MTG Salvation

I also disagree with some of Teia's points and I also feel that most people miss one important point. We are going back to Zendikar. People remember the set for fetch lands, landfall and the frist printing's hidden treasures. Those were even more unfair than mythic foils. Most were sold to USA, and it seemed from the data from prereleases that the propability to open one from European made boosters was about one third of the propability in US.

But consider WotC's personel considering those facts, which their market research backs up. First they bring in Landfall and fetches, but allied fetches were just printed and tehy would loose huge amount of reprint equity if they printed enemy fetches so soon. That leaves hidden treasure gimmick left out of the three big hits. When somebody suggests putting enemy fetchlands as hidden treasures, it just clicks. It's a slam dunk idea and much cheaper than purchasing a new batch of old cards to insert to boosters. Making them foils actually makes inserting them into boosters easier and mythic rarity makes them glamorous, so a win all around.

While the reprint cycle has decreased due to demand, (Lot of vocal people have been asking for reprints, as there are so many new players and WotC has seen what dual prices have been doing to Legacys popularity.) I don't see this round of fetches and Shocks as a reprint round, but more of a sequel to hidden treasures. The amount released will be minuscule compared to normal printing, so it will keep the enemy fetches reprint equity high for future sets.

As for the distribution being elitist, these are not really different from foil mythics. One is bit more likely to get one of these than any random foil mythic. Buying a case to draft with friends, will have 1+ of these. These are about twice as rare as any random Mercadian Masques foil rare. During the early foils there was only 40 % chance to open a foil rare in a box.

So while opening one of these is nice, nobody needs specifically these cards to play the game. Just like nobody needs the SDCC planeswalkers to play this game. Feeling disjointed from wanting something you cannot afford and can replace with functionally similar product isn't injustice or unfair. We have to accept that there are pimp cards that are not meant for us and there will be some players who will get four of each to display beside their GURU lands.

WotC has been very good about never printing any promos we have to have to compete, like some other games have done. There's always a set version availlable and while those are not always cheap they are availlable at significant discount compared to the rare promos, like the Judge Force of Will, or even more extreme, Judge basic lands.

So in brief I think you were bit hasty on analyzing the data. I would compare this to the Hidden Treasures gimmick and feel that this printing will not eat the reprint equity at all. I actually suspect that the normal RTR shocks will go up due to new players finding out about them and the mythic foils will add to the mystique of all the cards reprinted this way. I also don't think these cards are any less fair than the mythic rarity in it's totality. Magic is about collectability and with the huge print runs these days there needs to be something to aim for. Only 1100 people can own an alpha Black Lotus and additional 3300 a beta one (And the number should propably be cut by at least 33 % due to damaged and destroyed cards) so WotC needs to have cards that capture the same feel and I believe that Expeditions is a nice way to do so.

One thing that can alleviate the slow availlability of redeemed sets is that uncracked sets will appreciate in value after the redemption window closes. Sealed sets of older expansions will start going up. Some faster than others.

For example I use MCM values:

Journey into Nyx sealed set 99,99 €
Born of the Gods sealed set 94.95 €
Theros sealed set 115 €
Return to Ravnica 119 €
Avacyn Restored Sealed 139 €
Dark Ascension sealed 69.99 €
Innistrad sealed 150 €
New Phyrexia sealed 199 €
Mirrodin Besieged sealed 150 €
Scars of Mirrodin 150+ € (No sealed sets availlable)
Rise of the Eldrazi sealed 316,5 €
Worldwake sealed 199 €
Zendikar 375+ € (no sealed sets availlable)
Shards of Alara-block 99-139 € for sealed sets. Foil sets are also very cheap due to the all-foil boosters. Without a lot of the big cards having seen reprints in MMa, these sets would be somewhat higher.
Eventide, Shadowmoor, Morningtide nor Lorwyn doesn't have any sealed sets on sale currently,
Future Sight sealed 240 €
Planar Chaos doesn't have any sealed sets availlable, but should be around 130 €.

So after Zendikar the availlability becomes an issue, but even the sets that were lowest of the low to redeem (and didn't need the extra 25 $ ticket) sells for over 100$ mark now. Well poor old Dark Ascension, where foil sets sell nicely, but the value of regular sets is really low.

But if WotC will not reprint double sided-cards in MMa2 or 3 and some of the cards keep seeing play, I really doubt that the value will stay that low for long.

So in short, altough online redemptions are not the optimal way to get cards for playing standard, it is a good way to get your modern cards and a great way for dealers to get stock after the initial set of singles they open from (mountains of) packs starts drying out. Also getting few extra sets redeemed can lead to nice gains in value, if you just sit on popular sets for some time. Also big sets are better than small sets, unless the power levels say otherwise.

Sealed foil sets are another interesting avenua for nice gains. I certainly regret I didn't pick foil sets of new Phyrexia up at 240 €, when they were at thei lowest. (And yes I chose the biggest winner set out of the bunch, or maybe Roe ties the title. Full foil set of RoE was 230 € at MCM when the set was 'old news'.)

There was some good info on this going around when SCG bought a pretty unique collection of redeemed foil sets few years back. It had all the redeemable foils sets of the early MTGO, starting from 7th edition into IPA and onward. As those were enough to get SCG buyers really stoked up, one should be able to guess how rare those old sealed foil sets can be.

I love some old cards, but my undying love for Shahrazad is only dampened by the fact that card that is banned in every format can still be worth 40$. Luckily I also like Camel a lot and those are much more affordable so I own 7 Shahrazads and 150+ Camels. But my favourite card is Shahrazad.

Long time ago I tried to break the card in Vintage. Before every monthly Vintage-tournament I would email then Rules rep Rune Horvik and ask him how the rules would work that month. I then mailed his reply to the HJ to get his OK for the conclusions. Last time I tried this Runes reply was: "Let Pasi (The HJ) decide, the card is so strange that we will not rework the rules for making it work."

That was while one could Burning Wish for a Shshrazad which was still resolving in the main game during subgames and Wishing for SB cards got both the Wish and the SB card shuffled into the main game deck after a subgame. I lost 78 points of my Vintage rating due to the card, 1518 rating for the win. I did win a few matches. Or at least two... I even got to a situation where losing matches to decent players didn't lower my rating anymore. For some reason I dropped the deck after half a year of trying and some rules changes made the deck much less robust.