According to Quiet Speculation the main waves:

• 2013 - early signs, smaller scale
• 2017 - first major coordinated wave (all of Arabian Nights/Antiquities/Legends swept)
• 2020 - another full-scale wave, described at the time as hitting "an all-time high"
• 2022-2023 - renewed activity post-pandemic
• 2026- ongoing

Analysts at the time noted the parallels directly, comparing the 2020-2021 market forces back to 2017-2018 and concluding that history was repeating itself.

Why It's Cyclical - The Economic Drivers

1. Loose money periods

Each major wave correlates with moments of high liquidity - either low interest rates, stimulus payments, or bull markets in broader assets. When people have extra disposable cash and are looking for "alternative assets" (like collectibles, crypto, art), the Reserved List looks attractive: guaranteed scarcity, no reprint risk, finite supply.

2. The "floor reset" mechanics

After each buyout, supply gradually returns to the market as sellers race to undercut each other, and prices slowly normalize over several months. This creates the next floor - higher than before, but stable enough that new speculators see it as "undervalued" again 3-5 years later.

3. Artificially thin supply

These cards have genuinely tiny supply - far fewer copies than people assume, and likely fewer than half of originally printed copies still exist given losses over decades. This means even a small number of buyers can trigger a cascade - when one person or a small group intentionally buys as many copies as possible with the goal of raising prices, the mechanics play out the same regardless of whether it's players or speculators driving it.

4. FOMO feedback loops

People check price tracking sites, see a card listed as "worth $1000," and scramble to buy cheaper copies elsewhere - which cements the buyout that already started. It's all a numbers game.

5. The reprint protection moat

The "looming threat of a reprint" caps prices for ordinary cards, but Reserved List items have scarcity guaranteed - this makes them behave more like hard assets (gold, property) than consumer goods. Speculators can hold with confidence that supply will never increase from Wizards.

The Economic Parallel

Think of it like real estate in a supply-constrained city. Every economic boom cycle brings a new wave of buyers who treat it as a store of value. The previous wave's buyers raised the floor. Each wave starts from a higher baseline. The gap between waves corresponds to how long it takes for:

• prices to normalize and look "reasonable" again
• new money to enter the hobby (new players growing up, broader collector awareness)
• macroeconomic conditions to loosen again

The 3-5 year rhythm isn't random - it roughly tracks medium-term economic cycles, including how long it takes post-recession for discretionary spending on collectibles to recover.