Magic.collectorsolutions is a scam that has been linked to various online ads, suspicious Facebook advertisements, Instagram, and email. It is not likely to be legitimate as it has one of the lowest trust scores on our chart. The website is not accredited by BBB, and some businesses are not accredited because they have not sought accreditation.
To identify if you are dealing with a debt collector scam, you should check the website’s trust score and contact Atty. Solomon for timely counsel and help. If you believe you are a victim of a collection scam, you can report the scam with OVLG. They will provide general collections information for both personal income and business taxes.
The website’s e PAY instructions can be found at https://magic.collectorsolutions.com/magic-ui/en-US/Login/ildhs. To access general collections information for both personal income and business taxes, follow the links provided. If you believe you are a victim of a collection scam, you can report the scam with OVLG and call Atty. Solomon for immediate assistance.
In summary, magic.collectorsolutions is a scam that has been linked to various online ads, suspicious Facebook advertisements, Instagram, and email. It is important to be cautious when dealing with debt collector calls and to be aware of the potential dangers associated with these scams.
📹 How To Make Collector Booster Packs Worth It | A Magic: The Gathering Critique
#MTG #Magicthegathering #commander Tolarian Community College is brought to you by Card Kingdom! You can support The …
📹 The CORRECT Way to Store Your Magic Cards in a Binder
How you store your Magic cards is CRUCIAL for protecting your collection and saving you money. Make sure you do it right!
“Make the ENTIRE SET available in the showcase frame” YES YES YES YES THANK YOU FOR SAYING IT PROF. My pet deck is Grist Insect tribal. As a result, I often end up picking up new insects printed in each set. Insects are one of those creature types that often have a couple show up in every set, but are almost never an explicit “feature” of the set or plane. As such, they often don’t get the showcase treatment. New Capenna had one insect, only available in regular art. Neon Dynasty had 4 insects, 2 that were good enough to make it in the deck, but only one in a showcase treatment. I’d be much more inclined to buy any insect card, even if I know it won’t make it in the deck, if I could get a showcase variant of that card. Unfortunately, I think expecting WotC to shell out for that much new art per set, when people already buy the crappy pringle packs that are current collectors boosters, is a pipe dream. Its capitalism 101. Why would they spend more capital when people are already buying the product in record numbers?
You’re right, Prof! As far as COLLECTOR-ing goes, the collector booster just doesn’t have enough collectability! Filling collector boosters with showcases may encourage me to finally purchase a collector pack, because as of right now I just can’t justify the cost to benefit. Also, finger wag of shame for your 13:30 editing skip. I caught it, I expect the finest QUALITY! 🤪 great job, Prof!
I like the idea of making every card in the pack a premium card in some way. Making them draftable doesn’t sound very appealing to me personally. However, what if WotC gave stores an amount of collector packs to use as prize support, so you could get 1 collector pack instead of 3 or 4 regular oaks when you top your FNM?
A collector booster draft would never fire at my LGS. At over $30 (CAD) per pack that would be over $100 for an event! Not many can afford to drop that much on just an event. I agree with your initial thought though, I don’t like collector boosters. My biggest gripe with them (outside the price and contents) is how they destroyed the foil market. Before they were a thing you could crack a draft booster and pull a foil common/uncommon and actually be happy with the pull. Back in Ravnica Allegiance league one of my weekly packs had a foil Skewer the Critics and it was awesome because I was able to sell it for $15! Meanwhile the non foil was only $0.25 so it was more than affordable for a playset. That doesn’t happen anymore because every common/uncommon foil are worthless because the collector boosters just litter the market with them.
I really love the idea of the Collector’s boxes containing ONLY showcases and special arts, that with better quality would make them have a lot more sense and you would separate game pieces for everyone in the normal draft and set boosters. I do purchase one collector booster each set because I am a fan of Illustrations and shiny stuff, but right now I was thinking of not buying more of them this year because of fatigue….. Just started playing with my New Capenna commander deck, went to the pre release too…. and now just got 3 sets spoiled already? and with those prices? Was wondering if I will skip them altogether except for singles…. but as I am weak and love limited, I will probably only go to the pre release events.
Hey Prof, really appreciate you putting this article together. I stopped buying collector boosters packs a couple sets ago because of these very reasons. The print quality was crap and the feel bads were high. I really hope WotC keeps tabs on you and reads all of these comments. As someone who loves Magic and has more disposable income now, I’d definitely be back to buying collector boosters if they shifted them to align with what your describing. When a foil card curls so bad it puffs the sleeve it’s in then you need to gut check your quality. Keep the amazing content coming!
masterpieces were one of my most favorite and hype things I ever experienced opening packs for magic. I’ll never forget the day I bought a single pack at my lgs, pulled an expedition, sold it to the store, bought one other pack and some cards, and pulled a second expedition. it would be amazing to have something like that again!!
