Even after two full years, the move to limited-run printing for most Secret Lair products is still causing problems. It’s rare that one drop from a Superdrop won’t sell out quickly, and the problem is even worse for more unique products. Festival in a Box products, for instance, have a long history of selling out insanely quickly, and the latest one for MagicCon: Atlanta is no different.
As much as this sale may be par for the course, this time around, it stings a little bit more. The MagicCon: Atlanta Festival in a Box is the first time players can acquire Mystery Booster: Commander Edition, after all. Given how much fun this set looks like, it’s little wonder that it sold out so quickly.
Mystery Booster: Commander Edition Sells Out
Unfortunately for anyone looking to get their hands on the set, Mystery Booster: Commander Edition sold out in 20 minutes. Realistically, it’s absolutely no wonder this happened, as the value on offer here was obscene. Not only did you get a box of the new Mystery Booster for $250, but the Wild in Bloom Secret Lair and the promos are great, too.
Thanks to all of these elements combined, the MagicCon: Atlanta Festival in a Box easily offered over $125 of free value. With the deal being this good, it’s little wonder that scalpers, as well as plenty of MTG players, quickly piled on the sale. This, in turn, caused the usual hour-long queues and ultra-fast sale that we’re sadly used to seeing.
As usual, it hasn’t taken long for many scalped orders to end up on secondary market sites like eBay. Listed at a huge premium, we’re already seeing eBay listings for over $450, and there’s bound to be more like this soon. While this price point is already pretty bleak, the new cards are likely going to be seriously expensive, too.
Considering how interesting many of the new Mystery Booster: Commander Edition cards are, there’s bound to be demand for them. This will be especially true for new Rulebreakers like
Whtz, the Bibliophile
Whtz, the Bibliophile
Rulebreaker — A deck with this commander has no maximum deck size.
{3}, {T}: You draw a card and gain 1 life. This ability costs {3} less to activate if you had 200 or more cards in your starting deck.
and
Ekthi, Contaminator Priest
Ekthi, Contaminator Priest
Other Phyrexians you control get +1/+1.
Each Equipment you control has living weapon. (Whenever an Equipment you control enters, create a 0/0 black Phyrexian Germ creature token, then attach that Equipment to it.)
. With supply for these cards being very limited, seeing them sell for huge premiums wouldn’t be surprising at all.
Down But Not Out
Thankfully, while the MagicCon: Atlanta Festival in a Box may have sold out incredibly quickly, Mystery Booster: Commander Edition will return. Like Mystery Booster 2, this set will be available at all new MagicCons and in their accompanying Festival in a Box. Due to this, there should be plenty more opportunities to pick up this set in the future.
Sadly, while we do know that Mystery Booster: Commander Edition will return, we don’t have any concrete details about print runs. Potentially, we’re going to see each future Festival in a Box sell out just as quickly, but this isn’t guaranteed. Ideally, since Wizards knows this product is in demand, they’ll increase print runs to ensure there’s enough to go around.
Hell, if supply issues continue for long enough, we could even see Wizards run another print-to-demand sale. While these aren’t guaranteed, Wizards has been dabbling in them more recently, sacrificing shipping times for availability. Should the new Mystery Booster: Commander Edition cards stay expensive, this could be a needed solution, but hopefully it won’t come to that.
Ultimately, for the short term, we can only really wait and see what happens when deliveries actually reach players. It’ll only be then that we have an idea about how much everything will cost and the real potential of these cards. Thankfully, we shouldn’t have to wait long for that, and if nothing else, we’ve got MTG Star Trek to keep us busy in the meantime.
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