In just two days I am giving away 50 Collector Booster Boxes of Commander Masters! Sign up using my link and get a $15.00 credit to use on whatever you want: www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege Sponsored by WhatNot!
@beliffywu5804 no, it is not. can you show me where wotc said it was premium? (you should understand these are jokes mocking a wotc employees comments not serious)
I've just zenithal primed my Space Marines from the Leviathan box. Best 150 euros ever spent, it's already been hours of fun assembling and priming and I've yet to paint and play. Safe to say I got my money worth.
It's nice to know that you'll be getting what you're going to enjoy. For about the same price as Leviathan you can get 4 collector boosters and then who knows if there will be anything you actually want. With 4 packs the odds seem pretty low.
@@beliffywu5804Not that I care much about my own "lameness" but what kind of hypocrisy do you need to embody to say this in a comment section about trading card game addicts?
C+ is a generous grade. I was hoping to split a box 4 ways with my friends and play sealed, but even with sharing the cost the price is ridiculous. Going to pass on that. Thanks for keeping us informed, Professor!
We decided it would be more interesting to do "sealed commander" (something LRR did recently): 14 packs per person (from a variety of sets), decks are the full 100 cards instead of 60, and trades are allowed.
@@beliffywu5804 The difference is that the entire audience are not content creators. And he himself is one person, not a group of millions. And if you are talking about all the boxes he is giving away - he doesn't buy them, they're sponsored by Whatnot, same with the LOTR ones.
WDYM scaring new players? the game keeps growing and makes more and more money with more and more players every year. The LOTR set is one of the best selling of all times despite being more expensive than a standard set.
Seriously, without the community the game wouldn't exist. WoTC thanks us with $1000 proxy packs and $300-400 reprint sets that collapse in value if someone so much as glances in their general direction. Prof gave it a C, I'll give a it a D for dumpster fire. Fuck WoTC.
@@marcoottina654 What are you talking about? I still play PS2 games. Investing isn't a requirement for some people, just having fun and being entertained can be more valuable. Especially if investing is redundant and they have career paths.
We've gone from Trading Card Game to Collectable Card Game. Used to be so fun to all crack packs and trade and shuffle cards around to make decks, but now the only reason to buy packs is to hopefully get an "investment piece". All of the social side parts of the game have been ripped out.
It's so crazy to me that the most popular format in MTG right now is incredibly social and casually friendly but Wotc somehow hasn't capitalized on that at all. Why aren't there official commander tournaments? Precon 4 packs so groups have an easy point of entry? Hell, commander isn't even on ARENA! Commander is a very social format and Wotc doesn't seem to get that at all. It feels like they're actively trying to discourage people from playing with high prices, avalanches of products, an under supported competitive scene, and confusing product design.
On announcement I was very excited. Then after a few spoilers I was less so but it looked cool. Then the whole set was spoiled and I thought to myself, "That's it? Where are the really exciting reprints?" Now I'll maybe buy some singles after Eldraine is already out
Prices have already plummeted between when this video was recorded and now. I picked up my copy of Exsanguinate, the only other card I was after in this set apart from Demonic Tutor for my mono-black Vampires deck, for 40p/50c. That's absolutely crazy considering last week it was about £3-£4!
I was 100% planning to buy a box before I saw the price. I want a good number of the cards in it, but when I can get an Ulamog for the same price as a booster pack, there's no real point in buying the booster pack I was hoping to pull the Ulamog from, is there? I love opening packs. It's so much more fun to finally find the rare or mythic you've been looking for in a pack, as opposed to just buying it. But when the packs are so expensive and there's so much chaff diluting the pool of rares and mythics, it just makes it nigh-impossible to justify buying a pack, much less a box. For now, I'm going to keep my eye on prices for half a dozen singles and see what happens.
Do you ever do a "Is it Worth it?" revisited, where you discuss if it's worth it three months in or whatever? Or like, a three-month after booster-box game?
@@nanoglitch6693 That's probably a good thing. I fully expect that we'll keep seeing them for a long while, since they probably serve a few long term WotC goals such as the entry cost sustainability of eternal formats, more variety for Limited, and bringing older cards into Arena in manageable batches rather than with full Arena exclusive sets.
There should absolutely be a "premium" product in MTG, filled with rare art, treatment, and serialized cards to push the price. Those cards won't lose value over time and are meant for collectors and high end players. But the set and draft boosters, should have an MSRP geared towards new player entry. Asking a new player to put down $80-120 for a deck or $50-60 for a draft is way more than most newcomers would want to fork over. I recently had about $100 to blow on Magic. In years past that would have been a booster box, maybe a couple of pre-cons. This time around it was just singles. At the end of the day, these prices aren't set by WotC, LGSs, big box stores, or online retailers, it's set by the consumer. As long as players are willing to doll out several hundred dollars, if not thousands of dollars, for these products the prices will remain this high.
I'm glad I preordered the Eldrazi Unbound commander deck when they first announced it back in February for $68. That is still an expensive price but it's better than what I'm seeing now.
Also, unless I missed it, there's no mention in the conversation about how many R/M are worth the price of the pack, is that you get 2-3 rares per pack, which changes the math on that worth considerably. (Up to 5 R/M in set too, though of course those cost more).
@@beliffywu5804 Original duals will never get reprinted, they are on the reserve list. Fetch lands, however, will probably eventually get reprinted again... since they are legal outside Standard and Pioneer, probably in a Modern focused set since Commander is lumped in with Vintage and Legacy because of legal card pool.
Mana Crypt is extremely egregious, it's climbed up to nearly 200 bucks despite being reprinted pretty recently, in a set that had a lot of cards that should have been in a Commander reprint set (Double Masters 2022). Mana Crypt's continued existence in the format is questionable, but it's exceptionally questionable when the gulf between having one Sol Ring and two Sol Rings in your deck is $170.
St Cloud, MN is Set Box $449.99 pre-release ($469.99 on release), Collector box $259.99 pre-release ($279.99 on release). I do not think it is worth that, I'll wait two weeks and buy the singles I need.
Thank you Professor, for spreading REASON rather than hype. It's why I come here, for you honest opinions from a man like me who obviously loves this game. Great advice, I am passing on most commander master's products as I agree the pricing has gotten out of hand. I will wait on most of this and pick up some of the singles!
