it to protect the older collectors? but then why wouldn't you protect newer cards? Are those cards too powerful? but then why have cards like Crovax the Cursed on there which are absolutely crap if released today? I don't get it.
Story Time! Someone correct me if I make any mistakes, I'm mostly going off memory here.
Basically, in 1995, Wizards printed a set called Chronicles, where they reprinted a ton of cards from Arabian Nights through The Dark with no regards to card values. Moreover, since these were also the Fallen Empires/Homelands days, they overprinted the crap out of Chronicles, causing the value of many of the most valuable early cards (that hadn't been printed enough to meet demand) to drop through the floor.
A vocal portion of the player base was not happy and expressed that they lost confidence in WotC. In response, WotC created the first version of the Reserve List as a promise not to tank card values (which made more sense in the mid-90's when they didn't dream people would still need old cards 20+ years later). This original Reserve List contained all cards - regardless of rarity - that hadn't yet been reprinted (if memory serves). Going forward from the creation of the RL, a portion of all new cards printed were added from each set (based on what Wizards thought would be valuable, I guess).
By the time Masques Block hit, they (wisely) decided to stop adding new cards to the list, as it simply wasn't sustainable as part of the game. Later (not sure of the exact year right off hand), Wizards removed all cards originally printed at Common or Uncommon from the list, hence why Mana Drain and Force of Will are no longer on the RL (as both were originally uncommon, believe it or not).
It doesn't really matter why the list was made at this point, all that matters is NO card on it is getting reprinted, ever. I'd stake my life on that claim.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Contrary to what some people think, the reprint policy was not about card power. So, yeah, mana drain is not on the reserve list.
Emp Norton gave a good summary as to why it was created -- Chronicles dumped a lot of cards into the market, causing card values to crash. For example, IIRC, Nicol Bolas clocked at $40 before chronicles. It dropped to something like $8. This made a lot of people unhappy.
This original Reserve List contained all cards - regardless of rarity - that hadn't yet been reprinted (if memory serves)
Almost, but not quite.
Quote from MTG Reprint Policy, 1996 »
The current list of Reserved Cards includes: (1) all cards from Alpha/Beta
Editions that do not appear in Fourth Edition or Ice Age(TM); (2) all
uncommon and rare cards from Arabian Nights and Antiquities that have not
yet been reprinted in white border (i.e., that do not appear in Revised(TM)
[Third Edition], Fourth Edition, or Chronicles); and (3) all rare cards
from Legends and The Dark that have not yet been reprinted in white border.
Quote from 2002 change to Reprint policy »
Rares from the Tempest, Stronghold, Exodus, Urza’s Saga, Urza’s Legacy, and Urza’s Destiny sets were added to the reserved list in accordance with our previous promises. Note that not every rare from those sets which hasn’t been reprinted was added to the list. In other words, Wizards is reserving the right to reprint certain rares from these sets.
Several out-of-date examples were deleted, and several sections were rewritten for clarity.
The border-color policy section was removed because it was obsolete.
Commons and uncommons from Limited Edition (Alpha and Beta) were removed from the reserved list due to overwhelming public support for this change.
The exceptions to this policy for non-English cards were removed. There are no longer different rules for English and non-English cards.
The rules for figuring out what goes on the reserved list were removed. Wizards is not going to add any cards from Mercadian Masques forward to the list.
Rares from Ice Age were added to the reserved list. This should have happened years ago, but was overlooked. That oversight has now been corrected.
Wizards removed all cards originally printed at Common or Uncommon from the list, hence why Mana Drain and Force of Will are no longer on the RL (as both were originally uncommon, believe it or not).
Neither Mana Drain nor FoW were ever part of the reserve list (1996 or 2002 versions).
Thanks, so basically the Reserve list exists because of a mistake they made over 20 years ago. But technically they could do away with the Reserved List and reprint most of the cards on the Reserved List without having much effect on the price, I think. I'm not talking about the Power Nine or those cards, but cards like Masticore or Morphling or Weatherseed Treefolk are cool cards that are overshadowed by today's power creeped tournament cards but would still be popular in casual play today and unfortunately, the supply of those cards are rather low given that they will currently never be reprinted. I do think Wizards should consider this and modify their list :/
It doesn't really matter why the list was made at this point, all that matters is NO card on it is getting reprinted, ever. I'd stake my life on that claim.
