It's an age old question, but do you think that it's worth it given it's a smaller set? There also seems to be a lot of people cutting back on their own purchases for the set so it's making me wonder a bit.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It doesn't really matter what's in it from a financial perspective. It can't hold much more value than its retail cost for very long; otherwise, stores would just open boxes and sell the singles until prices settled again. Typically, if you have a method of distribution and a lot of time on your hands, you can make a little bit of money opening boxes and selling the singles, but that sounds tedious and risky to me.
If you want exact numbers, Saffron Olive will do one of these once the set is spoiled, but for now, based on history, opening packs of Magic cards outside of playing limited is gambling. If you like gambling, gamble. Personally, the only time I ever buy a box these days is when I have the time and money to sit down with my wife and play a whole bunch of Sealed... unless and until qualify for the Pro Tour, then you'll probably see me drafting all day and all night.
Honestly, I've always been more of a singles purchaser than a sealed product guy as sealed packs just never give anything I'm really looking for. Albeit, it's not a bad way to start a collection for cube or limited. Ages ago I used to buy a booster box just to open like one big christmas gift, but these days the costs of storing cards has made me go more "strategic". There's something about double sleeving that just feels good.
Private Mod Note
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Reasons to buy a box:
You use packs for limited (best way to use a box)
You have loads of decks and the set contains many cards you'll use at all rarities (not just 4-5 cards in the set)
You love to gamble (hey why not)
You want to sit on the box for a decade+ (probably will gain some good value unless a total dud set, cool to have old packs kicking around)
You rich and want the thrill of cracking inventions (loss of value is irrelevant vs the thrill of cracking packs)
Reasons not to buy a box:
Quick flip to make a buck (too much variance)
Build standard decks (just buy singles)
That foil Ornithopter (just buy it individually)
It doesn't really matter what's in it from a financial perspective. It can't hold much more value than its retail cost for very long; otherwise, stores would just open boxes and sell the singles until prices settled again. Typically, if you have a method of distribution and a lot of time on your hands, you can make a little bit of money opening boxes and selling the singles, but that sounds tedious and risky to me.
I wonder if this actually keeps up with the inventions being added to the mix. These are really high in price, with some (non invention) version upwards of 50 euros (oh and then there's ornithopter). Also due to the limited extra supply and highly stable prices (well established decks, sellers market driven by overdemand); the inventions will not make the prices of these cards drop. Now if the shops would do as you said, it would mean the cards in standard would become much lower priced than we expect in older sets (shadows over Innistrad). I haven't seen that happening in kaladesh.
Rather what happens is that the boosterbox price climbs to much above it's MSRP, and still they are being sold out from my LGS, only findable at MKM for a much inflated price. So the opposite is happening: people are opening less and less boosterboxes and just buying them to earn profit by reselling.
I haven't seen this happen in the US, but markets are different in different regions. Here prices on Kaladesh mythics are really depressed and the only thing of real value in the boosters are foil mythics and inventions. I haven't noticed any trouble finding boxes of anything at MSRP recently, except maybe the first Modern Masters.
If it's hard to get sealed product at a decent price in Europe, there might be an arbitrage opportunity there? Depends a bit on conversion rates and shipping charges and such, I suppose.
I think we should put a ban on reselling of products, and make prices lower/limit what people can buy. Similarly how beer is handled: due to limited supply rather than increasing the price the brewers simply require you to write down your personal ID number and you can only buy 2 a year.
Same thing should happen for magic boosters, that way boosters are "good" to open since there is no other way to get cards. That way people will actually have to build decks with what they get instead of just randomly copying cardlists from the internet. and that way people don't quit magic due to overpricing and no potential "to become better without paying 100s of euros". (Yes my whole group of 20ish friends who were in my magic whatsapp quitted due to above reason).
Suggestions of controls on the secondary market sound a little draconian and also very difficult to enforce. As for playing with random cards you have, it's decades too late to go back to that. If you want that sort of game, play limited. While it is true that it is costly to play Constructed at the top levels, it's certainly not true that you have no potential to become better due to expensive singles. If you simply want to be better at Magic, you can just practice with proxy decks, play on Cockatrice or whatever, read/watch/discuss more content by experienced players. All that costs is time.
Financially I would say no. Historically the namesake set of the block has more valuable cards. Not if you're trying for a playset of a bunch of different things I would say maybe. If you're shooting for a high value invention maybe. But either way you go you're still losing money on your investment. If I were you I would just buy a box then buy everything else separately that you need to build whatever deck it is you're trying to build. I made the mistake of buying 2 boxes of origins. Almost everything dropped significantly in value over a year except one card. Even the expeditions dropped in value and I pulled one. It was $80 when I pulled it and I think it's around $40 now.