I appreciate you so much for the in depth analysis. I already wasn’t planning to buy any packs from commander masters, but now I’ve got the data to point to that justifies it further. See you on whatnot!
Recently picked up the game after playing yugioh for years, I really appreciate the type of content you make and other mtg creators make. It makes it so much easier to figure out what to buy.
cant say how many sets youve talked me out of buying into. I was looking forward to this set too as I thought it might have the same turn around as doublemasters 2022 which I was able to do the booster box game 3 times, get the cards I wanted and sell the rest for a near break even by the end.
Wouldn't it have been the same result and less headache to just buy the singles you actually wanted vs playing the booster box game. Not a knock at you, but generally. Your comment caught my attention. Edit- I understand you said you broke even doing it this way but you got lucky. It's always a gamble on what you get.
@@Justadadonthetok it was fun I never do this but the Prof. had a good turnaround over and over so I took a shot and it paid off I pulled boarderless foil manavault which was going for 180 , wrenn and six, 2 eldrazi gods twice and many more I kept loads of them and what I sold let me break even. I also added several to my collection like smothering tithe. It was a good experience. keep in mind I only spent the $350 once.
Think, thus far, this is the set that best exemplifies Prof’s ad nauseum message of “buy singles”. Greed is a very human trait but the recent years have shown that Hasbro/WotC is trying its utmost to show us inhuman greed. Some time back when Prof. invited Gavin for a round of Battlebond fun, I was lamenting why for so many years WotC wasn’t following up that most excellent product with its stellar EV. But now, I do fear a bit that if & when WotC does revisit Battlebond, it’ll b priced no different from the most costly Masters sets.
I think it's worth noting that for the dud rares segment you mentioned Abundance, Decimate, and Jace Mirror Mage. Not a single one of those is actually in boosters, they're all in one of the precons or another which use the same set code. You can tell due to their high collector numbers, even if they don't say how many cards are in the main set anymore.
I remember being so excited at the prospect of Commander Masters when it was announced, and when my boyfriend told me the price months ago I told him in disbelief it would go down, that the set would not be that much for a commander set. Now here we are, with both the still ridiculously high prices and lukewarm reprints in it (honestly, the pricing you showed of the top reprints was quite shocking), and my excitement has dwindled to anger. I certainly won’t be partaking in buying this set, except maybe singles from it from my LGS
@@beliffywu5804the big win is the cards that have never had a reprint, their price will definitely stay lower than it would have been, in some cases the lack of a reprint being the only reason they were ever over $100
My husband ended up sitting out of last weekends draft because it was too expensive. I was surprised because it meant he missed magic, but I get it now. Love these in-depth explanations about overpriced new products.
holy shit ! i made the calculation, and this is not a joke ! it's even less than the real value (around 12 000 $ for my local price) Is this it ? magic cards is worth more than gold ? You sell your house, and your car, you can get ... 20 collector booster pack, what a great deal XD
@@origaminosferatu3357 It's a good hill to die on amongst the other crappy shit WotC made making that unwanted abomination of a set...imagine making an man-made scarcity on a piece of cardboard like the one ring lol
Great review prof! I agree with you, and think the contents of the packs and cannot justify the price. Buying singles is the way to go after prices drop a bit
I felt like the calculated references to gambling were on point, and certainly were considered in their effect. He really went out of his way to hammer that line home a few times and hopefully if wizards wants to keep shooting for the moon with their agreed this will draw the attention should from legislators.
I had friends who were so excited for this set, waited all year, evenmkre excited for it than LOTR. They were lived when they saw the prices and realized they can't engage in the sealed experience at all. Keeping new cards limited to the precons is also a huge slap in the face
Super sad it’s so expensive, locally in Australia it’s looking like a $75 AUD draft, I don’t have the kind of income to play the draft format which is a bummer, I loved both the Commander Legends draft sets and this third one I’m gonna have to miss. Also little video correction, the Jace, Mirror Mage printing is in the Planeswalker precon not in draft boosters, all the monocoloured planeswalker commanders from a past precon cycle in it though!
I like some of the full art card designs and will probably grab some of those at some point but not planning on buying any boxes to crack open which I normally like to do.
To give you a price comparison our draft booster boxes are $524, our Set booster boxes are $710 and collector boosters are $367. We get absolutely screwed over in pricing overseas because there is no MSRP for stores to abide by and these prices above were from a WPN game store, absolutely disgusting pricing.
These really becoming an excersize on how many ways to say no. Wilds of Eldraine seems like it will actually be good and worth it. I do love that my LGS's are having a launch event for Commander Masters with the entry fee being purchase one of the precons to play in the event. Not paying $99.99 (local LGS price) for an average precon. Bought my Riders of Rohan precon for less than half that and it's just as good if not better than most the CM precons.
Of course Prof is right - as much as I've seen plenty of people having fun drafting CMM (LRR, for example), the fact of the matter is, Masters sets should not have Draft Boosters. Set boosters and Collector boosters should be the whole set. It's all reprints, the goal is to let players get at the cards that see usage in the game we all play. That's the whole point. Right? So they should be "fill out your collection and get some bling in the process" boosters. If people want to draft cards in the set, hey here's a thought maybe WotC can put some time into helping people create their own cubes, sell official cube merch and post guides on creating good draft formats and such.
The big issue I feel with having a draft environment for something that's specifically a reprint set is that the set itself gets pulled in two different directions; one side being the draft environment, and the other being the "lottery" aspect of the packs (where the value is). I'd rather there just be set boosters with a focus on high value reprints across the board, common to rare. At least Dread Return is pauper legal!
For the price of 1 draft box commander masters you could almost get 4 draft boxes of commander legends bfbg. 3/4th that price would be closer to something I'd consider buying but then there is still too much bulk in it for my taste.
Right? I'd rather spend $400 on TWO boxes from a previous set if I wanted to Crack packs and get fun stuff. Or I'd spend $400 on upgrades for current decks, OR $400 on 2 or 3 new decks with some higher powered cards in them. $400 for one box is asinine!