Maybe not reprinted by WOTC, but those reserve list cards are being reprinted as we speak in China and by counterfeiters and proxy players around the world.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
It doesn't really matter why the list was made at this point, all that matters is NO card on it is getting reprinted, ever. I'd stake my life on that claim.
Maybe not reprinted by WOTC, but those reserve list cards are being reprinted as we speak in China and by counterfeiters and proxy players around the world.
Is that particularly relevant?
I mean Vintage actually allows proxy cards, I assume completely because without it, it would be unplayable on any wider sense?
Thanks, so basically the Reserve list exists because of a mistake they made over 20 years ago. But technically they could do away with the Reserved List and reprint most of the cards on the Reserved List without having much effect on the price, I think. I'm not talking about the Power Nine or those cards, but cards like Masticore or Morphling or Weatherseed Treefolk are cool cards that are overshadowed by today's power creeped tournament cards but would still be popular in casual play today and unfortunately, the supply of those cards are rather low given that they will currently never be reprinted. I do think Wizards should consider this and modify their list :/
Exactly. There have been people begging Wizards to do away with the Reserved List almost since day 1 (hence why they stopped adding cards after Urza's block and eventually removed the commons and uncommons), but it's been over 15 years since the RL was last relaxed. Any time that Wizards has tried to toe around it since then (FTV/Duel Deck reprints, Reverberate, etc), there's always been someone complaining that Wizards is breaking their promise.
The only reasons to keep it around at this point are to appease speculators and fear of backlash. Being able to reprint Legacy staples, fun casual cards, and anything they want added to the Standard/Modern cardpool is almost certainly in the game's best interest (and few would disagree), but I can only assume that Wizards doesn't care enough to risk having to fight a frivolous lawsuit from some angry speculators.
Story Time! Someone correct me if I make any mistakes, I'm mostly going off memory here.
Basically, in 1995, Wizards printed a set called Chronicles, where they reprinted a ton of cards from Arabian Nights through The Dark with no regards to card values. Moreover, since these were also the Fallen Empires/Homelands days, they overprinted the crap out of Chronicles, causing the value of many of the most valuable early cards (that hadn't been printed enough to meet demand) to drop through the floor.
A vocal portion of the player base was not happy and expressed that they lost confidence in WotC. In response, WotC created the first version of the Reserve List as a promise not to tank card values (which made more sense in the mid-90's when they didn't dream people would still need old cards 20+ years later). This original Reserve List contained all cards - regardless of rarity - that hadn't yet been reprinted (if memory serves). Going forward from the creation of the RL, a portion of all new cards printed were added from each set (based on what Wizards thought would be valuable, I guess).
By the time Masques Block hit, they (wisely) decided to stop adding new cards to the list, as it simply wasn't sustainable as part of the game. Later (not sure of the exact year right off hand), Wizards removed all cards originally printed at Common or Uncommon from the list, hence why Mana Drain and Force of Will are no longer on the RL (as both were originally uncommon, believe it or not).
To add to this, they made a game out of which cards they would add to the RL at rare. Something like 20% of each set would be added, so Wizards adopted the practice of adding cards that they thought they wouldn't use again. In effect, cards that they knew would be collectors items post RL were spared the RL treatment so that they could be reprinted in the future. As a result, low power undesirable cards often wound up on the RL while cool ones didn't. This was a big factor in the discontinuation of adding new cards.
Contrary to what some people think, the reprint policy was not about card power. So, yeah, mana drain is not on the reserve list.
Yep, Thunder Spirit isn't really that strong in constructed. It'd fill an important niche in limited, but they can't do that. They can make a version for 1RW, 1WU, 1UR, 1R(W/U), 1U(R/W), and presumably 1CC (which would require two colorless mana, the mana must be colorless, and one additional mana), but not 1WW, even though white can do both flying and first strike. They could also make a version where the mana has to be produced by basic lands or something like that, which would still be playable in limited (since, outside of blocks like Zendikar, you're typically only drawing one or two nonbasics, three at most).
Note that colorshifts and strictly worses and even "mostly betters" (I'm not sure about strictly.) are allowed. So, a (presumably red) Cadaverous Bloom or Squandered Resources is doable. That's why Deadbridge Goliath (colorshifted and better) and Phyrexian Scuta (mostly better) can exist, despite Juzam Djinn being on the Reserved List.
By the way, while we're talking about it, the Reserved List also covers functional reprints (i.e., cards whose name and creature types may be different but are otherwise essentially the same card).