I recently got back into paper magic for Kamigawa. I got a couple collectors boosters and a draft box. I legitimately thought I opened the collectors wrong when the cards were already pringled. Thanks for shedding light on the quality issues at WotC – I hope they watch your articles too, every suggestion was a homerun for me. Thanks for the content!
As a store owner, I’m going to have cut down on the number of draft booster boxes I order since players would rather gamble on the set boosters for “good cards.” WotC is competing against itself, and collector boosters are aimed for a few with the willingness to spend on them, so those are also lightly ordered.
I really like this article because you’re finding a balance between being business oriented and finding customer value all while be very solution focused. I hope wotc is listening because this is about as reasonable as it gets. I agree with most of your points here because I only really buy collectors boosters (I’m not really interested in playing the game anymore) and I end up with like 10 good cards per box and a bunch of junk. No bueno.
Honestly, it feels like WoTC is showing their hand to be more of a casino when they make moves like this. The nature of packs has always been tied to gambling but at least with draft boosters there was a draft game associated. This feels like such an egregious overstep that it reminds me of Star Wars: Battlefront II where it was clear that EA was just seeing how much they could get away with their gambling boxes (although this is in some ways worse since real world value is tied to these gambling packs) This not only makes WoTC look increadibly greedy and uncaring for their customer base but also casts a negative light onto the entire hobby of trading card games in my view. Maybe this feeling is an over-reaction but I get so tired by desicions like these.
The first collector booster I bought was from Strixhaven. I opened them and was like: “Omg these cards are so cool”, pulled a few good cantrips from mystical archive. Set after set the collectos booster get more and more the same as a Draft or Set booster, with sometimes even lower value than Set Boosters.
I think my biggest issue with collectors boosters and the “booster fun” plan in general is it’s really pushing the idea that this isn’t a fun game, it’s gambling aimed at 13 year olds. Even with the claim that “Not every MTG product is for everyone”, the age rating makes no distinction. And with products increasingly being described with gambling terms, I have real concern that WotC pushing the boundaries with things like double master’s collector boosters is going to step so far over the line that something is going to give. Some people may recall how politicians began looking into the gambling of loot boxes in article games after EA’s disaster with Battlefront 2 some years back, I can only wonder if MTG wasn’t so niche, if it would have the same reaction if the gambling aspect was as well known.
“Collector booster packs are kinda broken, and not even serving their intended purpose.” I suspect their intended purpose is to make WoTC lots of money by selling an item for as much money for as little product as they think they can get away with. Sounds like they are serving their intended purpose just fine.
Wow. What an exceptionally perfect vid. Really, no sarcasm, it’s really put the dots on all the problems I personally have with these types of product AND what might possibly be done about it to fix the idea behind them. You want more comments or ideas on the topic, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss for words here. You’ve nailed it. Nailed it so that if this were Nosferatu’s coffin, he’d not get out again. Ever.
My fiance and I were so excited to get the Double Masters sets this year. He was a Magic player years ago (2006-2015) and got me into it this past year. He has been so angry with the “pringling” of foils, low-quality printing, and price. WotC needs to consider that many Magic players are regular people who can’t or won’t shell out hundreds of dollars for bad quality cards. Or maybe they don’t, as their bottom line seems to be fine. Maybe it’s just me, but New Capenna seemed to be especially bad as far as pringling and warping other cards.
Definitely agree with all of this. The last time I bought a premium set was when VIP came out. I was super disappointed with what I got out of it. I never found myself wanting to buy any of the collector boosters after that. If they can step up their game and make these cards actually unique compared to the other sets. I would probably be a bit more willing to spend my money on it.
Drafting collector’s boosters would be amazing. I feel it could definitely give a boost to draft and sealed attendance at local game stores which has suffered since the pandemic. Also draft boosters having little to no value has hindered players from wanting to draft as well so that would be a fantastic solution.
Speaking of the List, I think Streets of New Capenna nailed it. Wizards cut a lot of the common and uncommons in favor of the Universes Within cards. While the UW cards are relatively inexpensive right now, I could see the price potentially creeping up. Plus it gets rid of the feel bad associated with some random common taking up a List spot.
Myself and a couple of the buddies I talk and play magic with Every-Day always talk about the types of printing. I really dislike Common’s in fancy printings.. Even on the fence with un common’s. -I hate getting excited about a card, that will never make it in any of my commander decks. -I would assume it would cost them less, if they just printed commons and uncommon’s in one single print. Then add Crazy Prints to Mythics!! Good article, as always, Prof.
I like the idea of collectors boosters containing all showcase cards. Getting a bunch of chaff cards in them has always made them feel underwhelming. Quality control is by far the biggest issue in my experience, though, so I’m glad you spoke on that as well. The collectors booster boxes I’ve opened have been absolutely notorious for cards that are: pringled right out of the pack, off-center, have roller lines and/or moisture dots on the card surface, dulled inking, surface scratches, etc. In some cases, I’ve opened cards that are straight-up damaged (torn or bent). This atrocious quality control was the final straw that got me to stop buying boxes.