I've drafted the set twice. My first draft I walked away with a borderless Jeweled Lotus, Selvala, and Razaketh, as well as bunch of smaller things (Ashnod's Altar, Mangara, Exsanguinate). My second draft my most expensive pull was a Sol Ring. C+ feels appropriate.
wotc: lets make a set that's stupidly expensive. then immediately after. the next set includes same mythic powerhouse cards for hella cheap? wotc: yes. good idea
I 100% agree with your final point that the sku selections were wrong for this targeted commander set. If I were releasing it, Set booster boxes, and bundles, and collector boosters would be the way to go. I wouldn't even have made commander decks, except maybe to re-release the top 4-5 previous ones in full.
I wonder if the supplemental product team and the main set teams at WOTC compare work. Back to back reprint (though ecstatic to have them) seems like a failure in collaboration
The problem I have with this set is that I have the vast majority of the cards in it already, so they'll mostly be going straight into trades. The only ones I don't have are the tempting but OP cards which are ~1/100 of actually pulling; Doubling Season, Lotus, Deflecting Swat, Deadly Rollick... but these are also cards which should never have been printed or are way too hardcore for our *"Casual Format"* (with extremely heavy air quotes), so I'm not sure I really want them anyway.
The thing that makes bonus sheet cards so beloved is that they're pure upside. It doesn't matter if you open a dud bonus sheet card, because it's just a free add-in. What sucks so much about these (not) premium reprint sets is that you still have the dud rares and mythics, but you *are* paying a premium for the pack. I know Wizards says its to raise the excitement for when you open a valuable card, but I don't know about you all, but I've never felt "excited" to open a valuable card from an expensive set, I've only felt relief and a sense of "finally" which is not a great feeling to instill in someone if you intend on them opening a lot of your product.
I was hoping that this video was going to be like 70 seconds (10 seconds to say no and 60 seconds for a sponsor) Alas, actual content. Good stuff Prof!
It's stuff like this that is making me hopeful that Lorcana does well. MTG players don't even need to like or play it, but if it does well enough, it will draw players away from MTG, which might finally convince Hasbro to start lowering their prices to try to lure players back.
Lorcana is going to be a Disney advertisement printed on small pieces of cardboard. They already stated to have no intention to balance the game cause the game "isn't too casual or too competitive". I was really hopeful but truth is Disney can just pump money into it and will survive even if it's a hell scape of a game, supported by Disney fans. I think I will just take a look into Battle Spirit Saga or Digimon.
I can say without a doubt that I am the target audience for this set. I recently got into commander this year and don't really have an extensive collection, but I do very much enjoy deckbuilding and playing with my playgroup as we all evolve into better players. Couldn't be more excited to crack open my first set and be flooded with juicy commander staples to start out my collection, despite the $400 plus tax and shipping I reluctantly shilled out for it.
As someone who has played commander for a while now you definitely would be better off buying singles or packs from older sets. There are plenty of cards that you can make work in commander from normal sets. I love cracking packs as much as everyone else, but when the packs cost this much? You're not getting much value out of it.
Here in Montreal, Quebec, canada, draft boosters are 19.99$ +tx (15%) = 22.99$, set boosters are 24.99$ +tx= 28.75$ and collector boosters are 89.99$ + tx=103.48$ WHICH IS RIDICULOUSLY INSANE. In comparison, a collector booster for LOTR right now is from 49.99$ to 59.99$ , a double masters pack is about 24.99$, a mystery booster is 14.99$. I think this set is BY FAR the most expensive with so little chance to get a thing. Yeah it's gambling but this set is gambling and being screwed over for the price
Many Magic: The Gathering players know the answer, its never worth it to buy a booster box at over 400 euro! Love to vids as usual professor, but Commander Masters has deeply upset me from the outrageous price points. You could tell me the second coming of Christ could be in those packs and I won't be buying at those absurd prices.
So excited for the stream on the 4th, a streamer I enjoy with drops/a giveaway I'm actually interested in? That's a no brainer professor. Bless your soul.
We can copy the Prof snd proxy them all .. no need to even buy singles! We can out do the prof by proxying in every card to play with our friends .. we will all save a fortune!
For sure - reprints sets would be an awesome place to see known packages of cards. Make a set of 20 card packs or so with no unknowns except perhaps some alternative art.
I think you're being beyond generous in giving this a C+. At best, this is a D+ for me - Even then, the precons are where my interest is, but not for the price theyre at.
I have a good relationship with my LGS - been friends with the owner a long time. We live in rural Canada but still have a decent sized player base. The ridiculous price hike on product in general (not just this set) and increase in shipping costs is destroying our paper MtG scene. For this set’s prerelease: if my local LGS sold the prerelease kits at a little over $90, he would have been breaking even - not even making a profit off the kits (not to mention having to keep the store open after regular hours to run events). The corporate decisions of the past year have felt like a death knell for the hobby. At least in my neck of the woods 😢
$160 for draft ( $140 if not premium 😅 ) $200 set and $300/$320 collectors 12 pks. I would consider that reasonable. For next Masters release, chop those prices in half, doubt there will be a card worth more than $10 bucks (excluding RL, which I'm sure is WOTC next target)
Professor makes a great last point! If WotC had ONLY printed SET boosters, but at the price point of what they did Draft, I think this Masters set may have been an amazing product for all MtG Commander players who wanted to expand their inventory for their future deck builds. Had WotC priced and advertised the product this way, it would have been a win/win!
In France, draft booster packs cost 18€ (which is about 20$), commander packs sell for 115€. I don't think I have ever seen a product that is that far from its actual worth. Hopefully the price of singles will drop, but I don't know how many people will open those booster packs.
Always appreciate your videos. The singles I need for my deck. I can buy all of them for around 50 bucks. No way I’m ripping any of these. 15-16 a set booster? That is literally insane….
My lgs here in oregon is selling the lrecons for : eldrazy $120, sliver -$110, enchatments -$75 and planeswalker -$65. I happened to pick up the sliver one from amazon in time when it was $80. I have a sliver deck i made but will mainly steal most of the cards from the precon for mine or make two different ones. My lgs also sells the set booster box for $375, draft for $300, and collectors $240. Big nope. I made an exception for slivers bexause slivers. But thats insane. I dont even buy boxes. Mainly singles as much as I can. Ive even considered other local lgs to shop around because this one is really raising their prices and its one of the bigger stores we have here in salem.