And I must add, it only covers physical cards. Online, the rules don't apply.
Also, while talking about the Reserved List, even recently, violating the Reserved List (Karn, Silver Golem in From the Vault: Relics and Phyrexian Negator in Duel Decks: Phyrexia v. the Coalition.) has caused a huge outcry among collectors.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Thanks, so basically the Reserve list exists because of a mistake they made over 20 years ago. But technically they could do away with the Reserved List and reprint most of the cards on the Reserved List without having much effect on the price, I think.
There's a "official reserve list" thread that talks about various aspects of the reserve list.
It doesn't really matter why the list was made at this point, all that matters is NO card on it is getting reprinted, ever. I'd stake my life on that claim.
Before WotC/MtG completely fails, they will reprint everything in order get one last gasp of money out of the IP before it goes under completely. I would also not be surprised is WotC is really up for sale by Hasbo, that whomever purchases WotC will possibly do away with the Reserve List. The reserve list is a promise between WotC and it's players. However, if WotC is sold, whomever purchases it has the option to change those promises as they see fit.
@Barfolomew: The reserved list was implemented March 4th, 1996. Hasbro purchased WOTC Sept. 30th, 1999. When companies are sold there are often restrictions in the sales contract that the new owner must adhere to or get sued. When Hasbro bought WOTC, they also bought into the idea of the reserved list. Since WOTC holds the List as near sacred, I'd assume that when/if WOTC is ever sold again that the reserved list will be part of the deal.
They amended the List twice, in 2002 and 2010. Both times WOTC was met with blowback(especially in 2010) which has only served in having WOTC double down on the list, or removal thereof. This just reaffirms my suspicion that it'd remain intact after a sale. I would love to see it go, but guessing it won't.
And as many have speculated, removal of the list could be a sign of Mtg's death.
And as many have speculated, removal of the list could be a sign of Mtg's death.
It could also provide a path for its resurgence.
Point being, cards on the reserve list are eventually going to become unplayable due to their cost OR counterfeits are going to get so good that they are basically not distinguishable from real cards by the majority of players and judges. This means Legacy is going to go away as a competitive format because people aren't going be able to play when a competitive deck costs $5K+ and/or their are so many good counterfeits that it is pointless to police them. As of now, for the rest of 2018, there are 4 grand prix events for Legacy (Japan,US East, UK, US West). There are 13 modern events. Starcity has 16 legacy and 36 modern events. I would expect these numbers to decrease for Legacy unless the reserve list is relaxed, which ultimately comes down to Force of Will (not on list) and the dual lands, so 11 cards need reprints.
We'll see what happens with modern, but in general, WotC has been doing a TERRIBLE job in supporting their constructed formats from a cost bases.
Should WotC ever pull its head out of its butt on the digital side of their business, the reserve list becomes all but a mute point as people would probably play mostly in those digital platforms, further pushing down paper play because of excessive cost.
From someone "who was there" when the game was released it was marked as a collectible trading card game.
It was sports-cards for nerds.
We accepted that the core set of cards would be reprinted because you need to maintain and evolve the core over time to maintain the game and maintaining the game is important to maintain long-term interest. What was not acceptable was reprinting valuable and/or rare cards after they had already stopped printing them nor was their mass-producing of crap acceptable. They printed Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Revised, Legends, The Dark, & Fallen Empire in one year and the cards went from collectible and awesome to trash as still shown by the "value" of Fallen Empire today. It was a doubly-whammy of both trash cards for game-play and over-printed in excess of demand. A complete set of Fallen Empire, 187 cards, today is $97. There are still many unopened boxes of boosters of FE laying around today. FE was a catastrophe and when I stopped playing as a kid. They followed that up with 4th edition, which saw reprints, then Ice Age which wasn't as bad as FE but still trash. (383 card set selling for $365 today contrast with The Dark a 181 card set selling for $705.)
After two strikes in a row they reprinted valuable cards in Chronicles and that's when the ***** hit the fan. Expansions were trash and they dropped the collectible value of the game to sell a set. The only thing of any value now were the cards that hadn't been reprinted yet and it seemed like the magic had run out. Homelands landed and it was gutter.
At this point players were uninterested because the expansions sucked.
Collectors were uninterested because WotC couldn't be trusted not to reprint their collection.