Yeah, the set does have some decent cards in it, but I'm just not feeling it this push after kaladesh and seeing the card pool. I'm hoping this doesn't mean this turns into origins 2.0 and suddenly everyone is having to dive bomb for singles a year from now from a set that barely got touched by anyone.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Certainly not until you know what the set contains.
The naysayers are many and I tend to agree, generally. That being said, I have done very well cracking boxes going back many years and one can argue that I have been very lucky. From a stricly financial prespective, to get value out of any box you have to move cards quickly before the hype cools off and the set starts getting opened a lot. It also requires recognizing diamonds in the rough and holding on to them as they don't get discovered until pros reveal them to the masses. You also need to be able to predict which cards are way over hyped. Trading hyped cards up for eternal cards that are likely to rise in value helps get the most out of a decent box. Some boxes are just stinkers but one can make the best of them in most cases and just accept that it will happen. Unfortunately all of this requires time, effort, and astute card assessment. Time spent dealing with TCG, Ebay, or meeting up for sales and trades can be excessive. Coming out ahead on buying singles around release time requires similar assessment skills so gains or losses are by no means gauranteed but require a lot less leg work. Just my 2 cents.
So I guess this brings up the question: Is it worth it to buy a 4x playset of all the cards in a given set? I've noticed those online as well and the prices often come close to what a booster case costs.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So I guess this brings up the question: Is it worth it to buy a 4x playset of all the cards in a given set? I've noticed those online as well and the prices often come close to what a booster case costs.
Wait, if you can get a playset of all rares and mythics in a set for ~100 euros (or whatever valuta you use), you will make a massive profit on average. Each set contains a highly valued rare/mythic, often going above 20 euros for a long time. And there are always a few rares reaching 5 euro+ values.
I hate economics so I can't help you when you need to sell it. However the long term value of any full set's playset is well above 100 euros.
Colt47 said you can get ful playsets for the price of a CASE. A case is 6 boxes and they're usually around $480-$540. So no massive profits there...
If you want to buy full sets, it's much more economical to either wait until the set rotates from Standard or buy online sets and pay the fee to convert them to paper. A set of Dragons of Tarkir is only $135.76 to Kaladesh's $206.49. Or: an online set of Kaladesh is $78.40, and I believe the fee is still $25?
Frontier hype, Modern playability, and international shipping fees/exchange rates will complicate this of course, but as far as I can tell it's almost always safer to buy singles than sealed product, unless you intend to resell that sealed product at some point.
Personally, I've been waiting until sets rotate and picking up sets then (they're nice to have for Cube etc., and you never know when a new format or a niche use within a format will pop up), but I don't like to pay a premium just to have cards sit in my collection. So I try to watch the prices on more in-demand cards (for example, I sold my copies of Collected Company when they were $20 and picked one up for my collection when it bottomed out at $10.
The only situations I would buy a case are 1) I'm getting vendor prices and/or 2) I want to practice for competitive limited (GP/SCO, not FNM). Using it for gambling (pack wars, flip it or rip it, sitting at a table opening packs) is preferable to a casino because you get some good cards opening that many packs, but is still financially a bad move.
If you want to buy full sets, it's much more economical to either wait until the set rotates from Standard or buy online sets and pay the fee to convert them to paper. A set of Dragons of Tarkir is only $135.76 to Kaladesh's $206.49. Or: an online set of Kaladesh is $78.40, and I believe the fee is still $25?
Frontier hype, Modern playability, and international shipping fees/exchange rates will complicate this of course, but as far as I can tell it's almost always safer to buy singles than sealed product, unless you intend to resell that sealed product at some point.
Personally, I've been waiting until sets rotate and picking up sets then (they're nice to have for Cube etc., and you never know when a new format or a niche use within a format will pop up), but I don't like to pay a premium just to have cards sit in my collection. So I try to watch the prices on more in-demand cards (for example, I sold my copies of Collected Company when they were $20 and picked one up for my collection when it bottomed out at $10.