I drafted this last night. It was the best fun I’ve had playing Magic in a LONG time. I can’t believe it but I am actually considering buying a draft box.
The set boosters shouldn't be more than 10 dollars a pack. There is too much bulk in the set. It's hard to even justify picking up a single booster pack just for fun because it honestly will probably be disappointing.
I know the topic is Commander Masters, but on that mention of Mystical Archive; I loved the spell in Strixhaven, loved the artifacts in Brothers’ War, will probably love the Enchantments. Can’t wait for the Planeswalker archive haha.
Good luck on whatnot, everyone. I’ll be sitting the giveaways out from now on because life. But much love to the prof. for doing these giveaways, even if they are sponsored.
My problem with some of the includes in Commander Masters also involves the art used. For an example, let's look at Doubling Season. It has had three art choices that would fit in the current frame, which is actually slightly different than how it first looked in m15, the other two haven't gotten reprinted since that initial set for that art. And while Battlebond's does tie it to Valor's Reach Stadium on Kylem, It's rather hard to tell that the first art for it was on Ravnica, much less tie in with unofficial Selesnya.
Im super excited to draft this set next week with my friends! I bought the whole box myself and Im hoping to keep a lot of the staples at uncommon and common since I just started playing and keep anything I would want to play, and then sell the rest and hope the fun we got out it was worth the difference in price for me!
Was thinking about getting a pack or two, but thanks to your video I will just get the cards as singles. What I am after may cost more than a pack, but a lot less value in trades than I thought. Thank you for the video.
CMM is totally undraftable for me with that price. I love Masters Sets, they're like high power cubes but you can take home stuff. But as wotc has continued to crank the price without any real trade off, the whole point of a masters set is being lost. Even half the price this would be a much more fun product. I wonder if going forward stuff like mystical archive, brothers war Artifacts, and now eldraine is really how reprints should be done. Those are all how the List should have been. An exciting and much needed selection of cards that can be used in the draft experience. The List should be a masters like reprint that ties into the set and isn't filled with land reprints or 100 other cards diluting it.
I like a lot of the cards in this set. And honestly drafting a set with cards like Smothering Tithe and Mirri Weatherlight duelist sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but these packs are too dang expensive to do that. I really wish they weren't trying to inflate mtg prices so much like they are right now.
120 for drafts 160 for sets. I would be happy with those prices. I only get expensive boxes if I have enough trade in credit :/ but since playing I've been holding onto a lot more cards. its rough out here G's.
honestly, a rare professor w (when it comes to new magic products) ill be there side by side calling out how expensive this set it, while i show you my pauper stickers deck and my pauper initiative deck
![MISSING: SLIM SHADY [Expanded Mourner’s Edition Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xh8qgHrOO1g/mqdefault.jpg)
In just two days I am giving away 50 Collector Booster Boxes of Commander Masters! Sign up using my link and get a $15.00 credit to use on whatever you want: www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege Sponsored by WhatNot!
Are you sure about a Friday stream again? Last time we destroyed the entire WhatNot platform....
I had one question, Professor.
Is this give away for any country or just the United States?
@@dcrow9650 On the start of the cideo he said he will ship anywhere in the world he is allowed to do so
Is the giveaway US only?
Has What Not updated their infrastructure so your stream doesn’t break their site again? Lol.
Ngl I thought this was gonna be a 5 second video where the prof just says no and ends the video 🤣
Dang it, I click and was gonna comment something similar
If video length wasn’t a big factor in how much money he makes it probably would have been
I was hoping that. I really love when he pulled that one
I thought this too lol
He likes talking too much to do that 😜.
Remember - this is not a premium product. Just the price is.
no... it is still a premium product...lol
@@beliffywu5804no wizards of the coast said it wasn't. That they never said it was.
@@beliffywu5804 it really isnt
@beliffywu5804 no, it is not. can you show me where wotc said it was premium? (you should understand these are jokes mocking a wotc employees comments not serious)
@@beliffywu5804 It is not.
We're reaching the point where magic products are unironically becoming more expensive than Warhammer 40k ones... what a time to be alive
I've just zenithal primed my Space Marines from the Leviathan box. Best 150 euros ever spent, it's already been hours of fun assembling and priming and I've yet to paint and play. Safe to say I got my money worth.
It's nice to know that you'll be getting what you're going to enjoy. For about the same price as Leviathan you can get 4 collector boosters and then who knows if there will be anything you actually want. With 4 packs the odds seem pretty low.
seriously who plays warhammer? bunch of lame people I guess....
@@beliffywu5804Not that I care much about my own "lameness" but what kind of hypocrisy do you need to embody to say this in a comment section about trading card game addicts?
@@francisserpa4465did a double take when I realized you wrote boosters, not bundles. It's easy to get price blind when looking at hobbies, but jez
C+ is a generous grade. I was hoping to split a box 4 ways with my friends and play sealed, but even with sharing the cost the price is ridiculous. Going to pass on that. Thanks for keeping us informed, Professor!
Same same. I was excited to draft this with my friends, but it's just too much for "casuals" like us...
We decided it would be more interesting to do "sealed commander" (something LRR did recently): 14 packs per person (from a variety of sets), decks are the full 100 cards instead of 60, and trades are allowed.
Same lmao, like hell I’ll ever buy them this expensive, buy singles
Same, but I don't have enough friends that would want to pay that
Print pictures of the cards and sleeve them up in front of lands, then draft that as a cube.
All the fun for a fraction of the price!
Wizards: continues to raise prices, scaring off new players.
Professor: continues to put out incredible content, welcoming new players. ❤
and buying tons of the stuff himself... so lecturing on one thing while doing another is... meh
@@beliffywu5804 The difference is that the entire audience are not content creators. And he himself is one person, not a group of millions.
And if you are talking about all the boxes he is giving away - he doesn't buy them, they're sponsored by Whatnot, same with the LOTR ones.
