Phyrexia: All Will Be one has been a smashing success. From powerful new cards that have everyone’s attention to fantastic worldbuilding feel that truly encapsulates the Phyrexians at their glorious high point, this set has a lot to offer. Among some of the new unique offerings that this set brought to MTG was a bundle that was released a month after the rest of the set. The trade-off? The Compleat Edition features Oil Slick Foil cards – incredible textured treatment cards that you cannot get anywhere else. As you may expect, this made these bundles particularly popular, raising them to astronomical prices. As the date gets closer for the official release of this heavily anticipated product, a massive wave of cancellations are beginning to set in.
Compleat Cancellation
The Phyrexia: All Will Be One Compleat Edition may be this set release’s most valuable MTG product. The Oil Slick version of Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, for example, is still retailing for a massive $275 despite its other copies averaging between $40 and $50. This is, needless to say, an enormous premium for Compleat Edition cards. Unlike most premium cards, this isn’t available in a $200+ Collector Booster box but only in the Compleat Edition. This price hike caused a massive inflation in price on the Compleat Edition, but the bundle eventually settled at $80 apiece for quite some time. That price point is no longer accurate, and things may worsen following a series of reports regarding product cancellations.
As mentioned in a recent video from MTG personality Alpha Investments, while no one really knows why these cancellations are taking place, we do know that there are multiple reports of LGS across the country getting as little as a third of their original allocation:
“About three or four stores I’ve been texting this afternoon are asking if I’m aware about the supply problem, if it’s temporary, if there’s multiple waves. Nobody seems to know but there apparently seems to be some sort of problem going on and stores which, whatever you were told previously on allocation so far, stores are getting told that they’re getting between – some people saying half, some people say that they’re getting a quarter, some people say that they’re getting a third. I’m not really sure – the information is very wishy-washy.”
Alpha Investments
Regardless of how much damage is being done to initial allocations, there does seem to be an allocation problem. This means some unfortunate players may be getting their Compleat bundle orders refunded. Considering that, for quite a while, these bundles were available at $80, players may now have a difficult time finding a bundle for the same premium price they paid just a few weeks ago. Bundles are now, according to TCGplayer, going for about $140 on average. This is still a far cry from the insane prices that the initial hype for the product caused, but it is still almost twice the price that players paid recently.
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Community Reaction
As many may expect, these mass waves of cancellations are not unique to the U.S. Players across the world are finding their Compleat Bundles suddenly cancelled and, as you can imagine, players affected are not pleased:
“Please excuse this rant post as I had my compleat edition order cancelled with the (UK) store apparently receiving 1% of their order. I know a big part of this is unrealistic expectations by the store but I also want to extend a big FU to Wizards for fueling the FOMO on their hyped up products that their players want to give them their money for.”
TheWhizzDom
“I called out the store that cancelled on me saying it’s a joke that they cancelled stating recieving 1%, and they attached emails showing they ordered 200 and from a rep from Asmodee (I assume this is their distro) confirming they would only get 2.
If it all adds up, they ordered 200 in Jan, and found out yesterday they are getting 2 total instead.” HansonWK
While these accounts do back up the cancellation issue that players have been seeing over the past week or so, many MTG players are convinced that not all of these stores are cancelling their orders honestly:
“There’s a good chance he’s telling you he only got 2 so he can cancel the pre ordered he had at 80 and sell the ones he got at 120” – Professional-Break19
“That store should have known this weeks ago. With the UK distributor I use, they cancelled my entire reservation as I am not a WPN store – said that they are required to fulfil WPN first and that they didn’t even receive enough stock to do that. But I was informed around the pre-release of ONE.
I got the impression that most stores upped their reservations at the peak of the hype, and only the biggest WPN stores will receive them in any quantity. It’s understandable that a small store would try and buy in way more than they usually do. If they’re not WPN, they were lucky to get any.” – hoexexp
The comments doubting the seller’s legitimacy go on for quite some time. This is not the first time that stores have blatantly canceled orders because they could resell them at higher prices, and while this is not considered an ethical action, it is relatively common. There is no information on if this is the case for this particular seller. More chatter on cancellations can be found here.
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What Happens Next?
Prices have already risen for the Compleat Bundle, but it’s tough to say whether these cancellations will raise the price even more. We’ve seen this be the case for delays that made product extremely scarce, like the original Jumpstart over the harsher moments of Covid-19. For now, players can still find the bundle for $80 with a bit of luck, but many MTG players may be paying premiums to access these sweet textured Oil-Slick Raised foils. If prices for these premiums card hold, even for a lofty $140, financially, these boxes will 100% be worth every penny.
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