Pharmaceuticals often list their side effects at the end of television commercials but YT ad reads for pharmaceuticals never seem to include the side effects. Keeps can lead to ED and other sexual side effects, depression and or anxiety, testicle pain, tenderness in the breasts and a host of other issues. A article about the ethics of collectors boosters shilling for pharmaceuticals is a weird place to be
I already refuse to buy standard set collectors, it’s just burning money in my mind. They absolutely destroyed the secondary market for standard so your investments hold even less value which has always been an issue in standard but collectors magnified it to a ridiculous level. At least with most standard cards being dirt cheap I think it actually cheaper to play standard then popper.
Thanks for all that you do professor. I got back into magic last year after a long hiatus (I quit while going to university, money was tight at the time). I came back so excited because strix Haven had the mystical archives cards and that made me excited to get back into paper magic. Totally reminded me of when I first started playing magic during zendikar and the hidden treasures they had there. Now that these price increases are happening I’ve actually been priced out yet again. But not only that, no cards are special anymore, and if they are, they’re ridiculously priced and hardly accessible. I will continue supporting my local game stores and buying/trading singles.
I feel like your ideas are awesome and it would push me to buy Collector Boosters myself. I don’t see the value in them myself but I do collect a lot of the unique art and borderless stuff. I just tend to buy singles as you usually suggest. If the Collector Boosters had more unique things I would definitely be trying my luck more often!
First, I love the body image positive take on Keeps ads. Keep it up. Second, I agree, I think if you are going to charge a premium for these you need to give something actually premium and more worthwhile. And that means less junk and chaff. Not sure if I care if it is draftable though, but could be interesting.
Your suggested changes would make it reasonable to buy collector boosters. I’ve only ever bought collector boosters from neon dynasty in at that I only bought two and I got some stuff I was happy with but other than that I don’t think I’m ever going to get a collector booster again unless they try to drastically reform The collector packs into something similar to what you’ve suggested because just getting a bunch of foil Commons and trash cards makes me want to quit playing magic the gathering in cell all my cards and go to vote my time and my money somewhere else. Magic is a hobby that I enjoy and if I can’t enjoy that because I’m getting scammed by wizards of the Coast then there’s no point for me to engage with wizards of the Coast you know it’s that simple. I absolutely support your reasoning and logic that you laid out in this article as to why wizards needs to improve the quality of collector boosters and your example of how to is completely reasonable. I don’t know if I’d want the collector boosters to be draftable but maybe that’s something that wizards could do after they prove that they can provide its customer base with a quality product as The collector boosters you illustrated would be.
Currently the only collector ever Made that fix my needs in therms of collectiong, is the MH2 collector. The old frame and Expecially the old frame foil had a very hi-level attraction to me. Moreover, the fact that I would find something that is not possible to find in the normal packs, It was something that make this product very unique. Hope that this is a good start to implement a new concept of collector booster that will be in line with the new prices!!
Love all of your ideas for the changes. It would also mean that showcase commands an actual value since they are only in Collectors Boosters and would therefore not be printed into oblivion. Its always fun to look up a card and find the showcase is worth less than the normal version….yeah fun, lets go with that term…
Love the idea of a draftable product: the only time I ever buy Collector Boosters is when my LGS actually holds a once-a-set collector draft at a reasonably reduced price for those willing to splurge a little more, but the environment is definitely miserable and everyone ends up being forced to pick value over playability and include horrific bulk rares in their lists, so you have to choose between taking an actual expensive card OR a card that you can play in your deck. Fun every once in while to gamble like that, but definite room for amelioration in the future
A local game store does a collector booster sealed for every set. It’s like $180 to enter and prize payout is collector boosters. Not sure how popular they are because that’s a LOT of money (as in I can do a prerelease, 2 drafts, and buy a box to draft with my friends for the prize of one sealed game) and I never investigated.
One of my favorite collector boosters is Zendikar Rising, mainly for the box toppers expeditions and the chance to get foil expeditions, so I can totally see the point in making collector boosters more COLLECTIBLE. I also enjoy the dracula series in crimson vow, i only wish that the cards were just generally better since there is not much use of a great art on a card that you are rarely if ever gonna play.
I agree with the alternate art showcase frame point. I don’t understand why Wizards insists extended art is a premium product when it’s no different my eyes. I want to see more showcase art and especially unique foiling. I actually love the gilded foils in Capenna and I bought a Capenna collector box – I was just a bit disappointed how rare the gilded foils were, and the fact that only the tri color cards were eligible for gilded foiling was very disappointing. Imagine how cool the triome lands in gilded foil showcase would be.