@@beliffywu5804 a sponsor bought those, looks like he only got draft boosters
WDYM scaring new players? the game keeps growing and makes more and more money with more and more players every year. The LOTR set is one of the best selling of all times despite being more expensive than a standard set.
Seriously, without the community the game wouldn't exist. WoTC thanks us with $1000 proxy packs and $300-400 reprint sets that collapse in value if someone so much as glances in their general direction. Prof gave it a C, I'll give a it a D for dumpster fire. Fuck WoTC.
In Canada set boxes are 600$
Sorry fuck no, I’m buying a PS5
cards last almost indefinitely, a PS5 around 10 years of substantial use, but the latter is still a better investment.
I mean you can say that but unless you've a library of ps4 games you'll still be paying more money for games
@@marcoottina654 What are you talking about? I still play PS2 games. Investing isn't a requirement for some people, just having fun and being entertained can be more valuable.
Especially if investing is redundant and they have career paths.
@@modtyrant1784 stop crying
thats CAD or USD? there is quite significant difference.
We've gone from Trading Card Game to Collectable Card Game. Used to be so fun to all crack packs and trade and shuffle cards around to make decks, but now the only reason to buy packs is to hopefully get an "investment piece". All of the social side parts of the game have been ripped out.
It's so crazy to me that the most popular format in MTG right now is incredibly social and casually friendly but Wotc somehow hasn't capitalized on that at all. Why aren't there official commander tournaments? Precon 4 packs so groups have an easy point of entry? Hell, commander isn't even on ARENA! Commander is a very social format and Wotc doesn't seem to get that at all. It feels like they're actively trying to discourage people from playing with high prices, avalanches of products, an under supported competitive scene, and confusing product design.
These prices are bonkers. Time to hit up MPC proxies.
Really happy with the ones I got, thanks WotC for telling us proxies are totally ok for you.
The professor's chaotic sponsor bits are top tier. Keep renewing that contract WhatNot.
On announcement I was very excited. Then after a few spoilers I was less so but it looked cool. Then the whole set was spoiled and I thought to myself, "That's it? Where are the really exciting reprints?"
Now I'll maybe buy some singles after Eldraine is already out
Prices have already plummeted between when this video was recorded and now. I picked up my copy of Exsanguinate, the only other card I was after in this set apart from Demonic Tutor for my mono-black Vampires deck, for 40p/50c. That's absolutely crazy considering last week it was about £3-£4!
I was 100% planning to buy a box before I saw the price. I want a good number of the cards in it, but when I can get an Ulamog for the same price as a booster pack, there's no real point in buying the booster pack I was hoping to pull the Ulamog from, is there?
I love opening packs. It's so much more fun to finally find the rare or mythic you've been looking for in a pack, as opposed to just buying it. But when the packs are so expensive and there's so much chaff diluting the pool of rares and mythics, it just makes it nigh-impossible to justify buying a pack, much less a box.
For now, I'm going to keep my eye on prices for half a dozen singles and see what happens.
Same here. Horrible and incomprehensive pricing on this.
Do you ever do a "Is it Worth it?" revisited, where you discuss if it's worth it three months in or whatever? Or like, a three-month after booster-box game?
For future reference stuff like the mystical archive is called a bonus sheet. This includes mystical archive, retro artifacts, and multiverse legends.
I like getting bonus sheet. 🙂
@@nanoglitch6693 me too :D
@@nanoglitch6693 That's probably a good thing. I fully expect that we'll keep seeing them for a long while, since they probably serve a few long term WotC goals such as the entry cost sustainability of eternal formats, more variety for Limited, and bringing older cards into Arena in manageable batches rather than with full Arena exclusive sets.
There should absolutely be a "premium" product in MTG, filled with rare art, treatment, and serialized cards to push the price. Those cards won't lose value over time and are meant for collectors and high end players. But the set and draft boosters, should have an MSRP geared towards new player entry. Asking a new player to put down $80-120 for a deck or $50-60 for a draft is way more than most newcomers would want to fork over. I recently had about $100 to blow on Magic. In years past that would have been a booster box, maybe a couple of pre-cons. This time around it was just singles. At the end of the day, these prices aren't set by WotC, LGSs, big box stores, or online retailers, it's set by the consumer. As long as players are willing to doll out several hundred dollars, if not thousands of dollars, for these products the prices will remain this high.
I'm glad I preordered the Eldrazi Unbound commander deck when they first announced it back in February for $68. That is still an expensive price but it's better than what I'm seeing now.
Same here
Same but with 2 Doctor Who decks for $50 since they are going up.
I jumped on this video faster than mono red jumps at the chance to play blood moon. Thanks for the content Prof!
There should totally be a blood moon 4 every color that be cool
@@christopherreid4782I think it's nicer if it's unique
@@christopherreid4782 That'd be incredibly nice, rewarding mono colored decks in a multi colored format
I love the bit where you grabbed all the collectors
FYI Jace, Mirror Mage doesn't come in the booster packs, he's in the precon only
Also, unless I missed it, there's no mention in the conversation about how many R/M are worth the price of the pack, is that you get 2-3 rares per pack, which changes the math on that worth considerably. (Up to 5 R/M in set too, though of course those cost more).
Was just about to comment this exact thing
I think he can be found in the packs in the commander slot of the pack that contains cards specific to the precon decks, so you could see him.
Precon slot is usually only in collector boosters right?
Once again we see the flaw of the varied packs system: not being able to keep straight what is in them.
There are OBVIOUS things missing. Commander plate, mana vault, mana crypt, etc.
dual and fetch lands
@@beliffywu5804Temples for the wiiiiinnnnn
Those come in Commander Masters II, III & IV, etc.
@@beliffywu5804 Original duals will never get reprinted, they are on the reserve list. Fetch lands, however, will probably eventually get reprinted again... since they are legal outside Standard and Pioneer, probably in a Modern focused set since Commander is lumped in with Vintage and Legacy because of legal card pool.
Mana Crypt is extremely egregious, it's climbed up to nearly 200 bucks despite being reprinted pretty recently, in a set that had a lot of cards that should have been in a Commander reprint set (Double Masters 2022). Mana Crypt's continued existence in the format is questionable, but it's exceptionally questionable when the gulf between having one Sol Ring and two Sol Rings in your deck is $170.
