After a week of waiting, MTG’s newest offering finally has a price tag. We knew the details of the latest Festival in a box offerings from Wizards of the Coast a week ago, headlined by the announcement of the new Relentless Rats promo that give Rat Tribal players everywhere a chance to bling up their decks. These deals tend to come around every time a Magic Con is announced, and Minneapolis’s deals were excellent. Barcelona’s deals aren’t quite as lucrative. They are still good technically, but players still aren’t thrilled about the price increase, creating a bizarre scenario where a lucrative deal has actually angered some MTG players.
Festival in a Box Barcelona
Returning readers may notice that this isn’t the first time we’ve taken a look at MTG Con Barcelona’s Festival in a Box product. As mentioned previously, we’ve known about the contents for these bundles in advance. To give another quick breakdown on what you can expect, here is what’s available in each of the MTG Con Barcelona Festival in a Box deals:
Box 1: Festival in a Box: Barcelona 2023 – Commander Fan Bundle
- 1x Mystery Booster: Convention Edition booster display
- 1x Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander deck – Party Time
- 1x Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander deck – Mind Flayarrrs
- 1x Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander deck – Draconic Dissent
- 1x Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander deck – Exit from Exile
- 1x The Brothers’ War Commander deck – Mishra’s Burnished Banner
- 1x The Brothers’ War Commander deck – Urza’s Iron Alliance
- 1x Traditional foil Arcane Signet
- 1x Relentless Rats regular promo
Box 2: Festival in a Box: Barcelona 2023 – Drafter’s Dream Bundle
- 1 Mystery Booster: Convention Edition booster display
- 1 The Brothers’ War Draft Booster display
- 1 Dominaria Remastered Draft Booster display
- 1 Traditional foil Arcane Signet
- 1 Relentless Rats promo
How Much Do They Cost?
While the contents of the Festival in a Box deals for Barcelona aren’t new news, the prices are. Those looking forward to a deal comparable to the incredible one offered for MTG Minneapolis’s Festival in a Box are going to be disappointed. The price for the Commander Fan Bundle is $300 USD and the Drafter’s Dream is even more expensive, coming in at a hefty $320.
Even though these are still more expensive than their Minneapolis counterparts, these bundle deals are, financially, an excellent deal. If we use TCGplayer as a benchmark for pricing the contents of these products, it doesn’t take much research to notice that these deals are incredibly valuable to an MTG player who wants these products.
The majority of the value in both products is the Mystery Booster box. We already talked about that previously, so in an effort to avoid repeating ourselves too much, you can read about that here. What is important, however, is noting that the cheaper iteration of these boxes is currently selling for $190 on TCGplayer. Expected value can be difficult to pinpoint since this set is so massive, but a serious lineup of incredible Commander staples can be opened. If you are in the market for a Mystery Booster, you may want to consider these Festival in a Box deals. For a little more than the price of a Draft Booster Box, you’ll be getting a lot more value.
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Card Singles
There are two single cards offered with both of these bundles. The new Relentless Rats promo, which we talked about in more detail here, and the 30th Anniversary promo for Arcane Signet, which is in most of the product deals like this. Relentless Rats doesn’t really have a price tag yet, but it’s probably going to be worth at least $5 (but likely more), so for the sake of keeping a clean number, we’ll call this a $7 card for now. This iteration of Arcane Signet is not available on TCGplayer, but it is going for around $13 on Card Kingdom. Cheaper iterations of Arcane Signet go for less than a dollar, making the much smaller estimated markup on the Relentless Rats promo reasonable (the cheapest copy of Relentless Rats on TCGplayer currently sells for $2-4). In other words, there’s probably about $20 worth of value for the Singles.
Drafter’s Dream Bundle
Combining both the Mystery Booster’s average value of $190 and the $20 estimation for the Singles, we need to make $110 for the Drafter’s Dream bundle worth it. An average Draft Booster Box of Dominaria Remastered currently sells for about $136, while a Brothers’ War Draft Booster Box sells for between the $85 and $90 mark. Even if we take the smaller numbers in these ranges, this blows the bundle’s value out of the water. You’re essentially getting one Booster Box for free.
In terms of expected value for opening these boxes, when taking a look at Dawnglare.com, the Brothers’ War set has an expected value that matches the low end of its pricing, while Dominaria United has one of about $76. This means you have a pretty good chance of retaining most of the value for these boxes in its contents.
Commander Fan Bundle
As you may imagine, a collection of four Commander decks is also going to be worth more than the $90 required to make this bundle worth considering. The most expensive of these is the Party Time Commander deck, which sells for an average of $50 on TCGplayer and has an expected value of $72, according to Dawnglare. Overall, these four decks sell for a combined average of $154 on TCGplayer (when bought together) and have an expected value of $221.24. This heavily exceeds the needed $90 to make this bundle equivalent to the product’s value and offers an additional $65(ish)!
Ironically, with this particular bundle, that’s not the end of it. You also get the two Commander decks offered alongside The Brothers’ War, which retail for about $77! Many of the old-bordered exclusives present in these decks make many of the cards valuable to players who want to bling their deck out! While likely paling to their Baldur’s Gate counterparts, the decks themselves are still quite strong. Either way, this is an additional $77 in value for the Commander Fan Bundle.
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So… Why Don’t Players Like it?
Players do recognize that the MTG Con Barcelona Festival-in-a-box is, ultimately, a good deal, so why is there controversy over the price?
“Consensus seems to be it’s still worth it if you are going to be personally opening up the boxes for drafting/parts, but not for reselling. It’s still a bargain, just not as good as at the previous $270 price point. And no secret lair or other bonus components.”
Copernicus
This quote represents, ultimately, the crux of the issue. Regardless of the Festival in a Box’s offered savings, this just doesn’t compare to the previous offerings presented alongside MTG Minneapolis. More product was offered at a cheaper price.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still some MTG players who see this as an easy profit margin or an opportunity to pick up sealed products at a discount, but it isn’t as good as what we just had:
“What a joke…… $50 more than the festival in a box Minneapolis……”
Dflyshigh
“With less desirable boxes and no full secret lair.”
AdamBGraham
Another awkward difference is the lack of an exclusive Secret Lair product that was present in the MTG Minneapolis deal. Instead, we have one promotional Relentless Rats card for the Barcelona Festival in a Box, which probably will not be equivalent to the value of a full Secret Lair. The last Festival in a Box, in comparison, offered the Legendary Flyers (Not That Kind) Secret Lair, which still retails for between $50 and $60. That means that more value was being offered in the last Festival in a Box for a cheaper price.
Ultimately, if you’re interested in buying something on this list, especially the Mystery Booster Box, getting the entire bundle will save you some money in the long run. It’s up to you whether the downgrade in quality prevents you from getting a deal that is still an objectively good one.
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