And LGS were about to blackball WotC because they didn't make money on the trash expansions like they did on first ones and they can't house cards to churn and sell if their value can be wiped out three months later while they sell reprints out of boosters instead of the cards they have under glass. If a store put a lot of their money into MTG this could put them out of business and at this stage of the game MTG was it. TSR put out Spellfire and their art was ass as TSR's art always was (they put out several sets of collectible card sets and they were all terrible). Vampire the Masquerade put out a set of decent looking cards but the game-play of MTG was better. (Pokemon doesn't release for several years yet.) The artwork for MTG was also tanking. It was starting to look more and more like TSR trash.
Orders for Alliance were lack-luster and threatened to put WotC out of business for all the same reasons; they spent their money printing a crap-load of crap cards that no one wanted anymore. Even if MTG ended they still needed to recoup their money to pivot to something else so it was now do-or-die for WotC and they knew they had another ***** expansion coming so they promised in writing to not reprint the reserved list so that LGS would stock shelves and collectors would buy boxes.
Every time they mess with the Reserved list they risk a class-action lawsuit. If they reprint a valuable card then the plaintiffs will have standing for a contract breach resulting in a tangible loss of value. Say they reprint Black Lotus to $1; they would get sued for at least $200M if-not closer to $2B. If they reprint a card that's only worth $4 then the lawsuit isn't worth the trouble.
PS Dual-lands never should have went on the Reserve list; they were part of the core.
There have been recent rumors that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has run out of reprint equity with cards outside of the Reserve List to reprint after Commander Masters and If the company is still dead set on long term losses for short term gains like they have in the last few years since Cynthia Williams took over as CEO of Wizards of the Coast then reprinting the Reserve List wouldn't be out of the question. That also depends on the value of their stock shares on Wall Street because If it goes below $50 a share depending on whether they run out of popular IP's to print for their Universes Beyond crossovers in Magic: The Gathering then that would spell MAJOR trouble for the game itself.
Like it or not, Universes Beyond is Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's new golden goose for Magic: The Gathering so that they won't need to tap into the Reserve List to turn a profit and still keep their promise of not reprinting the Reserve List. However they only seemed to have struck gold ONCE with The One Ring ($45 non-foil) in LOTR and they haven't really replicated that success in Secondary Market value with the new Doctor Who cards outside of Everybody Lives! which currently goes for $20 non-foil. The reason why this is the case is because most of these IP crossover cards are just reprints of older cards but with different art and flavor text or they're underpowered mechanically unique cards to offset what happened with The Walking Dead.
For those who don't know back when we had The Walking Dead crossover in Magic: The Gathering, Rick, Steadfast Leader (now reprinted as Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart) was a super busted card in Tribal Humans for Legacy as Greg Orange went undefeated with it. Because the supply of The Walking Dead cards were severely low it made it hard for players to actually obtain the card let alone trying to get a playset of them to run in that deck at the time. Unfortunately the actual reprint of the card was released as another promo and not in a Standard / Modern legal set at Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic for easier access which bumped his price to $41 a pop but If he was more accessible the price would've been lower.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Also, while talking about the Reserved List, even recently, violating the Reserved List (Karn, Silver Golem in From the Vault: Relics and Phyrexian Negator in Duel Decks: Phyrexia v. the Coalition.) has caused a huge outcry among collectors.
To be fair the Reserved List allowed premium versions of RL cards, collectors simply didn't like the loophole, but there was no violation here.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Basically, in 1995, Wizards printed a set called Chronicles, where they reprinted a ton of cards from Arabian Nights through The Dark with no regards to card values. Moreover, since these were also the Fallen Empires/Homelands days, they overprinted the crap out of Chronicles, causing the value of many of the most valuable early cards (that hadn't been printed enough to meet demand) to drop through the floor.
A vocal portion of the player base was not happy and expressed that they lost confidence in WotC. In response, WotC created the first version of the Reserve List as a promise not to tank card values (which made more sense in the mid-90's when they didn't dream people would still need old cards 20+ years later). This original Reserve List contained all cards - regardless of rarity - that hadn't yet been reprinted (if memory serves). Going forward from the creation of the RL, a portion of all new cards printed were added from each set (based on what Wizards thought would be valuable, I guess).
By the time Masques Block hit, they (wisely) decided to stop adding new cards to the list, as it simply wasn't sustainable as part of the game. Later (not sure of the exact year right off hand), Wizards removed all cards originally printed at Common or Uncommon from the list, hence why Mana Drain and Force of Will are no longer on the RL (as both were originally uncommon, believe it or not).
