With the March of the Machine spoiler season finally concluding, the MTG marketplace is finally beginning to digest the contents of the set in earnest. One card we called out this past week that synergizes extremely well with Battle cards saw a massive bump in price, but we’re not talking about that here. Instead, the intent of this article is to point out just how similar the Multiverse Legends Bonus Sheet is to the Bonus Sheet from The Brothers’ War. The Retro Artifacts from that set caused many reprints to absolutely bomb on the secondary market, which is fantastic for making staple cards easily obtainable for the community, but may not offer great financial returns.
Multiverse Legends Everywhere!
In an article titled “Collecting March of the Machine,” Wizards of the Coast released the above infographic. As sets get more and more special variants to cards, it can become quite challenging to keep track of where everything is popping up. This has been pointed out as a problem from players in the past. The infographic helps, but it’s not something players believe should be necessary.
What we’re interested in, however, are the Multiverse Legends Bonus Sheet cards. These seem pretty easy to obtain. You can find one or more in every Draft Booster pack of March of the Machine. The same goes for Set Booster packs. This means that the Multiverse Legends cards should impact the Limited format for the set in a major way.
The script starts to change a bit when you look at Collector Booster packs for March of the Machine. According to Wizards of the Coast’s infographic, players should expect three of these cards in each Collector Booster pack. Looking back at The Brothers’ War reveals that the Retro Artifact cards had a similar distribution, but it was possible to open an extra Retro Artifact in one of the rare slots. Retro Artifacts were (and still are) everywhere, quickly flooding the market with a seemingly endless amount of copies. What happens when a massive amount of a valuable card floods the market? It loses a ton of value, becoming a lot more accessible to players.
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Prepare for Massive Discounts!
Back when Retro Artifacts started hitting the market, we saw massive 80% decreases in price. The new Retro Foil Mishra’s Bauble was released at around the $10 mark but quickly declined to as little as $1.50! The card has since recovered a bit in price back to $2. This card was a heavily anticipated reprint due to the card’s popularity in the Modern format. It also has had few printings, making it an incredibly expensive uncommon card. This particular example hits right at home for me as I spent $60 on a playset of these cards right before The Brothers’ War was released. Nowadays, a playset will run you $8.
More extreme examples can be found in non-foil copies of the Bauble prior to the release of The Brothers’ War. The Iconic Masters uncommon tells a similar story to the foil Retro artifact, worth $10 per card before The Brothers’ War. The non-foil iteration of the card is now worth $1.50. Considering players were opening this card at the rate of an uncommon in The Brothers’ War, there is a big difference in opening a semi-consistent $10 and a card worth around a dollar.
80% Could Just be the Beginning
Thorn of Amethyst is an even more extreme example of the price crash caused by Bonus Sheets like this. Before the card was released as a part of The Brothers’ War, Thorn of Amethyst only had one printing available from the Lorwyn set. For reference, any card with exclusive printings that players are interested in from the Lorwyn block tend to have a massive price tag because that particular block was short-printed. Thorn of Amethyst’s interest mainly stemmed as a Stax piece in cEDH, but the card also saw play in Legacy.
A year ago, the non-foil Lorwyn copy of Thorn of Amethyst peaked at almost $40 in value. Upon release of the Retro Artifact version of Thorn of Amethyst, the Retro Artifact was valued at $30. Nowadays, the Retro Artifact’s secondary market value doesn’t even break an American dollar. Now, this is an extreme example of a card whose price was heavily inflated by a limited interest that outweighed a very limited supply.
The story continues from there, though. Wurmcoil Engine lost half of its expected value ($30 to $15). Mox Amber, the most valuable Retro Artifact of them all, dropped from $38 to $24. Other cards managed to regain some of their value after Phyrexia: All Will Be One was released, like Ashnod’s Altar and Unwinding Clock, but all of these cards lost a ton of value after the Retro Artifact initially hit the marketplace. This makes buying packs expecting a massive return on Multiverse Legends cards to be a bit of a folly, but it does present a different kind of opportunity.
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Time to Pick Up Some Singles!
Many of the valuable cards being reprinted in the Multiverse Legends are absolute monstrosities at a table of Commander. If you’re interested in owning some of the contents for yourself, you may be able to access these cards at a massive discount. Apparently, some of the cards, like the incredibly valuable $60 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and $70 Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice, may be rarer than the Retro Artifact cards traditionally were. If that is the case, these cards may not see as heavy of a discount as was observed for the entirety of the Retro Artifact Bonus Sheet. Early openings for March of the Machine product should be a strong way of discerning how rare these chase cards will end up being.
For all of the other cards, however, the behavior from the Retro Artifact cards suggests that there will be major financial declines for these MTG cards. For the cards that regain their value, the best opportunity to purchase these, according to TCGplayer, was right after a massive decline in value was caused by the enormous flood of cards into the secondary market. Other cards continued to decline in price as more copies left players’ interested lens. If you’re interested in grabbing one of the original Praetors, a few copies of Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger for your Rakdos decks, or even one of the banned Companion cards, this may be the best opportunity to do it.
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