Collector Booster Sample Packs are one of the more interesting quirks of the recent MTG product lineup. Tossed into non-premium products as a free extra, they give players a taste of the spicy alternate-art cards they could get if they grab a full Collector Booster. Usually, the cards found within are nothing to write home about. Sometimes, however, there are exceptions, like in the case of the Bloomburrow Collector Booster Sample Packs.
A player on the r/MTGFinance subreddit recently shared their pulls from one such pack, and the results are astounding. They contained a $250 card, which blows existing assumptions about the contents of these packs out of the water.
A Seriously Spendy Sample
The card in question was a raised foil anime art Jace, the Mind Sculptor. At the time of writing, this is the third most expensive card in Bloomburrow as a whole at $259. Surpassed only by the raised foil anime art versions of Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Ms. Bumbleflower. This is a fantastic pull for the post’s author, platinumjudge. More than that though, it’s also a pull that many players didn’t even believe to be possible.
In the original post, platinumjudge noted that they shared it “in case other people had wondered if it was possible.” The rest of the thread was full of players just as surprised as they were. “This would be really surprising. They always excluded the special treatments from sample packs.” noted foycs123. Others offered possible explanations as to how such a rare card ended up in a Sample Pack like this.
“Was your precon produced in Japan? Raised foils are made by the Japanese printer only and therefore opening one in a sample collector booster produced in Belgium/US is probably impossible.”
GrowthAccomplished49
Whatever the reasoning, the fact that anime raised foils can be found in Bloomburrow Collector Booster Sample Packs is significant. These are by far the most expensive cards in the set, comparable to some of the serialized cards we’ve seen in the past. Even on the low end, with Kastral, the Windcrested, you’re still looking at $60+ price tags on these things.
The fact that these cards can be found in Sample Packs is definitely a huge plus. As we’ll get into shortly, it hasn’t always been the case that you can pull a set’s best cards in Sample Packs. That said, given that it’s taken this long for someone to report finding one this way, they’re likely too rare to actually impact EV on Commander precons. They will make for some extremely spicy pack-opening videos, however.
Behind The Curtain
The surprise players felt at seeing anime raised foil cards in a Collector Booster Sample Pack leads into a bigger discussion. Specifically, the mysterious nature of this product in general. There’s very little information available about what you can and can’t find in Sample Packs. This leads to a lot of speculation, and surprising moments like this.
There are a few sources we can look to for information in this regard. Collector Booster Sample Packs first appeared in the Streets of New Capenna Commander decks. In that set’s First Look article, Adam Styborski notes that Sample Packs contain “two cards from among what you can discover in a Streets of New Capenna Collector Booster.” There’s no mention of any exclusions here, so in theory any card from the set would be up for grabs. This didn’t stay the case, however.
Come The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, serialized cards were removed from the Sample Booster pool. On the other hand, Sample Packs for Tales of Middle-earth actually had exclusive extended art foil cards, which couldn’t be found anywhere else. Swings and roundabouts, as they say.
This Lord of the Rings example seems to have gotten into the collective heads of the player base. In platinumjudge’s thread, many referred to the ‘rules’ that set established, assuming they applied to Bloomburrow as well. If serialized cards weren’t on the table, why would anime raised foils be any different? The official description from Wizards for Bloomburrow Sample Packs doesn’t help much, either.
As fun extras, it’s not hugely important for Sample Packs to be fully transparent in terms of their possible contents. It’s definitely worth bearing this example in mind when evaluating Sample Packs in the future, however.
Read More: Iconic Lord Of The Rings Land Spikes Over 130% In Price