Currently Playing:
Retired
Emp Norton gave a good summary as to why it was created -- Chronicles dumped a lot of cards into the market, causing card values to crash. For example, IIRC, Nicol Bolas clocked at $40 before chronicles. It dropped to something like $8. This made a lot of people unhappy.
Some minor corrections to EmpNorton's post:
Almost, but not quite.
Neither Mana Drain nor FoW were ever part of the reserve list (1996 or 2002 versions).
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Maybe not reprinted by WOTC, but those reserve list cards are being reprinted as we speak in China and by counterfeiters and proxy players around the world.
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Is that particularly relevant?
I mean Vintage actually allows proxy cards, I assume completely because without it, it would be unplayable on any wider sense?
Spirits
The only reasons to keep it around at this point are to appease speculators and fear of backlash. Being able to reprint Legacy staples, fun casual cards, and anything they want added to the Standard/Modern cardpool is almost certainly in the game's best interest (and few would disagree), but I can only assume that Wizards doesn't care enough to risk having to fight a frivolous lawsuit from some angry speculators.
To add to this, they made a game out of which cards they would add to the RL at rare. Something like 20% of each set would be added, so Wizards adopted the practice of adding cards that they thought they wouldn't use again. In effect, cards that they knew would be collectors items post RL were spared the RL treatment so that they could be reprinted in the future. As a result, low power undesirable cards often wound up on the RL while cool ones didn't. This was a big factor in the discontinuation of adding new cards.
Yep, Thunder Spirit isn't really that strong in constructed. It'd fill an important niche in limited, but they can't do that. They can make a version for 1RW, 1WU, 1UR, 1R(W/U), 1U(R/W), and presumably 1CC (which would require two colorless mana, the mana must be colorless, and one additional mana), but not 1WW, even though white can do both flying and first strike. They could also make a version where the mana has to be produced by basic lands or something like that, which would still be playable in limited (since, outside of blocks like Zendikar, you're typically only drawing one or two nonbasics, three at most).
Note that colorshifts and strictly worses and even "mostly betters" (I'm not sure about strictly.) are allowed. So, a (presumably red) Cadaverous Bloom or Squandered Resources is doable. That's why Deadbridge Goliath (colorshifted and better) and Phyrexian Scuta (mostly better) can exist, despite Juzam Djinn being on the Reserved List.
By the way, while we're talking about it, the Reserved List also covers functional reprints (i.e., cards whose name and creature types may be different but are otherwise essentially the same card).
And I must add, it only covers physical cards. Online, the rules don't apply.
Also, while talking about the Reserved List, even recently, violating the Reserved List (Karn, Silver Golem in From the Vault: Relics and Phyrexian Negator in Duel Decks: Phyrexia v. the Coalition.) has caused a huge outcry among collectors.
On phasing:
There's a "official reserve list" thread that talks about various aspects of the reserve list.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/334928-reserved-list-discussion
I suggest looking through it so that the same arguments won't just be recycled.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Before WotC/MtG completely fails, they will reprint everything in order get one last gasp of money out of the IP before it goes under completely. I would also not be surprised is WotC is really up for sale by Hasbo, that whomever purchases WotC will possibly do away with the Reserve List. The reserve list is a promise between WotC and it's players. However, if WotC is sold, whomever purchases it has the option to change those promises as they see fit.
They amended the List twice, in 2002 and 2010. Both times WOTC was met with blowback(especially in 2010) which has only served in having WOTC double down on the list, or removal thereof. This just reaffirms my suspicion that it'd remain intact after a sale. I would love to see it go, but guessing it won't.
And as many have speculated, removal of the list could be a sign of Mtg's death.
It could also provide a path for its resurgence.
Point being, cards on the reserve list are eventually going to become unplayable due to their cost OR counterfeits are going to get so good that they are basically not distinguishable from real cards by the majority of players and judges. This means Legacy is going to go away as a competitive format because people aren't going be able to play when a competitive deck costs $5K+ and/or their are so many good counterfeits that it is pointless to police them. As of now, for the rest of 2018, there are 4 grand prix events for Legacy (Japan,US East, UK, US West). There are 13 modern events. Starcity has 16 legacy and 36 modern events. I would expect these numbers to decrease for Legacy unless the reserve list is relaxed, which ultimately comes down to Force of Will (not on list) and the dual lands, so 11 cards need reprints.
