So I'm personally very annoyed about the new Buy-a-box promo scheme, but it has me thinking about people who DO "buy a box".
Personally I love drafting, and I love commander. I usually try to get whatever commander-relevant cards I can from drafts, and then buy the rest as singles. I don't really have much use for the other cards I end up with, and I tend to accumulate tons of rares I don't need from limited events (not to mention commons/uncommons, which I usually just recycle), and lots of sealed product too from winnings. I try to get some fun from these mostly by winston drafting with my girlfriend, although in days gone by I actually could get 6-8 people together for a real draft, and get some cash back for my packs in addition to fun.
But clearly there are people out there who are just buying booster boxes and cracking them. I know this because I see them doing it sometimes at my LGS. Frankly I don't get it. I understand completely someone buying a box if they plan to run a booster draft amongst their friends or something, but just buying a box with the intention to crack it and take the cards from it for decks or trade fodder? It seems really inefficient to me. The odds of getting cards you want seems fairly low (especially if you need multiples of rares or mythics) and the average value of the cards seems like it's usually below the price per pack unless you buy and sell them very quickly when the set releases. And you end up with mounds of worthless, or near-worthless, garbage. Wouldn't buying the singles be way more efficient if your goal is to construct any kind of deck?
So for people who buy booster boxes and just crack them - what's your reasoning behind this purchase? Is there some motivation that I haven't thought of? Or is everyone just as mystified as I am?
My wife and I both play magic and we buy a case of every standard set and crack it. We get most of what we need, usually some extra rares and sell them for store credit to get things we might not have opened enough of. We also draft at fnm the first couple of weeks when a new set drops. As for just buying a box usually you don't get enough out of just one to get very far into building a standard deck. We have several friends who just buy a box or two and complain that they don't have card x for a deck.
My wife and I both play magic and we buy a case of every standard set and crack it. We get most of what we need, usually some extra rares and sell them for store credit to get things we might not have opened enough of. We also draft at fnm the first couple of weeks when a new set drops. As for just buying a box usually you don't get enough out of just one to get very far into building a standard deck. We have several friends who just buy a box or two and complain that they don't have card x for a deck.
Do you find that this is a more efficient approach than just buying the singles from the start? Or is it to support your LGS?
Personally I find my LGSs never have the singles I need, despite the significant markup compared to buying them online. So I prefer to support them by paying event fees and buying sleeves.
Haven't price compared it directly but with Dominara we got playsets of Karn and Teferi out of the case with a couple of Lyra's too so we definitely got our money's worth supporting our Lgs. Our Lgs is usually cheaper then most online and does get some good cards in stock. Definitely will be variation in getting certain cards for a box but buying a case we usually get most of what we need sometimes not so lucky. With battle for zendilar we only got one Gideon out of the case which sucked.
It seems really inefficient to me. The odds of getting cards you want seems fairly low (especially if you need multiples of rares or mythics) and the average value of the cards seems like it's usually below the price per pack unless you buy and sell them very quickly when the set releases. And you end up with mounds of worthless, or near-worthless, garbage. Wouldn't buying the singles be way more efficient if your goal is to construct any kind of deck?
I believe a large part of it is the lottery/gambling mentality. I've seen people who were addicted to cracking packs in hopes of opening value cards, to the point that they keep trading in at half value just to get another pack or two and end up losing tons of value in the long run.
I rarely buy boxes these days, but years ago, I would buy a box from each set and then ebay the expensive cards to try to cover most of the cost - that left me with lots of bulk rares and commons/uncommons for casual play at very little cost. The only box I've bought recently was Unstable, and that's only because it had guaranteed value in every pack. I paid $100 for the box, sold the basic lands for $75 (probably could have gotten more, but I wanted to move them quickly), and used the rest to start my Un-Cube.
Mostly, though, I prefer to buy singles and know that I'm getting what I want. It really is the most efficient way.
While I haven't in a few years i used to buy 1 to 2 cases of the latest set. This was because of the much cheaper price on preorders, usually $85 a box, got khans at $78 by buying 3 cases. Those cards mix with my current collection to produce 3+ standard decks, allowing us significant flexibility to switch decks weekly or keep the same deck for months. Running the numbers, if we were to purchase full sets at preorder prices it would usually be more expensive. Preorder singles are usually inflated while boxes are dirt cheap.
If your goal is to build 1-2 decks per set release then it's almost certainly cheaper to buy singles, especially if you can wait on the obviously over inflated cards, like walkers.
