Almost every time anyone asks me "When should I buy card x," I respond with "December". This week I'm going to take a look at my wish list and what cards I think you will want to buy to have a successful and cheaper new year. I have a few picks for each type of player that should be a consideration before Christmas.

First let's talk about why December is the best time to buy cards (usually). I don't know about international markets, but most North American markets you will see heavy sales and less and less player interaction as you get closer to Christmas. I believe the holiday dip is a culmination of many factors. Many players are college age students that go home to visit parents and don't play and buy as many cards. Many players are also not very affluent so buying presents for their family usually takes precedence over buying Magic cards. December is pretty close to the middle between two set releases and where there is peak supply for most Standard legal cards. This leads to the December dip that almost always ends the day of Christmas. My theory here is that many players receive money for Christmas and start to spend it on their hobbies. Let's look at the price graph below from last year.

Vraska's Contempt was in a pretty solid decline up until the spoiler season for Rivals of Ixalan and then saw huge increases. While spiking so quickly is not typical, this illustrates my point for the worst case scenario. There are cards now that are in a lull that will recover after Christmas.

Herald's Horn does the same thing just a little bit slower. It bottoms out right around Christmas as supply and demand are pretty in sync. Within a year it went from $4 to $12. You had a bit more time to buy in before it went crazy but the overlapping time period to purchase was still in late December and early January.

My Standard Wishlist

This one will likely be the most "correct" in terms of buying cards early that will become more expensive later. I don't suggest that you go out and buy out the internet because they're not certain to pay out in a way that is meaningful for the time it would take to sell. This advice is for players whom just want to keep the price of the game down for them.

First and foremost is to get your lands. Isolated Chapel, Dragonskull Summit, Hinterland Harbor, Glacial Fortress, and Rootbound Crag are all not currently part of the available guilds in Guilds of Ravnica.

Sulfur Falls is the most extreme case but here you can see it was available for $5 from May through October and now its $13. All of the lands will not get worse than they are now. If their corresponding guild is good then they will get a lot more expensive. If their guild is bad or the mana enables a good three color deck then they will get a little more expensive. Even the worst guilds in Guilds of Ravnica caused their corresponding check land to get more expensive.

The second thing I'd recommend getting is the gold mythics from Ixalanor Rivals of Ixalan. Personally I'm looking at Angrath, the Flame-Chained, Elenda, The Dusk Rose, Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, and Vona, Butcher of Magan. New formats and new cards can give homes to these underappreciated cards. We can see from Treasure Map and Star of Extinction that new formats can cause huge shifts in prices in even role maker cards. I think Kumena has the biggest chance of success if Ravnica Allegiance brings back merfolk that were introduced in Gatecrash, most famously with Prime Speaker Zegana. But, as always, if any of these cards interest you, I wouldn't wait much longer to grab them.

Modern Wishlist

At this point I would focus my resources purchasing anything from Ultimate Masters that you may not have already purchased. It's easy to look now and see that the prices aren't too bad but it doesn't take very long for them to get out of control again.

Scalding Tarn was available for as low as $40 after it was reprinted in April 2017. Now it's rare to find copies less than $80. This is the kind of issues that some of the most highly anticipated cards from this set will have. Don't sleep on this opportunity to buy in cheap. The cards with the biggest risk of increasing are Karn Liberated, Liliana of the Veil, Snapcaster Mage, Noble Hierarch, Celestial Colonnade, Tarmogoyf, Cavern of Souls, Engineered Explosives, and Through the Breach.

Pauper Wishlist

Much like the Modern wishlist, this is going to contain a lot of cards from Ultimate Masters. I'm not as familiar with a lot of the best decks but I am familiar with some of the most expensive staples. Sleight of Hand, Chainer's Edict, and Lava Spike are the biggest highlights from this set that I don't recommend waiting for. Chainer's Edict is the only one that I would say you could still wait for if you didn't want to purchase Oubliettes. While Ultimate Masters was the most recently released Masters set, there are still some cards from Masters 25 that you may want to think about. Nettle Sentinel and Ash Barrens are still affordable and won't be forever. The last card I want to bring up is Ninja of the Deep Hours. It was reprinted in Commander 2017 and that printing has had a big impact on the price of them. It's hard to put ninjustu into any set so take this opportunity to shore up your collection.

The Commander Wishlist

Okay so if you are just strictly a commander or casual player and you skipped to this section, you will need to scroll back up. A lot of the cards above overlap with a lot of Commander players interests and for the sake of brevity I won't repeat them in this section. This was a really good year for Commander players and we need to take some time to digest what you can be looking to buy.

Masters 25 - Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Eladamri's Call, Filterlands (Flooded Grove, etc), Protean Hulk, Vindicate, Coalition Relic, Myriad Landscape

Battlebond - Najeela, the Blade-Blossom, Opponent lands? (Morphic Pool, etc), Spellseeker, Archfiend of Despair, Bonus Round, Bramble Sovereign, Arena Rector, Doubling Season, Pir, Imaginative Rascal, Toothy, Imaginary Friend

Core Set 2019¬ - Crucible of Worlds, Scapeshift, Omniscience

While this is not an all-inclusive list, I would take a peek at some older sets and make sure anything you want from them is already in your possession. Cards from non-Standard legal formats can have supply crisis when a new set comes out and turn out like Expropriate and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds from Conspiracy: Take the Crown.

I hope you all found this useful. If you are looking to find out what I'm looking to buy I will usually make a post on twitter about cards I'm particularly fond of. What are you looking to buy this holiday season?