We'll see what happens with modern, but in general, WotC has been doing a TERRIBLE job in supporting their constructed formats from a cost bases.
Should WotC ever pull its head out of its butt on the digital side of their business, the reserve list becomes all but a mute point as people would probably play mostly in those digital platforms, further pushing down paper play because of excessive cost.
It was sports-cards for nerds.
We accepted that the core set of cards would be reprinted because you need to maintain and evolve the core over time to maintain the game and maintaining the game is important to maintain long-term interest. What was not acceptable was reprinting valuable and/or rare cards after they had already stopped printing them nor was their mass-producing of crap acceptable. They printed Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Revised, Legends, The Dark, & Fallen Empire in one year and the cards went from collectible and awesome to trash as still shown by the "value" of Fallen Empire today. It was a doubly-whammy of both trash cards for game-play and over-printed in excess of demand. A complete set of Fallen Empire, 187 cards, today is $97. There are still many unopened boxes of boosters of FE laying around today. FE was a catastrophe and when I stopped playing as a kid. They followed that up with 4th edition, which saw reprints, then Ice Age which wasn't as bad as FE but still trash. (383 card set selling for $365 today contrast with The Dark a 181 card set selling for $705.)
After two strikes in a row they reprinted valuable cards in Chronicles and that's when the ***** hit the fan. Expansions were trash and they dropped the collectible value of the game to sell a set. The only thing of any value now were the cards that hadn't been reprinted yet and it seemed like the magic had run out. Homelands landed and it was gutter.
At this point players were uninterested because the expansions sucked.
Collectors were uninterested because WotC couldn't be trusted not to reprint their collection.
And LGS were about to blackball WotC because they didn't make money on the trash expansions like they did on first ones and they can't house cards to churn and sell if their value can be wiped out three months later while they sell reprints out of boosters instead of the cards they have under glass. If a store put a lot of their money into MTG this could put them out of business and at this stage of the game MTG was it. TSR put out Spellfire and their art was ass as TSR's art always was (they put out several sets of collectible card sets and they were all terrible). Vampire the Masquerade put out a set of decent looking cards but the game-play of MTG was better. (Pokemon doesn't release for several years yet.) The artwork for MTG was also tanking. It was starting to look more and more like TSR trash.
Orders for Alliance were lack-luster and threatened to put WotC out of business for all the same reasons; they spent their money printing a crap-load of crap cards that no one wanted anymore. Even if MTG ended they still needed to recoup their money to pivot to something else so it was now do-or-die for WotC and they knew they had another ***** expansion coming so they promised in writing to not reprint the reserved list so that LGS would stock shelves and collectors would buy boxes.
Every time they mess with the Reserved list they risk a class-action lawsuit. If they reprint a valuable card then the plaintiffs will have standing for a contract breach resulting in a tangible loss of value. Say they reprint Black Lotus to $1; they would get sued for at least $200M if-not closer to $2B. If they reprint a card that's only worth $4 then the lawsuit isn't worth the trouble.
PS Dual-lands never should have went on the Reserve list; they were part of the core.
Like it or not, Universes Beyond is Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's new golden goose for Magic: The Gathering so that they won't need to tap into the Reserve List to turn a profit and still keep their promise of not reprinting the Reserve List. However they only seemed to have struck gold ONCE with The One Ring ($45 non-foil) in LOTR and they haven't really replicated that success in Secondary Market value with the new Doctor Who cards outside of Everybody Lives! which currently goes for $20 non-foil. The reason why this is the case is because most of these IP crossover cards are just reprints of older cards but with different art and flavor text or they're underpowered mechanically unique cards to offset what happened with The Walking Dead.
For those who don't know back when we had The Walking Dead crossover in Magic: The Gathering, Rick, Steadfast Leader (now reprinted as Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart) was a super busted card in Tribal Humans for Legacy as Greg Orange went undefeated with it. Because the supply of The Walking Dead cards were severely low it made it hard for players to actually obtain the card let alone trying to get a playset of them to run in that deck at the time. Unfortunately the actual reprint of the card was released as another promo and not in a Standard / Modern legal set at Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic for easier access which bumped his price to $41 a pop but If he was more accessible the price would've been lower.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
To be fair the Reserved List allowed premium versions of RL cards, collectors simply didn't like the loophole, but there was no violation here.