No Reservations II, pt. 1a—Limited Edition

Welp, I’m finally doing it. After about two years, I’m finally revisiting my card-by-card analysis of The Reserved List. For those of you who’ve never actually looked through this damnable List, I’d strongly advise you to do so, as you’ll find that more than just the Power Nine and other game-breaking cards (i.e. the original dual lands, Urza-block shenannygoats-level mistakes, basically everything that actually belongs on this List), The List contains sooo many cards that either would be fine to reprint today, or should never have been printed in the first place (but on the opposite end of the power spectrum, like Farmstead or Sorrow’s Path).

All throughout this rehash of the maxiseries, I’ll be linking to prices on Star City Games. This is in no way an endorsement; it’s just a matter of consistency, as that was the first secondary market site I thought to check for pricing the first time I did this, and I figured I should stick with them throughout, as everything else about this series is already at least 100% subjective. I’ll also occasionally be bringing up cards that I believe to be equivalent or near-equivalent, as well as their prices on SCG, in order to reinforce my point that The List is, at least in its current incarnation, bs. There’s no way around this conclusion, and there’s absolutely no pussyfooting on the language used.

I’ll say again: THE RESERVED LIST IS ABOUT 60% BS!

I’ve said before that I do still believe that some cards belong on The List, but those are emphatically in the minority. Don’t believe me? You will, by the end of this. Last time I did this, it took several months to get through, and that was with me doing a column a day during my birth week, something which I’ll never repeat again. Another lesson I learned was that some sets NEED to be broken up into multiple parts, if only for readability, and the sake of my already negligible sanity.

Before we begin, a word on marking–as I go along, I’ll be placing the cards in various categories and counting them off in those categories, marked like so: these belong on The List, these could be reprinted for Standard, these could be reprinted in a supplemental set, like Masters or Commander¹, these should be removed from the timestream, dumped on a pile, and burned, and these should’ve been put on The List, but weren’t for some strange reason. That last one only has only one or two entries near the end.



I’ll also be using the handy-dandy dropboxes to make things look a little better, because, let’s face it, the first time I did this, it looked horrible!

Anyway, let’s get right to it, with Limited Edition:



























I think I’m going to stop right here for now, as it’s getting late, and I wanna end on a simultaneous high & low note. This brings our tally to: 21 cards belonging on The List, 2 cards that should be reprinted for Standard, 1 card that should be reprinted in a supplemental set, 7 cards that should never have been, & 0 cards that should’ve been on The List, but weren’t, for a BSQ of 21/31, or 67.741935%*. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads, it WILL skyrocket, fast, and soon.

Until next week, this is sdfkjgh, wishing I had a consistent signoff.

*CORRECTION! The BSQ should be 10/31, or 32.258065%.