Haven't price compared it directly but with Dominara we got playsets of Karn and Teferi out of the case with a couple of Lyra's too so we definitely got our money's worth supporting our Lgs. Our Lgs is usually cheaper then most online and does get some good cards in stock. Definitely will be variation in getting certain cards for a box but buying a case we usually get most of what we need sometimes not so lucky. With battle for zendilar we only got one Gideon out of the case which sucked.
Did you actually sum up the value of the case? Karn playset is quite a lot of value (and seems very lucky to me), but how much did you pay for the case? Did you get your value's worth? If you couldn't buy from your LGS at all, would you buy a case online, or would you change your card acquisition strategy?
Haven't price compared it directly but with Dominara we got playsets of Karn and Teferi out of the case with a couple of Lyra's too so we definitely got our money's worth supporting our Lgs. Our Lgs is usually cheaper then most online and does get some good cards in stock. Definitely will be variation in getting certain cards for a box but buying a case we usually get most of what we need sometimes not so lucky. With battle for zendilar we only got one Gideon out of the case which sucked.
Did you actually sum up the value of the case? Karn playset is quite a lot of value (and seems very lucky to me), but how much did you pay for the case? Did you get your value's worth? If you couldn't buy from your LGS at all, would you buy a case online, or would you change your card acquisition strategy?
I did the math on only one set a number of years ago so it could be inconsistent. I haven't bought cards since Aether Revolt, specifically because I never make it down to my LGS anymore. The funds for the case comes from a mixture of selling off older cards acquired from a previous buying and trading and personal funds, roughly half and half. We usually ended up with 4-6 of every mythic and 7-11 of every rare with various exceptions. Once ended up with only 2 of a mythic that ended up being bulk anyway.
I did the math on only one set a number of years ago so it could be inconsistent. I haven't bought cards since Aether Revolt, specifically because I never make it down to my LGS anymore. The funds for the case comes from a mixture of selling off older cards acquired from a previous buying and trading and personal funds, roughly half and half. We usually ended up with 4-6 of every mythic and 7-11 of every rare with various exceptions. Once ended up with only 2 of a mythic that ended up being bulk anyway.
Those numbers aren't mathematically possible. For a large set with (to look at DOM) 54 rares, 7x54 rares = 378, which is already almost twice as many than the number of packs in a case (216), ignoring mythics entirely. Of course if every pack had a foil rare you could maybe get close but that seems pretty unlikely. For a small set like aether revolt with 42 rares, that's still 294 which is closer, but that's still on the lower end of your range and ignoring mythics.
I'm guessing/calculating roughly, for a large set you'd get about 27 mythics (one out of every 8 packs), which means for 15 rares you'd only get about 2 of each. Slightly less, but we'll say you get a few foil mythics to make up the difference. So we'll say 2 of each. Getting 4 of the most valuable one is definitely pretty lucky. And for rares, the average is about 3.5 ignoring foils, so maybe round up to 4 optimistically.
Actually dominaria might be slightly wonky because of the legends, I'm not 100% of how that works. But the general math for most large sets should be pretty close. And I'm sure the numbers aren't TOO far off for DOM either.
i'll generally crack a box of a set i like just to get a good smattering of cards, it lets me trade into anything i want to play pretty easily. buying singles is great, and way more efficient, but not if you don't know what you want to play
Because cracking packs is fun and exciting and emotional and feeds an addiction. Buying singles is boring. Of course its more efficient but its just not the same as actually opening packs.
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Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Those numbers aren't mathematically possible. For a large set with (to look at DOM) 54 rares, 7x54 rares = 378, which is already almost twice as many than the number of packs in a case (216), ignoring mythics entirely. Of course if every pack had a foil rare you could maybe get close but that seems pretty unlikely. For a small set like aether revolt with 42 rares, that's still 294 which is closer, but that's still on the lower end of your range and ignoring mythics..
Those numbers are from nearly 2 cases usually over 2 cases when factoring in prereleases; it was never only 1 case. The least amount ever was 1 case 6 prereleases with prize packs of 1/4 to 1/2 a box each prerelease. It was normally 3 players each doing 2-4 prerealeases, and while the events added to the card count I wouldn't count their cost because we were playing for the event not cards.
Those numbers are from nearly 2 cases usually over 2 cases when factoring in prereleases; it was never only 1 case. The least amount ever was 1 case 6 prereleases with prize packs of 1/4 to 1/2 a box each prerelease. It was normally 3 players each doing 2-4 prerealeases, and while the events added to the card count I wouldn't count their cost because we were playing for the event not cards.