St Cloud, MN is Set Box $449.99 pre-release ($469.99 on release), Collector box $259.99 pre-release ($279.99 on release). I do not think it is worth that, I'll wait two weeks and buy the singles I need.
Thank you Professor, for spreading REASON rather than hype. It's why I come here, for you honest opinions from a man like me who obviously loves this game. Great advice, I am passing on most commander master's products as I agree the pricing has gotten out of hand. I will wait on most of this and pick up some of the singles!
I appreciate you so much for the in depth analysis. I already wasn’t planning to buy any packs from commander masters, but now I’ve got the data to point to that justifies it further. See you on whatnot!
Recently picked up the game after playing yugioh for years, I really appreciate the type of content you make and other mtg creators make. It makes it so much easier to figure out what to buy.
cant say how many sets youve talked me out of buying into. I was looking forward to this set too as I thought it might have the same turn around as doublemasters 2022 which I was able to do the booster box game 3 times, get the cards I wanted and sell the rest for a near break even by the end.
Wouldn't it have been the same result and less headache to just buy the singles you actually wanted vs playing the booster box game. Not a knock at you, but generally. Your comment caught my attention. Edit- I understand you said you broke even doing it this way but you got lucky. It's always a gamble on what you get.
@@Justadadonthetok it was fun I never do this but the Prof. had a good turnaround over and over so I took a shot and it paid off I pulled boarderless foil manavault which was going for 180 , wrenn and six, 2 eldrazi gods twice and many more I kept loads of them and what I sold let me break even. I also added several to my collection like smothering tithe. It was a good experience. keep in mind I only spent the $350 once.
@@xmenwolverineX fair and what a haul.
Think, thus far, this is the set that best exemplifies Prof’s ad nauseum message of “buy singles”. Greed is a very human trait but the recent years have shown that Hasbro/WotC is trying its utmost to show us inhuman greed.
Some time back when Prof. invited Gavin for a round of Battlebond fun, I was lamenting why for so many years WotC wasn’t following up that most excellent product with its stellar EV. But now, I do fear a bit that if & when WotC does revisit Battlebond, it’ll b priced no different from the most costly Masters sets.
I think it's worth noting that for the dud rares segment you mentioned Abundance, Decimate, and Jace Mirror Mage. Not a single one of those is actually in boosters, they're all in one of the precons or another which use the same set code. You can tell due to their high collector numbers, even if they don't say how many cards are in the main set anymore.
I remember being so excited at the prospect of Commander Masters when it was announced, and when my boyfriend told me the price months ago I told him in disbelief it would go down, that the set would not be that much for a commander set. Now here we are, with both the still ridiculously high prices and lukewarm reprints in it (honestly, the pricing you showed of the top reprints was quite shocking), and my excitement has dwindled to anger. I certainly won’t be partaking in buying this set, except maybe singles from it from my LGS
I was amazed how singles prices tanked even before release. Well better for me, in a month i will be picking up those for a few cents.
Really excited to finally grab a copy of doubling season, but where is parallel lives?
LOL. keep dreaming buddy boy. people always say that... but then they drop like 10 to 20% then go back to where they were
@@BooAxe I have like 10 copies of parallel lives and no doubling season. funny
@@beliffywu5804the big win is the cards that have never had a reprint, their price will definitely stay lower than it would have been, in some cases the lack of a reprint being the only reason they were ever over $100
My husband ended up sitting out of last weekends draft because it was too expensive. I was surprised because it meant he missed magic, but I get it now. Love these in-depth explanations about overpriced new products.
Just casually juggling about $10K worth of product there with those collector boxes :P
@@MrCenturion13true. Even the collector packs for lotr are stacking up around in stores near me.
@@MrCenturion13 really dude?? It's enough to stop you buying an entire set because they made one character black?? What a hill to die on.
holy shit ! i made the calculation, and this is not a joke ! it's even less than the real value (around 12 000 $ for my local price)
Is this it ? magic cards is worth more than gold ?
You sell your house, and your car, you can get ... 20 collector booster pack, what a great deal XD
@@origaminosferatu3357 It's a good hill to die on amongst the other crappy shit WotC made making that unwanted abomination of a set...imagine making an man-made scarcity on a piece of cardboard like the one ring lol
Been having a really rough mental health week, thanks for the upload, always brings light to my day
Great review prof! I agree with you, and think the contents of the packs and cannot justify the price. Buying singles is the way to go after prices drop a bit
I felt like the calculated references to gambling were on point, and certainly were considered in their effect. He really went out of his way to hammer that line home a few times and hopefully if wizards wants to keep shooting for the moon with their agreed this will draw the attention should from legislators.
I had friends who were so excited for this set, waited all year, evenmkre excited for it than LOTR. They were lived when they saw the prices and realized they can't engage in the sealed experience at all. Keeping new cards limited to the precons is also a huge slap in the face
Super sad it’s so expensive, locally in Australia it’s looking like a $75 AUD draft, I don’t have the kind of income to play the draft format which is a bummer, I loved both the Commander Legends draft sets and this third one I’m gonna have to miss.
Also little video correction, the Jace, Mirror Mage printing is in the Planeswalker precon not in draft boosters, all the monocoloured planeswalker commanders from a past precon cycle in it though!
My LGS is charging $90AUD and still taking a loss
To me, THIS was the kind of set to do the aftermath style packs that don't have commons.
I like some of the full art card designs and will probably grab some of those at some point but not planning on buying any boxes to crack open which I normally like to do.
To give you a price comparison our draft booster boxes are $524, our Set booster boxes are $710 and collector boosters are $367. We get absolutely screwed over in pricing overseas because there is no MSRP for stores to abide by and these prices above were from a WPN game store, absolutely disgusting pricing.
These really becoming an excersize on how many ways to say no. Wilds of Eldraine seems like it will actually be good and worth it. I do love that my LGS's are having a launch event for Commander Masters with the entry fee being purchase one of the precons to play in the event. Not paying $99.99 (local LGS price) for an average precon. Bought my Riders of Rohan precon for less than half that and it's just as good if not better than most the CM precons.
