Ever since Wizards of the Coast announced the MTG 30th Anniversary Edition, Magic: the Gathering obtained a controversial spotlight that shone past even its own community. Even incredibly popular Youtubers that aren’t involved in the MTG community are starting to comment on the state of affairs. Many in the community were waiting for the product to go for sale at the end of November, anticipating this historical event with much trepidation. Well, as many expected and others feared, the product sold out in 35 minutes.
30th Anniversary Edition is All the Rage
For those who don’t know what’s going on with the 30th Anniversary Edition, Wizards of the Coast announced that they would reprint some of the most sought-after cards in its history. The only problem is that Wizards of the Coast promised that they would never reprint the cards that they did in this product, putting them on something called the Reserved List. As a result, the 30th Anniversary Edition cards are not tournament legal. This has led many in the community to compare this product to proxies, an unofficial substitution used for a game piece outside of tournament play. We have written extensively about this topic in the past.
Community Doubt
Even though Wizards of the Coast announced the 30th Anniversary Edition as ‘sold out’ on the site, the product was so controversial that many do not believe the product actually sold out. On Reddit, many nitpick on the wording used on a Tweet from the official Magic: the Gathering Twitter page:
“There was never a line longer than a few seconds when I simulated checking out. Plus unlike the countdown kit, the website gave no issues or signs of crashing. Combine that with “currently unavailable” makes me think they pulled the sale to give it the illusion of selling out.” – DarthTiberius93
“Written by a lawyer so as to not be fraudulent” – OkMoment3851
“It sounds suspicious, the verbage dodges any Guage of a sell out.
Do they normally post it like this?” – c0rocad86
“Nope, that is almost certainly what happened. With the amount of backlash this product received, they would have bragged to high heavens if it actually sold out.” – Ternader
There’s absolutely no way to confirm the validity of these claims, but there is a subsection of the MTG community that is not sure whether this product actually sold out or not. Another section of the community claims that those who hold this opinion are clinging to some “wishful thinking:”
“This is obvious wishful thinking. It just means they have some stock for:
- If an error happened on their site (they literally include this potential in the text of the tweet).
- Give aways at upcoming events like the next magic con in Philadelphia.
It sold out in the sense that they sold the maximum number they wanted to sell.” – chevypapa
Scalpers Return
The early appearance of a few 30th Anniversary Edition on eBay may help to contest that. Things are still very recent, but a few sellers are already popping up asking for as much as twice what the original 30th Anniversary Edition sold for. As of this point, no resold 30th Anniversary Edition packs have been sold for a significant price.
What Should We Expect Next?
At the end of the day, we’re in the dark about a lot of the details regarding the 30th Anniversary Edition’s sales. It’s hard to know just how many of these things will be hitting the wild and how successful Wizards of the Coast was with this enterprise. That said, this product is one that the MTG community will never forget.
Even though sales are behind us, the waves that this product will make are still hitting the community. No one really knows what’s in store for Magic: the Gathering past this point, but I’m sure that it will be something rather unexpected.
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