Ok that makes more sense. If you're buying 2 cases worth, though, that's probably at least $1000 and even then you're only averaging 4 of each mythic, so you're likely to be short on some of them. If you were to just by complete sets (let's say of DOM, which I'm seeing around $150) that's $600 for a playset of every card. Or of course you could save a lot of money if you just wanted specific singles.
I'm jealous of your prize payouts for prereleases. Around here we only have 4-round prereleases with a max payout of 8 packs for 4-0. And our most convenient LGS does pack per win :'(
Those numbers are from nearly 2 cases usually over 2 cases when factoring in prereleases; it was never only 1 case. The least amount ever was 1 case 6 prereleases with prize packs of 1/4 to 1/2 a box each prerelease. It was normally 3 players each doing 2-4 prerealeases, and while the events added to the card count I wouldn't count their cost because we were playing for the event not cards.
Ok that makes more sense. If you're buying 2 cases worth, though, that's probably at least $1000 and even then you're only averaging 4 of each mythic, so you're likely to be short on some of them. If you were to just by complete sets (let's say of DOM, which I'm seeing around $150) that's $600 for a playset of every card. Or of course you could save a lot of money if you just wanted specific singles.
I'm jealous of your prize payouts for prereleases. Around here we only have 4-round prereleases with a max payout of 8 packs for 4-0. And our most convenient LGS does pack per win :'(
The problem with buying specific singles is that over the course of a sets life in standard its hard to say which and how many of any single we would need and when we would 'need' them would be when they spiked in price. With our collection we usually had 8 of every rare and 4 of every mythic so we could reasonably built multiple decks without requiring more mythics. Though our situation was very unique.
As for payouts, most people disliked it, they were simple 4 round events with 4-0 getting between 12 to 18 and 3-0 getting 6 to 9 depending on the price of the event. The pack per win are usually more popular because they are cheaper and even newer players can win prizes.
So, for what it's worth, I bought two boxes of Dominaria. This is my first purchase of any cards since Mirage timeframe. A few years after, 2001 or so, my friends and I pooled our cards into a giant box and every year or two we'll pull out our old cards and build new decks and play MTG heavily for a month or so. We've easily gotten hundreds, if not thousands of hours out of those cards. The real fun that brought us back every year was building the decks. With a limited supply of cards, our group had to be creative in building decks. We built merfork, goblins, stasis, even artifact decks centered around our sole Phyrexian Dreadnaught.
So, when I heard from one of those friends about the new MTG set was similar to the old one, we all bought boxes of Dominaria. We all understand that it's easy to download a deck list and buy every cards online. After opening up every pack, I'm disappointed somewhat at how non-competitive our decks are. A $30 budget deck would beat the best deck I could make from the two boxes of Dominaria. But for myself and my friends, the real fun of playing Magic is in deckbuilding. Buying boxes rather than buying decks online ensures that there's hundreds of more hours of playability that we'll get verses buying a budget deck or two and using those.
I usually get a couple of boxes a year as part of judge comp. I can either sell them for $75-80 or get with some friends and crack them for the fun and addiction that is cracking packs. I usually do the latter, and I've noticed that when I do it at my LGS about half the time someone will buy a box immediately after I'm done. So I'm having fun for free (almost - I didn't pay for the box but I "miss out" on selling it) and the LGS makes a sale they might not have. Win/win.
My last DOM box I cracked had a Karn, Teferi, and a Lyra so I didn't miss out on value. The first one I opened had a Karn, History, and a Lyra.
Though I've been taking a break, I have generally bought a box or 2 of each set. Except for absolute dud sets, it tends to work out. By selling or trading hype cards for the cards I like and the diamonds in the rough it has almost always worked out financially. Cracking boosters is fun and presale prices are quite affordable so what the heck. Granted working a box for value requires some due diligence but it's all part of the fun. Sometimes you hit the lottery with you foils/chase rates making it even more fun. Also presale prices can be ridiculous unless you see through the hype. I also like to try out random cards before deciding on buying a playsets to see how they work in my decks. I am too lazy to proxy and reread what cards do when testing them out. I will supplement by ording the must haves, usually a bit after release. When Bob was released they were going for like 2 bucks at our LGS. I bought every one I could find. I also like to give away cards that I won't use and have little value to players that don't spend a lot on cards, especially if it fits into one of their decks.
