If you're reading this, you're an Insider, so you already know what I'm about to tell you. But just in case you need a reminder: don't preorder cards from Khans of Tarkir.

Sure, if there is a particularly underpriced mythic or if you're fairly certain you can double up, go ahead. But unless you are dead set on playing a tournament immediately upon the release of this set, you're going to come out ahead by not paying preorder prices. You've heard this a million times, both from me and others, so I'll end up my PSA here.

Fetches Are Cool

Look at these beautiful things:

Now these:

The first printings of the fetch lands have a similar character. They're clearly identifiable as Magic art, but all ten share a certain abstract quality. You can make out terrain details, but there's almost a bit of an Impressionist feel to them.

It's hard to put into words, but to me, their art evokes the feelings of the land types rather than depicting actual lands themselves. This kind of makes flavor sense within the game too, because these lands are used to go get other lands for use—they don't tap for mana themselves.

But Kind of Ugly

Now look at these:

We've lost the Impressionist look and have gone literal. Compare the following:

 

One of these things is not like the other. Maybe it's just me, but I think the fetch lands have traditionally featured a more evocative art style than other MTG lands, and it disappoints me that Wizards has abandoned this practice.

What does this mean financially? Possibly nothing. If we use Thoughtseize and Chord of Calling and shock lands as precedents, the original printings will maintain a premium over the reprints.

But. But. These fetch land reprints are significantly older and rarer cards than those above. If you have the opportunity to scoop up copies of the Onslaught fetches at prices close to those of the reprints, I expect this to be a great play in the long run. Keep an eye on the price of the old fetches, because whatever upside the new ones have, the old ones will have more. If the prices start to converge, you know what to do.

Don't Worry, Khans Fetches Will Have Value Too

In fact, I'm a little concerned they will have too much value. This reprint was highly, highly anticipated, similar to the shock lands but to an even greater extent. And what happened in that instance? Shocks started high, and did indeed drop, but not quite to the level that the community was expecting. They've stayed in the same $3-or-so window since settling.

Part of this is because speculators saw them as such a slam-dunk buy. I've got a pile of shock lands, you've got a pile of shock lands—we've all got a pile of shock lands. Any time a hint of a price bump has come up, a portion of us have sold and dropped the price right down.

Additionally, thanks to sites like QS, the average MTG player is now becoming more finance-savvy. The player who used to ship his duals for EDH mythics and dragons is becoming rarer and rarer. It's not uncommon to run into a casual player who will not trade his lands because, "They're going to go up next year."

The growing interest in Modern doesn't help. More and more players are realizing that building up a Modern collection is the place to be, and so they keep their Eternal-playables rather than ship them off at rotation.

With fewer copies flooding the market due to myriad reasons, plus the highly anticipated nature of this reprint, plus the early price gouging by SCG, I would expect these lands to settle a little higher than we might otherwise expect. Scooping Zendikar fetches at $5 to $10 was clearly the right play, and it will be the right play if Khans fetches ever go that low. But given all the factors I already mentioned, my concern is that fetch lands will not necessarily drop to that low level like they did before.

What I'm really trying to say is that I could see this being another shock land situation. Everybody wants these things—both to play with and to make money with—and it may mean that the floor isn't quite as low as supply and demand would naturally dictate. There's absolutely still opportunity in these (not at the current price, in case that wasn't clear), but it may be a longer-term opportunity, like shock lands have ended up being.

So be careful. Don't head into this with unrealistic expectations. Staple lands used to be the financier's bread and butter, but the community has caught on and that may not be as true as it was in times past.

Still a Stable Place for Trading

Many of my shock lands were acquired via trade. A whole lot of them, in fact. And even though prices haven't gone up the way I hoped and expected, I don't feel all that bad about the Innistrad block Standard staples that I shipped to acquire them.

For example, back in early 2013, when I shipped a playset of Silverblade Paladins for a playset of Overgrown Tombs, I was actually slightly behind in value. Nowadays, it's easy to see that I won that trade:

I'm not necessarily going to be putting money into these new fetch lands (unless, of course, I'm wrong and they do drop to $5. Then I'll buy them all). But I'll be trading pretty aggressively toward them as long as they're in trade binders, especially if I'm shipping off Standard cards for them. In the long term, Standard cards have nowhere to go but down and fetch lands have nowhere to go but up.

So once the too high floor has been established, understand that fetch lands are not likely to be quick flips for easy double-ups. But they are going to be good long-term holds, and if you don't put too many resources towards them too quickly, it won't be all that painful to treat them that way.

At the very least, as long as you wait for the floor, your'e not going to lose money, which is a very comforting fact. Many of us didn't make as much money as we hoped on shocks, but as long as we acquired them at the right time in the right ways, it's not like we lost a whole lot, if anything. Let's take that lesson and apply it to the Khans of Tarkir fetch lands.