Totally agree. In fact I’ve spent a lot of money on custom alt art tokens because in many ways Wizards art is sadly lacking. If they bumped there game up I would probably buy more. I sincerely doubt I will spend 58.00 on these packs. However, I do think Wizards did a good job with the Collector Booster for Commander Legends. Lots of nice foils and art I enjoy, the rest of the collector booster… well… you already summed it up
The jank and chaff is real in collector boosters… I was culling through my collection trying to clear up space, and the extreme excess of some of the cards was ridiculous, especially in the recent Innistrad sets. I went through the original Pringle set of Mirrodin, which was the first set I bought a box of boosters (actually ended up buying 2 or 3) and I didn’t have as much excessive duplicates. I whole heartedly would go for the idea of being able to buy booster of just showcase if every card was available in it.
The Mode average (most common occurrence) for packs should be cards with roughly 30% of the pack’s market price in value, with the Mean average (what we usually mean by average, sum over count) being roughly equal to the market value. That way, you’re very rarely devastated by a worthless pack of pure chaff, you’re generally satisfied overall when you open a large number of packs (say, a booster box of 36 or 24, depending on the product), and occasionally you hit a 5x value jackpot that gives that lottery win feeling that keeps you coming back for more. Having the jackpot be a 20x payout in exchange for the mode being 5% value is just predatory.
I like these ideas! I mean, it doesn’t make me want to buy collector boosters any more than the current ones, but it’d make them actually special. As someone who’s visually impaired, I prefer normal, non-foil magic cards for readability. I’d prefer to see draft boosters return to normal (so no fancy frames, reduced chance at foils, etc.), then have set boosters trim out all the chaff from “the list” and replace it with the showcase fancy cards, then make collector boosters where you’re guaranteed these fancy cards and their foil counterparts. I was disappointed when I got a gilded foil Rigo, Streetwise Mentor in a set booster prize pack only to find out it isn’t worth much. Not that I expected it to be, but you’d think a foil card with a gilded border would be worth something for being so special.
Goddamn Prof, those are some great ideas. I would totally have shelled out to get Eldraine on the showcase art style, those were beautiful. Here’s hoping Wizards picks up your idea, because I stopped buying them collectors for exactly the reasons you listed. It ends up feeling like giving away money for nothing, because with a little bad luck you can end up with nothing BUT jank in a box.
All excellent solutions. Even if they just solve the quality issue I might not feel as much like I am burning my money if I buy a collector’s booster although I would love all showcase art and list cards as an additional value. Not invested in the draft aspect since I am not a draft fan in general but I can see how that would appeal to others.
Think one of the biggest issues as you mentioned is the quality control. Not all of the CartaMundi factories seem to follow the same quality control. Belgium and Japan locations seem to have overall better quality than the USA printed ones. On the rest of the points I agree, pack should be collector items only and being draftable would be cool. Maybe even throw in a collector booster into the bundle boxes, have them contain 1 or more of each of the different booster pack types.
As someone who likes to collect the showcase etc. arts I would rather not have any of them available only in Collector Boosters and only in foil. Collector boosters being just set boosters in foil, with 100% at having the List card in foil sounds good though. Alternatively they could go yet a different way than what Prof suggested – make them smaller, have only a couple commons and uncommons and instead have a guaranteed Mythic (like the new boosters in Arena) and a couple rares. The printing cost is reduced, but the overall value and desirability of the pack is largely increased.
I absolutely agree, and even regular sets have been dragged down by this self inflicted inflation of their prices. What I would like to know is how to make this opinion better heard across the spectrum. I know you make these articles, but how do we make sure this is being heard on multiple fronts. Who do we contact, and who do we encourage to make sure ALL of our voices are being heard?
Prof, your perspective and points are always so valid. We all would hope that WOTC listened to these criticisms more, but the reality is they won’t unless people stop buying cards until these issues are fixed. Which then creates the issue of popularity of the game, which then makes the game take 3-steps back to the time I remember MTG players were…. “only for nerds.” And I say “nerds” with love, being a very handsome nerd myself. 🤓
I like the concept of the collector premium product, but it does need to be improved. I feel they should only contain card treatments/variants that are only available in them. This would make those treatments more valuable, and make the standard foil versions of cards more valuable whilst giving more value to the draft/set boxes. I do like the list idea of having special variants of list cards in the collector boosters as well.
As someone who has been actively marketing Magic the Gathering to new and old players alike when I say marketing I mean as a store manager I feel like that the collector booster pack need an overhaul of some kind you took on a lot of points that I won’t repeat that I do agree with it’s funny how well you know your target audience professor but you should you are a teacher just wish that some companies would heed upon your wisdom
Or just print those cards. Via printshop or your own printer. There are sides that can help. Today you could also randomize cards that would be in boosters all by yourself and it would most likely have less similar rare or mythics then in most displays. The biggest difficulty for that would be to have someone that print those and put them in packs so yourself dont know the cards xD Fixed without the need of change of a preditory company.
Yeah, I agree. Except for the last bit. Collector boosters are for collectors to get “fancy” versions of cards, Draft is for draft boosters. Let’s keep draft/sealed to draft boosters/boxes. For drafting/sealed I prefer simple cards, just because yeah, too lazy to double sleeve all the foil stuff to avoid fully damaging them.