It's funny that some people here argue that "you can make your value back when buying a box," yet fail to realize that if they just speculated on specific cards and bought, let's say, 20-30 copies of that card instead, they would get a much bigger profit. Let's just say that box opening is what it really is - a gamble that people enjoy. Just like gambling, many people enjoy that time when they bought a box for $95 and got $145 of value in it. They could care less about the previous 4 boxes at $95 that averaged $62.50 in value.
I used to live with a gambler whose friend had won TWO separate cars in the past 6 years gambling. I don't know how often she gambled, but I'm assuming she's probably spent around enough to purchase 2 Ferraris, yet has won a Chevy Malibu and (I forgot the other car) some other midsize sedan. But...it feels good that one time.
Masterpieces and Mythics is why people open boxes, outside of Limited.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I never calculate the value when I open magic product. It's a gamble you could get nothing great. In terms of what a pay per case at my Lgs it's something like 90 per box so 540 plus tax. We have several good shops here so if one closed I would buy from another. The only time I buy sealed product online is if they have a really good discount on something. I end up selling most of it off when it rotates out of standard anyways so I don't really worry about calculating value of it till then to see if I can get cards I want.
It's funny that some people here argue that "you can make your value back when buying a box," yet fail to realize that if they just speculated on specific cards and bought, let's say, 20-30 copies of that card instead, they would get a much bigger profit.
You assume speculating is an easy task. I am a pretty good judge of card quality and viability in competitive play as I have been at this a very long time. That being said, the big online retailers often get it wrong even with their deep pockets and a pooling of minds that they have at their disposal. Much like the stock market, for every good call there is at least a bad call. I have rarely been able to recover my costs on a box even if it takes more effort than I'd prefer to trade up into said speculated cards. I'm not in this for the business, just for fun. Plenty of better ways to profit than speculating on MTG.
Additionally, over time a lot of random cards considered chafe when released end up picking up a lot of value that very few had foreseen. Commander has been quite a boon to piles of random cracks since it's inception.
For some people, it may be easier to get value from what they get randomly. I personally feel it's always better to get what you CHOOSE to get. Speculating is pretty easy. It's not fool proof completely. But if you ask many Magic collectors, some will just tell you, "throw some money at Magic cards and it throws a lot more your way." Look at the recent Reserved List spikes.
Also, "for every good call, there's a bad call" is incorrect. It's more like "for every 5 good calls, there's 1 bad call." I will leave with just 1 example - Steel Overseer. I bought 64 copies of this card at $2.50 each when they came out. I figured Wizards would mess up and print something as good as Affinity was. It went up to $5 at one point, but that was not enough. I took a LOSS. Flash forward to Modern times. It became a $12 card because of Affinity. I sold (at a loss) all copies except 4 for $8 each. Yes, it took a while. Yes, it was a loss for many years. But eventually it came to fruition. Sometimes you have to just be somewhat smart about it. I never sell cards for $1 unless it's 100s and I bought them for cheaper.
This hobby is just too damn expensive to be throwing thousands of dollars at without getting that thrown back at you. That's just my opinion.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
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Personally I love drafting, and I love commander. I usually try to get whatever commander-relevant cards I can from drafts, and then buy the rest as singles. I don't really have much use for the other cards I end up with, and I tend to accumulate tons of rares I don't need from limited events (not to mention commons/uncommons, which I usually just recycle), and lots of sealed product too from winnings. I try to get some fun from these mostly by winston drafting with my girlfriend, although in days gone by I actually could get 6-8 people together for a real draft, and get some cash back for my packs in addition to fun.
But clearly there are people out there who are just buying booster boxes and cracking them. I know this because I see them doing it sometimes at my LGS. Frankly I don't get it. I understand completely someone buying a box if they plan to run a booster draft amongst their friends or something, but just buying a box with the intention to crack it and take the cards from it for decks or trade fodder? It seems really inefficient to me. The odds of getting cards you want seems fairly low (especially if you need multiples of rares or mythics) and the average value of the cards seems like it's usually below the price per pack unless you buy and sell them very quickly when the set releases. And you end up with mounds of worthless, or near-worthless, garbage. Wouldn't buying the singles be way more efficient if your goal is to construct any kind of deck?
So for people who buy booster boxes and just crack them - what's your reasoning behind this purchase? Is there some motivation that I haven't thought of? Or is everyone just as mystified as I am?
