Lotus ScanHow to Sell MTG Cards Before Standard Rotation
A step-by-step guide to help you sell mtg cards before standard rotation quickly and accurately.
Standard rotation is one of the most financially painful events in Magic for players who do not plan ahead. When a card rotates out of Standard, it loses its largest competitive demand pool overnight, and prices can crash 50 to 90 percent within a few weeks. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker went from $20 down to under $3 after rotating out of Standard in fall 2023. Players who sold in July versus October lost dramatically different amounts of money on their copies. The window to sell is typically one to three months before the actual rotation date, while cards still see regular tournament play and buylist prices remain healthy. Lotus Scan gives you a quick way to scan your full Standard collection, check current prices, and identify which cards need to move now versus which ones might retain value in eternal formats like Modern, Pioneer, or Commander.
Step-by-Step Guide
Identify which cards in your collection are rotating
Standard rotation follows a predictable pattern: sets that are roughly two years old rotate out when the fall set releases each year. Open Scryfall alongside Lotus Scan and check the set symbol on your cards to determine which sets are scheduled to rotate next. Cards from the oldest Standard-legal sets are your most urgent sells. In 2024, sets like The Brothers' War and Dominaria United rotated out. Any staples from those sets with meaningful Standard prices needed to move before the announcement.
Tip: Wizards of the Coast announces rotation dates months in advance. Search for the current Standard rotation date and work backwards six to eight weeks for your sell window.
Scan your rotating cards to see current prices
Use Lotus Scan to quickly process every card from your rotating sets. Focus on anything currently priced above $3, because below that threshold the buylist spread makes it barely worth the effort to sell individually. Cards priced $10 and above are your priority. These are the ones where the difference between selling now and selling post-rotation can be $7 to $15 per copy. Lotus Scan shows you the current market price in real time so you know exactly what you are looking at.
Tip: Check the price history for each rotating card. If a card has already started declining, the market may already be pricing in rotation. Cards that have held steady are better candidates for immediate action.
Distinguish cards that hold value in eternal formats
Not every rotating card crashes equally. Cards that are playable in Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, or Commander often hold significant value even after Standard rotation because demand from those formats remains. Wandering Emperor retained strong value post-rotation because it is a Pioneer powerhouse. Invoke Despair dropped hard because it had no home outside Standard. Before selling, check whether a rotating card sees play in eternal formats using resources like MTGGoldfish or EDHREC. A card with a Commander home might be worth holding or trading into the Commander player community rather than buylisting.
Time the sale one to three months before rotation
The optimal sell window is when cards are still actively being played in Standard, typically one to three months before the rotation date. At this point buylists are still healthy, TCGPlayer demand exists, and you can often find local buyers at FNM. Once the rotation is within a month, buylists start cutting their offers and other sellers flood the market simultaneously. The worst time to sell rotating cards is the week of rotation itself, when everyone realizes at once that their pile is about to be worth much less.
Tip: Set a calendar reminder three months before the rotation date as your trigger to scan and evaluate your Standard collection. This is one of the most valuable annual habits for Standard players.
Choose the right platform for each card
Different selling platforms make sense depending on the card value and how quickly you need to move it. For cards above $15, TCGPlayer gives you the best price but takes 10 to 15 percent in fees and requires shipping time. Card Kingdom buylist pays less but is instant, which is ideal for cards where you are worried the price will drop further before you can sell individually. Local game stores often have buylists with higher store credit rates than cash rates, which makes sense if you are immediately reinvesting in new cards for the upcoming Standard season.
Handle bulk rotating commons and uncommons separately
After selling your valuable rotating rares and mythics, you will be left with a pile of rotating commons and uncommons that have essentially no individual value. Sort these into playsets and offer them as bulk lots at your local store, or bundle them for bulk sale. Cards like draft chaff rarely exceed $0.25 each and are not worth the time to list individually. Some rotating bulk commons spike years later if they find a combo or synergy in a future set. Keep one playset of interesting-looking bulk in a speculation box rather than buylisting everything.
Tip: Cards like Persistent Petitioners were worthless bulk before a combo deck emerged. Keep one copy of anything with an unusual or powerful effect just in case.
Make It Easier with Lotus Scan
Lotus Scan for iPhone simplifies this entire process with AI-powered card recognition, real-time price tracking, and intuitive collection management. Just point your camera and scan.
Pro Tips
- Card Kingdom's buylist is often the fastest way to move a large volume of rotating cards with competitive prices up until about six weeks before rotation.
- Selling into spikes is better than selling into rotation anxiety. If a card you are holding spikes 40 percent from a tournament result in the weeks before rotation, that is a great exit point.
- Consider the emotional cost of holding cards through rotation hoping they recover. Most Standard-only cards do not recover meaningfully after rotating.
- Use MTGGoldfish's Standard price graphs to see historical price curves of similar cards from previous rotations. This calibrates expectations for how fast prices will move.
- Track your actual sell prices against what Lotus Scan showed at the time. Building this history over multiple rotation cycles will dramatically improve your timing intuition.