Complete alternate art would be awesome. This point I’m about to make might be a little controversial – but I think that the alternate full art foils card should be only in Collector boosters. Regular card frames for draft, maybe one slot for the full arts (but no foil) in set boosters, and all full art foil for all cards in collector boosters.
I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a pod at an LGS that didn’t have someone make a mistake during a draft. I think it’d be hard to remind everyone that that last X number of rares are treasure rares and not eligible to be drafted while the previous rare is eligible. It would be fun though – seeing all cards being flashy would be neat
I could see myself potentially purchase a pack at 2-3 times the base value for alternate art (lands in particular are a collectible for me) on occasion for the experience, but not at $50. I think the extended pack to make it draftable while also having extra room for some prize pool/chase/wow factor would help with the appeal of the pack. I agree though that the quality should be at least as good as the normal product at minimum. For me, the Neon Dynasty ones had enough appeal with the special art lands garaunteed to convince me to try one. Maybe instead of the photoshop filter treatment, they could have the art in a different stage of completion? They could experiment with some being early drafts or partial completions or maybe early sketches or offerings that didn’t make the final cut. Collector to me says unique- so whether that is in the associated art, card layout or something else (as long as it isnt poorer quality) I think it could be a viable avenue to try and see what clicks. An example for New Capena for example could have been say a full art land with one half full art and fully glitzed out and the other half either as a sketch or the location under construction or in a blueprint type style. Collector seems like a great place to be creative and experimental. You could have the cards in it have a theme appropriate but still recognizable change to the mana symbols for example. Using New Capena again for example just putting gilding around the edges of the symbols at the top of the card would be a simple but interesting bit that combined with some other non standard card face treatment (ie alternate art or some such) could be appealing to the collector market and other player bases besides.
I like some of your ideas, The List cards should totally be done in showcase style (like they did with Rafiq), though in my opinion an entire set of alternate showcase cards would be overkill, i like collecting main sets and showcase cards (not extended cards, which i dislike) and that would be extremely pricey to do (it’s already expensive enough imo)
It is very much not common that i find myself disagreeing with anything the professor has to say, but here i am. I like the limited number of showcase cards each set because I actually do exactly what you are describing in collecting all of the special arts from some sets. For example, in Ikoria i got all the comic book arts for mutate creatures as well as the various godzillas. In Crimson Vow i painstakingly tracked down all the dracula-movie style arts for every card that did so. I do this kind of thing obviously because i love the arts but also, importantly, because it’s affordable for me to do so, and it’s affordable BECAUSE showcase art is, as you kind of put it, less special in more current sets by being present outside collector boosters. Were i to try to collect all the godzilla arts which are only opened in 30 dollar collector boosters, an item that by default you’d think would inherently increase the value of the cards within based on exclusivity, I the average buyer of magic without so much extra money am suddenly priced-out of the fancy arts.
I very much agree with the ideas presented in the article, especially having a full showcase set. I particularly dislike the completely useless foil C/UC cards, the standard/extended art bulk rares and especially the commander set inclusions (I can get those anyway if I buy the decks, so why would I want those in my CBs – and that in a format that allows for a single copy of each card). I think it is OK and even necessary to have some variation in financial value in the CBs but at least there should be some kind of other value coming with boosters that happen to be on the lower end from a financial POV. And showcase art throughout and/or the list would definitely be great for that.
Sometimes, I’ve had good luck with getting what I wanted out of the only collector booster box I bought for MH2. It was a one off to buy it and back when prices were far lower than now. I don’t usually consider them because it’s easier to get singles in the alternate styles, borders or art then take a gamble like that and especially not with the ludicrous prices of double masters.
Bought my first Collector Booster yesterday; a $27 Neon Dynasty pack and had mixed feelings. Just like you said, I was hoping to get lucky and pull some good stuff. Now while I did almost break even, a lot of the cards were warped and made me question if that’s a normal thing. After conferring with a friend and now your article, I see it is. Unfortunate. Probably won’t be purchasing another Collector Booster, at least for awhile. Agree with your sentiments.
Honestly, I’d like to see the expansion of alternate styles, but I wasn’t thinking the entire set. More along the lines of that I’d have loved the alternate arts of Saga’s from Kamigawa Neon Dynasty to be available for all rarity’s, not just rares and mythic rares. The main point I agree with you on is quality, though I do believe that the quality of non-foil Extended Arts, as far as the displayed art goes, has been rectified. Personally I would not want them to do away with Extended Arts entirely, but I wouldn’t mind it if it became a style exclusive to lands, by which I do mean that (exclusive to Collector Boosters )you can get Extended Art lands of all rarity’s. Included in the premisse of Collector Boosters is that they are limited print-run items, I believe it is the market that doesn’t seem to understand this and thus undervalues cards such as showcase foils(, i.e. cards that will never be reprinted in thesame fashion,) that is at fault in the disparity of value when buying a single Collector Booster. Should Collector Boosters be improved to align better with the initial asking price on release? Most certainly, I agree on that topic. Are they a bad product? No, on that point I still disagree.