Yeah I've been picking up cards from M15 to BFZ at the moment and have found plenty of good gems in the rough. As much as people are gushing over Aether Revolt right now, there's so many good uncommons and commons in the old Kahns block as well, such as Blood-Chin Rager or Hordeling Outburst. The command cycle was also particularly good from Dragons, and of course there is Collected Company. The only card I'm having serious trouble getting is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, thanks to his price being so high even at his rock bottom of 20 usd.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The whole set has finally been spoiled. I think it will be best to buy the cheap rares and mythics as preorder in the amount you want then wait til after the pro tour to buy the rest. Buy all the commons and uncommons as playsets now as preorder though. I have a feeling some of them will spike in value between release and pro tour. There's definitely more chase cards across multiple formats in this set than I've seen in any other set since I've come back to the game when origins released. Even though origins was a good set it didn't have nearly this many cards to play in multiple formats and strategies. A lot of these cards will fit in commander, standard, modern, and possibly some will see eternal play. with how much this product will be opened for players trying to complete their swords masterpiece collection or trying to crack an ornithopter masterpiece for their commander decks the card prices for the actual set will drop drastically. I still don't think it will be worth it to buy a case. I would say buy a playset of everything then buy a few extras of some of the chase cards that your meta will be looking for then you can trade them off for other stuff from outside this set that you want. I didn't think I would even buy a box of this set but now that I've seen the whole set and kaladesh I think I will end up with a box of each. I've only bought a couple bundles of kaladesh so far because I wasn't sure what prices were going to do. Now that it's stable I think I'm going to get a box then get a box of aer when it comes out and will probably wait to buy singles until they rotate unless it's something I really want for a deck.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
My 720 Peasant Cube
If you want exact numbers, Saffron Olive will do one of these once the set is spoiled, but for now, based on history, opening packs of Magic cards outside of playing limited is gambling. If you like gambling, gamble. Personally, the only time I ever buy a box these days is when I have the time and money to sit down with my wife and play a whole bunch of Sealed... unless and until qualify for the Pro Tour, then you'll probably see me drafting all day and all night.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
You use packs for limited (best way to use a box)
You have loads of decks and the set contains many cards you'll use at all rarities (not just 4-5 cards in the set)
You love to gamble (hey why not)
You want to sit on the box for a decade+ (probably will gain some good value unless a total dud set, cool to have old packs kicking around)
You rich and want the thrill of cracking inventions (loss of value is irrelevant vs the thrill of cracking packs)
Reasons not to buy a box:
Quick flip to make a buck (too much variance)
Build standard decks (just buy singles)
That foil Ornithopter (just buy it individually)
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
I haven't seen this happen in the US, but markets are different in different regions. Here prices on Kaladesh mythics are really depressed and the only thing of real value in the boosters are foil mythics and inventions. I haven't noticed any trouble finding boxes of anything at MSRP recently, except maybe the first Modern Masters.
If it's hard to get sealed product at a decent price in Europe, there might be an arbitrage opportunity there? Depends a bit on conversion rates and shipping charges and such, I suppose.
Suggestions of controls on the secondary market sound a little draconian and also very difficult to enforce. As for playing with random cards you have, it's decades too late to go back to that. If you want that sort of game, play limited. While it is true that it is costly to play Constructed at the top levels, it's certainly not true that you have no potential to become better due to expensive singles. If you simply want to be better at Magic, you can just practice with proxy decks, play on Cockatrice or whatever, read/watch/discuss more content by experienced players. All that costs is time.
Pretty much. Unless you have access to a highly liquid trading market.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The naysayers are many and I tend to agree, generally. That being said, I have done very well cracking boxes going back many years and one can argue that I have been very lucky. From a stricly financial prespective, to get value out of any box you have to move cards quickly before the hype cools off and the set starts getting opened a lot. It also requires recognizing diamonds in the rough and holding on to them as they don't get discovered until pros reveal them to the masses. You also need to be able to predict which cards are way over hyped. Trading hyped cards up for eternal cards that are likely to rise in value helps get the most out of a decent box. Some boxes are just stinkers but one can make the best of them in most cases and just accept that it will happen. Unfortunately all of this requires time, effort, and astute card assessment. Time spent dealing with TCG, Ebay, or meeting up for sales and trades can be excessive. Coming out ahead on buying singles around release time requires similar assessment skills so gains or losses are by no means gauranteed but require a lot less leg work. Just my 2 cents.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Colt47 said you can get ful playsets for the price of a CASE. A case is 6 boxes and they're usually around $480-$540. So no massive profits there...
Frontier hype, Modern playability, and international shipping fees/exchange rates will complicate this of course, but as far as I can tell it's almost always safer to buy singles than sealed product, unless you intend to resell that sealed product at some point.
Personally, I've been waiting until sets rotate and picking up sets then (they're nice to have for Cube etc., and you never know when a new format or a niche use within a format will pop up), but I don't like to pay a premium just to have cards sit in my collection. So I try to watch the prices on more in-demand cards (for example, I sold my copies of Collected Company when they were $20 and picked one up for my collection when it bottomed out at $10.
Yeah I've been picking up cards from M15 to BFZ at the moment and have found plenty of good gems in the rough. As much as people are gushing over Aether Revolt right now, there's so many good uncommons and commons in the old Kahns block as well, such as Blood-Chin Rager or Hordeling Outburst. The command cycle was also particularly good from Dragons, and of course there is Collected Company. The only card I'm having serious trouble getting is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, thanks to his price being so high even at his rock bottom of 20 usd.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!