Of course Prof is right - as much as I've seen plenty of people having fun drafting CMM (LRR, for example), the fact of the matter is, Masters sets should not have Draft Boosters. Set boosters and Collector boosters should be the whole set. It's all reprints, the goal is to let players get at the cards that see usage in the game we all play. That's the whole point. Right? So they should be "fill out your collection and get some bling in the process" boosters. If people want to draft cards in the set, hey here's a thought maybe WotC can put some time into helping people create their own cubes, sell official cube merch and post guides on creating good draft formats and such.
Thanks for the work Prof, definitely needed this after how horrible this day has been.
Things will get better, hang in there. 🖤👍
Hope your day gets better!
Hope your day gets better bud
The big issue I feel with having a draft environment for something that's specifically a reprint set is that the set itself gets pulled in two different directions; one side being the draft environment, and the other being the "lottery" aspect of the packs (where the value is). I'd rather there just be set boosters with a focus on high value reprints across the board, common to rare.
At least Dread Return is pauper legal!
5:50
Someone got a hold of a pack at Target early and it went for $18 USD :(
Love you dude! This channel literally saved me from depression
For the price of 1 draft box commander masters you could almost get 4 draft boxes of commander legends bfbg. 3/4th that price would be closer to something I'd consider buying but then there is still too much bulk in it for my taste.
Right? I'd rather spend $400 on TWO boxes from a previous set if I wanted to Crack packs and get fun stuff. Or I'd spend $400 on upgrades for current decks, OR $400 on 2 or 3 new decks with some higher powered cards in them.
$400 for one box is asinine!
I was really looking forward to this particular set as a Commander-only player but the price tag killed it for me.
The Whatnot promo seemed like a skit right out of Rick and Morty and it's hilarious😂😂😂
yes!! I thought I was the only who noticed it, it reallyy felt like Rick n Morty
I can never not say the "Many Magic The Gathering players ask the question" line along with you
I've drafted the set twice. My first draft I walked away with a borderless Jeweled Lotus, Selvala, and Razaketh, as well as bunch of smaller things (Ashnod's Altar, Mangara, Exsanguinate). My second draft my most expensive pull was a Sol Ring. C+ feels appropriate.
Draft packs of edh reprint sets can make for fun drafts if they don't load it with chaff and if it costed like $20 instead of $60.
wotc: lets make a set that's stupidly expensive. then immediately after. the next set includes same mythic powerhouse cards for hella cheap?
wotc: yes. good idea
I 100% agree with your final point that the sku selections were wrong for this targeted commander set. If I were releasing it, Set booster boxes, and bundles, and collector boosters would be the way to go. I wouldn't even have made commander decks, except maybe to re-release the top 4-5 previous ones in full.
I wonder if the supplemental product team and the main set teams at WOTC compare work. Back to back reprint (though ecstatic to have them) seems like a failure in collaboration
The problem I have with this set is that I have the vast majority of the cards in it already, so they'll mostly be going straight into trades. The only ones I don't have are the tempting but OP cards which are ~1/100 of actually pulling; Doubling Season, Lotus, Deflecting Swat, Deadly Rollick... but these are also cards which should never have been printed or are way too hardcore for our *"Casual Format"* (with extremely heavy air quotes), so I'm not sure I really want them anyway.
Sets like this are why I like to buy singles.
The thing that makes bonus sheet cards so beloved is that they're pure upside. It doesn't matter if you open a dud bonus sheet card, because it's just a free add-in. What sucks so much about these (not) premium reprint sets is that you still have the dud rares and mythics, but you *are* paying a premium for the pack. I know Wizards says its to raise the excitement for when you open a valuable card, but I don't know about you all, but I've never felt "excited" to open a valuable card from an expensive set, I've only felt relief and a sense of "finally" which is not a great feeling to instill in someone if you intend on them opening a lot of your product.
My luck I'll win a box and it will be one of the ones tossed on the ground all dented 😂
I was hoping that this video was going to be like 70 seconds (10 seconds to say no and 60 seconds for a sponsor)
Alas, actual content. Good stuff Prof!
It's stuff like this that is making me hopeful that Lorcana does well. MTG players don't even need to like or play it, but if it does well enough, it will draw players away from MTG, which might finally convince Hasbro to start lowering their prices to try to lure players back.
Lorcana is going to be a Disney advertisement printed on small pieces of cardboard. They already stated to have no intention to balance the game cause the game "isn't too casual or too competitive". I was really hopeful but truth is Disney can just pump money into it and will survive even if it's a hell scape of a game, supported by Disney fans. I think I will just take a look into Battle Spirit Saga or Digimon.
I can say without a doubt that I am the target audience for this set. I recently got into commander this year and don't really have an extensive collection, but I do very much enjoy deckbuilding and playing with my playgroup as we all evolve into better players.
Couldn't be more excited to crack open my first set and be flooded with juicy commander staples to start out my collection, despite the $400 plus tax and shipping I reluctantly shilled out for it.
As someone who has played commander for a while now you definitely would be better off buying singles or packs from older sets.
There are plenty of cards that you can make work in commander from normal sets. I love cracking packs as much as everyone else, but when the packs cost this much? You're not getting much value out of it.
Thats a ton of money.
What is wrong with WOTC?
Because: Hasbro
Here in Montreal, Quebec, canada, draft boosters are 19.99$ +tx (15%) = 22.99$, set boosters are 24.99$ +tx= 28.75$ and collector boosters are 89.99$ + tx=103.48$ WHICH IS RIDICULOUSLY INSANE. In comparison, a collector booster for LOTR right now is from 49.99$ to 59.99$ , a double masters pack is about 24.99$, a mystery booster is 14.99$. I think this set is BY FAR the most expensive with so little chance to get a thing. Yeah it's gambling but this set is gambling and being screwed over for the price
Many Magic: The Gathering players know the answer, its never worth it to buy a booster box at over 400 euro!
Love to vids as usual professor, but Commander Masters has deeply upset me from the outrageous price points. You could tell me the second coming of Christ could be in those packs and I won't be buying at those absurd prices.
So excited for the stream on the 4th, a streamer I enjoy with drops/a giveaway I'm actually interested in? That's a no brainer professor. Bless your soul.