I think changes can and should be made to collector packs. However tossing in too much can be deminising returns on sets that follow it. As for ways the collector sets can be made more premium would be as you had said adding masterpieces and other List cards to them and expanding to say 22 cards (including token and land) with a universal chance of those basics be more desired duel lands such as fetchlands, shock lands, filter lands, etc
I think the contents of the current collector boosters is just fine. It should be half the price since bulk rares are completely possible, but it’s just too late to hope for that, they’ve been selling fine enough far as I can see. Adding more value to the packs to make them worth the 25 would honestly probably annihilate single prices a bit too much. I really like the easy access to foils of commons/uncommons, and I also enjoy the zoomed in version of “extended art” cards. sometimes I want more of the subject and less of the background, pretty much every time except on lands. Showcasing the whole set would be neat, but so far I’ve liked more of them than I haven’t, speaking for the selection of a certain mechanic being the marker for if it’s made showcase or not. It really helps them mean more than they would if it could be any card from that set. I think full sets would just be too much of a good thing. I do agree though that it would make the collector boosters as they are actually worth the 25, especially if they stopped having occasional draft/set booster ones.
HI Prof! I don’t really care for collector’s boosters. While I have bought a few of them, a 58$ boosters is insane. Above quality mentioned observed in totality! I notice with the more card styles offered, the more frequency of duplicate cards in rare slots. Collector’s booster are a bit of rub. Thanks for the article Prof!! Sincerely, Bubs
Wizard’s most important thing is to have a non-premium offering of the product available for people to choose from. Having to choose between a premium product and ultra-premium product is a terrible choice. Imagine a Master’s set that was available in Normal Draft for $6, Sets for $7, Collector’s for $20 and Ultra Collector’s (the prof’s version) for $50. Drafts and Sets would remain similar to what they are now (although I would change the foil chances to eliminate most cards in the set, and instead you have a chance at pulling a good card from it in foil). And the List cards are available in every pack of Set Boosters. That would allow everyone to collect and play the cards they want to.
Yes! 1000% While I would like to see more value and/or collectibility in the packs before I would use them for draft. I don’t have room to store a few thousand cards a set, but I love to crack packs. If these boosters even cost more but had nothing but A tier pulls. I would buy them! I love opening and enjoying sealed product, I just don’t have the space to produce a Gamegenic 1100+ worth of cards every set! Getting commons in foil does not add value, lipstick on a pig IMHO. Foil lards are the lowest I would allow.
Interesting take. There certainly is a need to improve Collector Boosters. The lack of value has made picking these up a tough sell. I purchased a single booster from New Capenna and called it good. If the expected value is there, the product will sell. There have been a lot of sets where it isn’t and I sit it out.
I strongly agree with and like your first 2 points but as a collector I don’t think I can get behind with making the packs draftable. I don’t think I’d want to risk damaging now said collectible pieces by playing them not would I want to them buy played collectors pieces. Plus this opens the door for wotc to charge even more by saying, well we’re giving you more quantity. It also seems to go against what your initial points were, get rid of jank and bulk but we all know that what the majority of the draftable cards are.
As someone who only buys singles and doesn’t buy into the premium or lottery based pack opening scheme I have widely considered collectors boosters the worst investment for value hunting. On the flipside collector boosters have made the overall cost of cards go way down for cards that are chase rares and sometimes mythics. Sure you still get your ultra rare/mythic that still goes for 30+ dollars but those are much less common then they were since collector boosters started. It makes it so the less desired version drops in price significantly and I can pick up most cards I want from a set for less then 20 dollars and if I want the chase cards maybe an extra 5-10 dollars each. I agree the they need to do something to make the collector packs worth their price but as the average player who doesn’t care about foiling out my deck with special arts it has made the game slightly more affordable.
I like the extended art cards though. Some of the foil extended cards looks phenomenal. Also, many of the showcase cards aren’t even that great looking. Imo drop the commons and uncommons then work from there. Using the extra slots for list cards. And tbh if they really wanna whale it up with arena throw in arena promo code cards.
Prof, I love your articles, and in general agree with much of your opinions. I feel you missed the essential point of these Collector packs. They are much more akin to the DM VIP packs than regular collector boosters. I do agree WotC needs to fix the card quality issues. I would also like to see some more fundamental product line strategy changes. However, I do feel you did not properly align these to be much more like VIP packs. I am a very small content creator, but would love to discuss this with you live on our stream on Saturdays at 7pm EST on the Pat the Pauper website. Please let me know if you’d like to chat with us in more depth about this. You could also watch the stream we just did tonight (Carboard Conversations where I cover this very subject a bit more in depth.
