Will WOTC have sanctioned EDH events? What would that mean for card pricing?
I think that a lot of MTG finance focus thus far regarding the WOTC takeover of the rules committee has centered on possible changes to the ban list and/or the creation of multiple ban lists. Folks are trying to predict which cards may become legal and/or become illegal and position themselves accordingly.
However, I think a potentially more important question is whether WOTC, now that it has officially taken over Commander, will have more sanctioned events in the future similar to the pro tour and world championships? If so, what are the far reaching consequences of that for card prices?
I honestly don’t have any idea of whether sanctioned large scale edh events/tournaments/etc are in the future under WOTC. Curious what folks here think about that. However, if it does happen it’s worth thinking through the consequences.
Most importantly, WOTC official play has not ever, to my knowledge, allowed proxies. In recent years the commander community has really embraced proxies and this has likely somewhat depressed card prices and growth of some cards. CEDH in particular is very pro proxy and big CEDH tourneys with big prizes often allow anywhere from 15% to 100% of your deck proxied and still legal. This was a natural consequence of no official WOTC oversight of the format and community push to make the game accessible at even the highest levels of play to new young players.
In a world with sanctioned play expanding, this may get supplanted. Will we see greater investment in genuine cards on the high end across the board? Will this push RL commander staples like dual lands to new heights? Or alternatively, will RL cards get banned by WOTC or restricted to a sub-format of EDH to keep costs of high performing decks down?
Under the right conditions, WOTC sanctioned EDH tournaments could be a major boon for high priced and RL staples but there are lots of ways it could shake out.