I was honestly planning on drafting but I've not been in the loop. Didn't realize this set was that expensive. Might have to pass on that draft 😢
Professor really channeled the Interdimensional Cable during the sponsored part of the video.
We can copy the Prof snd proxy them all .. no need to even buy singles! We can out do the prof by proxying in every card to play with our friends .. we will all save a fortune!
For sure - reprints sets would be an awesome place to see known packages of cards. Make a set of 20 card packs or so with no unknowns except perhaps some alternative art.
I think you're being beyond generous in giving this a C+. At best, this is a D+ for me - Even then, the precons are where my interest is, but not for the price theyre at.
I have a good relationship with my LGS - been friends with the owner a long time. We live in rural Canada but still have a decent sized player base. The ridiculous price hike on product in general (not just this set) and increase in shipping costs is destroying our paper MtG scene. For this set’s prerelease: if my local LGS sold the prerelease kits at a little over $90, he would have been breaking even - not even making a profit off the kits (not to mention having to keep the store open after regular hours to run events).
The corporate decisions of the past year have felt like a death knell for the hobby. At least in my neck of the woods 😢
Thank you for the impressive review. You may have been generous with your grade.
In Europe (At least the Canary Island in Spain) they are selling the set box at ALMOST 500€... Just incredible.
In fact ive just seen, in amazon the box is 552€ :)
The giveaway announcement reminds me of when Morty gets upset about something, "get your sh** together Summer!" 🤣
$160 for draft ( $140 if not premium 😅 ) $200 set and $300/$320 collectors 12 pks. I would consider that reasonable.
For next Masters release, chop those prices in half, doubt there will be a card worth more than $10 bucks (excluding RL, which I'm sure is WOTC next target)
Professor makes a great last point! If WotC had ONLY printed SET boosters, but at the price point of what they did Draft, I think this Masters set may have been an amazing product for all MtG Commander players who wanted to expand their inventory for their future deck builds. Had WotC priced and advertised the product this way, it would have been a win/win!
I like how the Professor sounded like Rick and Morty ending a season with their chaotic, frantic rant about the collector booster box give away
In France, draft booster packs cost 18€ (which is about 20$), commander packs sell for 115€. I don't think I have ever seen a product that is that far from its actual worth. Hopefully the price of singles will drop, but I don't know how many people will open those booster packs.
Loved this lengthy breakdown of WHY the recommendation is what it is.
Always appreciate your videos. The singles I need for my deck. I can buy all of them for around 50 bucks. No way I’m ripping any of these. 15-16 a set booster? That is literally insane….
My lgs here in oregon is selling the lrecons for : eldrazy $120, sliver -$110, enchatments -$75 and planeswalker -$65. I happened to pick up the sliver one from amazon in time when it was $80. I have a sliver deck i made but will mainly steal most of the cards from the precon for mine or make two different ones.
My lgs also sells the set booster box for $375, draft for $300, and collectors $240. Big nope. I made an exception for slivers bexause slivers. But thats insane. I dont even buy boxes. Mainly singles as much as I can. Ive even considered other local lgs to shop around because this one is really raising their prices and its one of the bigger stores we have here in salem.
Played a preview over the weekend and had a blast. I love commado draft format. It makes for some fun games. It's just so expensive.
For the price of 2 commander masters boxed you could build a modern deck.
I drafted this last night. It was the best fun I’ve had playing Magic in a LONG time. I can’t believe it but I am actually considering buying a draft box.
They say there are no stupid questions, this is the exception.
Best part, hands-down, is the prof, forgetting how to end a video, and just sort of modeling off into existence at the end there 😂
The set boosters shouldn't be more than 10 dollars a pack. There is too much bulk in the set. It's hard to even justify picking up a single booster pack just for fun because it honestly will probably be disappointing.
I know the topic is Commander Masters, but on that mention of Mystical Archive; I loved the spell in Strixhaven, loved the artifacts in Brothers’ War, will probably love the Enchantments.
Can’t wait for the Planeswalker archive haha.
Good luck on whatnot, everyone. I’ll be sitting the giveaways out from now on because life. But much love to the prof. for doing these giveaways, even if they are sponsored.
1:21 damn professor that was brutal 😂
My problem with some of the includes in Commander Masters also involves the art used.
For an example, let's look at Doubling Season. It has had three art choices that would fit in the current frame, which is actually slightly different than how it first looked in m15, the other two haven't gotten reprinted since that initial set for that art. And while Battlebond's does tie it to Valor's Reach Stadium on Kylem, It's rather hard to tell that the first art for it was on Ravnica, much less tie in with unofficial Selesnya.
Im super excited to draft this set next week with my friends! I bought the whole box myself and Im hoping to keep a lot of the staples at uncommon and common since I just started playing and keep anything I would want to play, and then sell the rest and hope the fun we got out it was worth the difference in price for me!
Was thinking about getting a pack or two, but thanks to your video I will just get the cards as singles. What I am after may cost more than a pack, but a lot less value in trades than I thought. Thank you for the video.
CMM is totally undraftable for me with that price. I love Masters Sets, they're like high power cubes but you can take home stuff. But as wotc has continued to crank the price without any real trade off, the whole point of a masters set is being lost. Even half the price this would be a much more fun product. I wonder if going forward stuff like mystical archive, brothers war Artifacts, and now eldraine is really how reprints should be done. Those are all how the List should have been. An exciting and much needed selection of cards that can be used in the draft experience. The List should be a masters like reprint that ties into the set and isn't filled with land reprints or 100 other cards diluting it.
I like a lot of the cards in this set. And honestly drafting a set with cards like Smothering Tithe and Mirri Weatherlight duelist sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but these packs are too dang expensive to do that. I really wish they weren't trying to inflate mtg prices so much like they are right now.
I am proxying every MTG card I need for the foreseeable future, but I will still watch these videos.
120 for drafts 160 for sets. I would be happy with those prices. I only get expensive boxes if I have enough trade in credit :/ but since playing I've been holding onto a lot more cards. its rough out here G's.
honestly, a rare professor w (when it comes to new magic products) ill be there side by side calling out how expensive this set it, while i show you my pauper stickers deck and my pauper initiative deck
Bro hit us with the Dark5 music and freaked me out 😂