I’m more of a collector than a player (if I play, I play commander with the commander box products). However even when I’m trying to collect a full set (like I did with AFR and will probably do with Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate (CLBBG)) I refuse to support laziness! So I don’t buy the collector boosters mainly because I’m disgusted by how money grubbing the “Extended” style is. I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll try to collect the “Etched Foil” variants in CLBBG (need to see them in person before deciding) as they seem pretty lazy too. And even though I’m not the biggest fan of the “Showcase” style in AFR or CLBBG, I still try to collect them as at least it seems like WotC have put some effort in there. I LOVE the alternate art in the “Borderless” styles! If the Collector boosters were a bit cheaper, better quality (i.e. no foil warping or shitty colours) and they had purely alternate art styles….. yeah I would definitely buy them. And even though WotC would have to spend more money to commission the art and get less money because they’re selling the Collector Boosters for less, I STILL think they would make more money overall with the increase in people buying the Collector Boosters. So I think I pretty much agree with everything you said except I don’t mind if they have the draftable section or not (it’s a cool idea but I’d rather play with preconstructed decks and also I dislike prize pools as I find the game stops being about having fun and most people get uncomfortably competitive.
I agree with a lot of these points and to be honest the mocked up ikoria pack example made me get so excitedly disappointed that that could be a thing but will likely never come to be. It’s just sad that my LGS has to basically only do preorders for collectors and then what they don’t sell on preorder they just crack cause they just rot on the shelf otherwise.
The obvious fix is to ensure each pack has a minimum value within 10% of its retail price, so you’re not literally gambling with them. This could be as simple as have those 60 cards be all cards worth $4, or having guaranteed high-value cards in each pack that will bring the value per pack to $50 minimum. They could even do reprints of historical cards to ensure that every pack is unique and they’re only ever injecting maybe 10 new cards each into the ecosystem with each masters set. You could call it the “Master’s Gallery” with special art and borders and foil that doesn’t curl. Imagine if each pack had something like a Doubling Season, Copy Artifact, or Kozilek so that even if every other card was worth less than a dollar, you’d have a ringer.
I agree with all these points except the draft idea, unless it would be designed to be a much more powered draft experience. There’s a lot of showcase cards that are literally pennies, even for foiled versions, so I don’t think adding the idea of draft would be an effective valued addition to a product that’s designed to offer the highest tier of collectibility even if you have foiled showcase commons and uncommons. Draft is for drafting, collecting should be for collecting, they just need to maintain enough value per pack to make it worthwhile to collect without total reliance on the lottery.
We never know until the product comes out if something was changed or not (Quality or card mix in pack). But lets say it stays the same as previous collector, I think it might fail as much as “double feature”, even tough better cards and vhase cards are in it. My personnal opinion on card quality, foil and price: The delayed “Unfinity” set might offer a solution. I personnaly think wizards gonna radically change something in their collector booster, but only starting during this specific set (Scheduled september +). Wizards said covid delayed that set, wich might be partially true, but since unfinity is gonna be the first collector booster ever featuring 100% foils, we could see a quality change.
baseball card packs have a chance to get a card signed by the player, with numbered (limited printed) “parallels” (like the Neon Ink Hidetsugus). If magic wanted to really REALLY wanted to make “collector” boosters, they’d have artists sign cards and give them stamped-numbered parallel cards. Imagine getting a cool planeswalker, but it was numbered to 10 and signed by the artist, holy shit that would be sick. Let’s make THAT happen.
Here’s my review of the current collecter boosters: My friend could have won the prerelease of both Kamigawa and New Cappena, he had the cards in hand to win both times and he threw the games for the number 1 spot both times to take second because the prize for second was a set box which he sees as inherently more valuable than the Collector Boosters. Now they have 4 packs instead of 12.
Honestly collectors boosters are the only boosters worth buying imo. If you want to crack a pack and hope for a chase card then these have the highest odds besides buying singles lol. Yeah the collectable cards inside I agree aren’t usually collection worthy when it comes to the commons and uncommons, but the few rares and land at the back usually are….I bought 1 collectors booster for streets of New capenna for $26 and it was the only product I’ve bought for this set so far and I pulled a full art bootleggers stash and got my money back. Yeah you may not pull the best of the best out of every collectors pack but you have way better odds for sure. Draft boosters leave em to draft, set boosters leave to standard, and buy the collectors for the collection. As it always goes if you want a specific card buy the single otherwise buybthe collectors booster. It’s like buying a $5 scratch card vs a $30 scratch card….the $30 scratcher is the better buy every time
I like these ideas for the most part. However, aside from fixing the quality, the only thing they really need to do to justify the current price point is reduce the print run and stop including the special treatments in other products. Collector packs should be valued for providing a limited unique product and truly rare pieces such as the neon red inked card in KND. The other products should focus on providing accessibility to playable cards and not special treatment cards. Classic cards still hold value for their utility and that should be more than enough to continue to draw people to draft and set boosters.
The only Collector Booster product I splurged hard on was Modern Horizons 2. I bought a slew of packs at Target, etc, plus a few boxes. That’s cuz it was almost impossible to “lose money” on that set. There was value across the board. Outside of that unique scenario, I’ve always found collector products to be so mediocre. It’s so disappointing because everything you said was spot on. They cold be so much more.
