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For the last 4 months, the spread on this oddball land has been getting ever more narrow. It almost broke through the average retail price in January, and in the last few weeks it's actually exceeded it. The average buy price has been steadily climbing, and aside from a 50 cent bump since February, the retail price hasn't moved a whole lot. I will be the first to admit I don't know much about Legacy beyond the fact that this card is allegedly good with Oath of Druids, but I know free money when I see it. The fact that Oath isn't legal in Legacy, however, makes me very confused as to why on earth this card has value. My only guess is that Commander players find it to be a useful political tool.
Usually, with these Stock Watch posts, I try to identify big movers that have market implications. I'm using a new feature in the beta version of Trader Tools 4 (which I will open up for Insider beta testing very shortly) called "Big Changes". We've got a lot of fun reports that we can run on our historical data, and the change report is my favorite. I've taken to checking it every morning, and it helps me find interesting cards to write about. This morning, Forbidden Orchard showed up on my list:
Good arbitrage opportunities are few and far between, so this one tickled me pink. Arbs are not always what they seem on paper; we're citing TCGplayer Mid as our buy-in price, which does not make any guarantees about quantity or condition. In this case, I found a merchant selling 7x NM @ $5.69 + $0.99 s/h, and a merchant buying up to 17x NM @ 6.60. Now, I realize this amounts to about $5 in profit. This is hardly a great example of the power of Trader Tools, but it's a fine case study on how to work the charts and reports to find market oddities. I've already got another order queued up for this buyer, so any extra stuff I can add to the envelope is pure profit. In fact, thanks to Trader Tools I'm going to make some cash on a certain KTK fetch land already because an LGS I encountered in my travels was selling them for below buylist. Cheers, guys!
So, because I'm writing about this, I'm not going to take advantage of this particular arbitrage opportunity. I want to give Insiders a crack at it. They can use Trader Tools to see who's got the high buy price here. It's not big money, but it's something. Feel free to be the guy who makes an extra $5 or gets some cheap copies of this wacky non-basic land.
Also, don't forget that this was reprinted in FTV:Realms, but the buy price above is for the CHK version!
Oath is banned in Legacy, which I suppose is a testament to just how little you have to know about a card\’s use to make a profit on it!
Modern combo decks like Intruder Alarm use it. Rogue Deck Builder just did a series with soul warden, illness in the ranks, and massacre wurm.
Oath/Orchard is a staple in Vintage.