MTG thread

Mist I cast counterspell

Counterspell made me laugh.

I got the Hobbit Secret Lair Foil "He who walks unseen". I like how the foil is applied in this one. Did not care about food tokens but that one sold out first.

I have no self control...

Other two boxes sitting on the shelf looked more and more tempting each day.

Foil Mox Amber, others non-foil


Foil book covers


Foil Smaug Showcase, borderless foil Bowmasters, non-foil Gleaming Splendor


Surge foils, camera didn't want to catch them very well


Other decent pulls

I have my one box sitting in the closet. As long as it is sealed, I call it Schrodinger's box. It both does and does not have a Gold Smaug. I also picked up both of the scene boxes.

You got some really nice pulls. Gleaming Splendor is $$ and will most likely go back up. The Foil Mox Amber is also very nice. You got some good boxes even if no Gold Smaug.

There is the Schrodinger effect in play for these for sure. People will always look to products that have a distinct chase.

These boxes will go up, and Smaug's value will go down. Where the balancing point for their value will end up, who knows, but it won't be pre-order price for sure. I was probably dumb to rip all three, but I'm just glad that I pulled as well as I did. Sure I didn't hit a gold Smaug, but after selling the top hits and working through the mid to lowd tier ones, the fun will pay for itself.

Something that MTG folks who don't do sports cards won't fully understand yet is the draw at a card so valuable with WOTC's stated /500 copies in play. With the count of 500 copies and the unknown print run of the collector boxes, it still isn't an easy pull...but 500 is a high bar of available copies in comparison to the sports card world. There have been serialized sports cards for over 35 years now, and that has been fine tuned over time. WOTC:MTG are still very new to the serialization of cards and are just trying to figure out what works best for them. I will say that I think it was a mistake on their end to not serialize the Smaug card.

Using Topps' coloring parallels, most sports collectors are after gold /50, orange /25, black /10, red /5, or the superfractor /1. They have other colors/levels depending on the product, but the ones I listed are the most sot after and valuable. In most cases when you hit a parallel, it is some scrub player and bound for the dollar box. Sure you can hit a top rookie or great player, but that isn't factored into the odds. Too many times have I pulled some low numbered parallel and then looked at the names that it could have been and wished I hadn't wasted the luck on the pull.

As example, here is a recent sale of a 2025 Ohtani auto that is numbered to /10. It is in the ballpark value wise of the Smaug, and an example of how far your odds are of hitting something of similar value from what is considered a flagship sports set.



Box prices currently from Dave & Adams:


And the odds chart from Topps for this insert subset/parallel, by-the-pack not box:


While the "Delight" version looks to be a close comparison, you get 1 pack in a box at roughly $600 per box. I can pretty much guarantee if you opened 5900~ Hobbit Collector packs you would see a Smaug. I would be willing to bet it would be closer to half or even less.

TLDR
Having a chance at such a valuable card, and being able to recoop a good portion of your buy in, seems like one of the better gambles in all of card collecting currently.

If we could all be as lucky as this guy. The only one I found graded currently.

Let's check in and see what's going on in magic land lately



oh dear

If he is playing Commander, then yes it would be nice. If he is having fun with jank built standard decks, then commander decks would only get pulled apart with some cards not standard legal. The problem with Commander is that it take 4 people to play unless you are just playing your own rules.

So, what is he playing?

If you have a store near you, often times they might sell prebuilt decks. At the very least they can help you with what might fit best in your situation. A prebuilt kit works fine as it usually carries two decks so that another person can also play.

I'm a kitchen table player, who's more collector these days than player. Some might even say a small-time dirty investor, though that would entail having to sell one day, so I guess that remains to be seen. Anyways, I'm really enjoying the Marvel sets so far, especially the Marvel Superheroes JumpStart set - it had WAY more new (and good) cards than I expected, and I was happy to see a lot of B, C, and even D-list characters get cards (instead of 34 versions of Spider-Man...). Yes, I actually read and enjoyed the West Coast Avengers when I was a kid haha It's crossed my mind to get a master set of (non-foil, I hate most foils) cards from each Marvel set, but god damn they print so much shit anymore it's daunting even thinking about so I doubt it'll happen. Still, really looking forward to the Darkhold set next year, and the eventual X-Men/mutant set (there HAS to be one with the X-Men movie reboot eh?). I mean, the Iceman and Firestar card from the cartoon series hits my geek nostalgia like a ton of bricks.

Ironically, with them printing soooooo damn many sets, sooooo damn many secret lairs, etc, my spending has actually gone down. The fatigue is real. I typically buy a minimum of 2 booster boxes a set - 1 to open, 1 to keep - but I'm missing my keeper boxes from 6 of the last 8 sets. Still haven't even gotten a Hobbit box. And I'm (almost) out of the CB game completely. I still have a healthy sealed stash, but Lorwyn Eclipsed is the last I bought, Outlaws the last before that. LE I only got because I'm a sucker for that plane. To the point I have several boxes each of the original 3 sets, and a few boxes of Lorwyn tournament decks. Just wish they'd stop Disney-fying the game, with happy smiley retards and lesbos everywhere.

Not sure why I'm doing a dear diary here, but I guess I just don't really have anyone to talk to, that actually understands any of this.