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Personally I find my LGSs never have the singles I need, despite the significant markup compared to buying them online. So I prefer to support them by paying event fees and buying sleeves.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I rarely buy boxes these days, but years ago, I would buy a box from each set and then ebay the expensive cards to try to cover most of the cost - that left me with lots of bulk rares and commons/uncommons for casual play at very little cost. The only box I've bought recently was Unstable, and that's only because it had guaranteed value in every pack. I paid $100 for the box, sold the basic lands for $75 (probably could have gotten more, but I wanted to move them quickly), and used the rest to start my Un-Cube.
Mostly, though, I prefer to buy singles and know that I'm getting what I want. It really is the most efficient way.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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If your goal is to build 1-2 decks per set release then it's almost certainly cheaper to buy singles, especially if you can wait on the obviously over inflated cards, like walkers.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm guessing/calculating roughly, for a large set you'd get about 27 mythics (one out of every 8 packs), which means for 15 rares you'd only get about 2 of each. Slightly less, but we'll say you get a few foil mythics to make up the difference. So we'll say 2 of each. Getting 4 of the most valuable one is definitely pretty lucky. And for rares, the average is about 3.5 ignoring foils, so maybe round up to 4 optimistically.
Actually dominaria might be slightly wonky because of the legends, I'm not 100% of how that works. But the general math for most large sets should be pretty close. And I'm sure the numbers aren't TOO far off for DOM either.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm jealous of your prize payouts for prereleases. Around here we only have 4-round prereleases with a max payout of 8 packs for 4-0. And our most convenient LGS does pack per win :'(
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
As for payouts, most people disliked it, they were simple 4 round events with 4-0 getting between 12 to 18 and 3-0 getting 6 to 9 depending on the price of the event. The pack per win are usually more popular because they are cheaper and even newer players can win prizes.
So, when I heard from one of those friends about the new MTG set was similar to the old one, we all bought boxes of Dominaria. We all understand that it's easy to download a deck list and buy every cards online. After opening up every pack, I'm disappointed somewhat at how non-competitive our decks are. A $30 budget deck would beat the best deck I could make from the two boxes of Dominaria. But for myself and my friends, the real fun of playing Magic is in deckbuilding. Buying boxes rather than buying decks online ensures that there's hundreds of more hours of playability that we'll get verses buying a budget deck or two and using those.
for Dominaria I had some friends over and we did our own little sealed thing.
Usually though, I just get a box, crack a beer, put on a good movie/TV show, and open my packs. It is fun, couldnt care less about the 80 bucks.
It isn't about it being the smartest or most efficient choice, it is about the fun of opening a bunch of packs of the newest set.
My last DOM box I cracked had a Karn, Teferi, and a Lyra so I didn't miss out on value. The first one I opened had a Karn, History, and a Lyra.
So long as you are not paying retail price for a box, you are fine.
I used to live with a gambler whose friend had won TWO separate cars in the past 6 years gambling. I don't know how often she gambled, but I'm assuming she's probably spent around enough to purchase 2 Ferraris, yet has won a Chevy Malibu and (I forgot the other car) some other midsize sedan. But...it feels good that one time.
Masterpieces and Mythics is why people open boxes, outside of Limited.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)You assume speculating is an easy task. I am a pretty good judge of card quality and viability in competitive play as I have been at this a very long time. That being said, the big online retailers often get it wrong even with their deep pockets and a pooling of minds that they have at their disposal. Much like the stock market, for every good call there is at least a bad call. I have rarely been able to recover my costs on a box even if it takes more effort than I'd prefer to trade up into said speculated cards. I'm not in this for the business, just for fun. Plenty of better ways to profit than speculating on MTG.
Additionally, over time a lot of random cards considered chafe when released end up picking up a lot of value that very few had foreseen. Commander has been quite a boon to piles of random cracks since it's inception.
Also, "for every good call, there's a bad call" is incorrect. It's more like "for every 5 good calls, there's 1 bad call." I will leave with just 1 example - Steel Overseer. I bought 64 copies of this card at $2.50 each when they came out. I figured Wizards would mess up and print something as good as Affinity was. It went up to $5 at one point, but that was not enough. I took a LOSS. Flash forward to Modern times. It became a $12 card because of Affinity. I sold (at a loss) all copies except 4 for $8 each. Yes, it took a while. Yes, it was a loss for many years. But eventually it came to fruition. Sometimes you have to just be somewhat smart about it. I never sell cards for $1 unless it's 100s and I bought them for cheaper.
This hobby is just too damn expensive to be throwing thousands of dollars at without getting that thrown back at you. That's just my opinion.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)