I’ve only ever bought a collector booster twice, both times it was a gift for a friends birthday. It’s a product I can never justify buying for myself after all I’m being slowing priced out of the regular game as it is, yeah frustrating is a good word. I love this game, I love the feeling of sitting around a table with my friends and seeing who goes off this time. But the game just keeps heading in the direction of luxury and I’m already staring down the tunnel of a life where I can’t afford a degree, where I can’t buy a house, where I’m scared to have kids because they’ll just have the scary uncertain life I did. I watch these articles and hope quietly that wizards might listen to some of the professors ideas, but that day never comes.
THIS! ⬆️ I have always felt the collectors boosters to be lacking. If WotC did something similar to your amazing idea, the foils should be randomly inserted into the “extra” section to remove the over saturation of foils currently created by collector boosters. I say this mostly because I am personally not a fan of the unusable state most foils end up in.
As someone who enjoys playing Bo1 Standard on Arena, I used to build in paper and would always buy singletons because I’m not trying to play limited draft so the normal boosters are kind of garbo if youre trying to be competetive in a standard meta. I like the idea of a booster pack with more uncommons rares and mythics, but i dont need them to all be foil special art. Just give people a booster with cards that are actually being played.
I’m not planning on touching the new double masters set. I spent almost $100 on packs when the first Double Masters came out, and the most valuable card I pulled was worth less than a dollar. I’ve never been a big spender on masters sets, usually only buying a pack or two to support my LGS, but that was enough for me to not buy in again.
I usually buy several set booster boxes of a set in hopes of getting one of each card. I typically end up about 6 cards short. I decided for Crimson Vow to buy two collector booster boxes instead and underwhelmed does not cover how bad that experience was. If Kamigawa hadn’t looked so cool I was going to skip buying it. Collector booster boxes are not for me.
I like the idea of premium boosters that define the premium aspects desired by purchase. So much loss in value with the hit or miss lottery method, especially since miss happens more often than hit. Consider the often collector booster article with only two booster packs cover 90% of the financial value of the entire purchase.
Collector boosters, as they stand, feel like draft packs for extra money, and occasionally something I want. In fact, most premium Magic products feel that way now. From the Vault was premium because you were guaranteed certain desirable cards in a special foil. It was exciting and worthwhile! Pokemon still has premium products, so why can’t Wizards?
There are some great ideas here, but I LOVE the extended art cards…Some of the showcase art is really great (Eldraine), but a boatload of it is mediocre at best. Extended art Isshin Two Heavens as One looks badass; showcase Isshin looks like Neo-Tokyo Doctor Robotnik. Given the choice between even a poorly-done extended version of a piece by Johannes Voss or Magali Villeneuve on the one hand, or a regular-sized piece of art by someone else with a weird border, I’m going to go with the former every time. I was so excited when Kamigawa Neon Dynasty had showcase and extended art versions of all the rares and mythics, and so disappointed when they backtracked in New Capenna to just have one or the other.
Everyone I know who plays competitive standard (including myself) buys 3 to 4 of the core prebuilds that more or less generates 4 copies of what they want to build around, then buys singles to fill in the gap. Remember when the Betrayers of Kamigawa block released before anyone (including WOTC) realized the value of Umezawa’s Jitte which was included in the core prebuild ‘Rats’ Nest’ (ninjas!)? If you were lucky (like me) you grabbed as many of that prebuild as possible before WOTC ramped up the price from $7 to… it’s hovering around $100. Most players have to be smart and the smart ones stay the hell away from any kind of collector set. It’s a bad deal! What I recommend for everyone from the casual player to the standard enthusiast is; get to know your local MTG dealer who sells, buys and trades in singles. They are your friend.
I actually bought a collectors booster box for kamigawa cause I was very excited for the set. I ended up opening a lot of goodies including a fist of the north star Kaito and FOIL phyrexian Jin. This was in Japan and I went to one of the shops here to see what they’d give me for the Jin. One shop was offering 25,000 yen! (Around $230-250) which I would have very happily sold for. A free box! But when I got the card appraised the buyer told me I’d only get about $60 for my Jin. The $250 price was only for SET and DRAFT packs. So you’re telling me that collector booster cards are actually worth LESS (by a significant margin) than REGULAR PACKS?! it’s absurd
I quit MTG 2 years ago. Used to own an entire modern foil jund. I just kept my foil legacy D&T mainly due to the art for some of the cards. Now I mainly play Digimon which is super affordable compared to magic and they actually give you a reason to buy booster boxes and even starter decks (secret rares and starter deck exclusive cards that are actually good and so on). If I would come back to MTG they have to either make some nice lottery cards in packs to justify the purchase of boxes, not only a single box topper with “full art”. Lotv box topper is a joke for example. If wizards actually release a full anime collector set with legacy and modern staples I would come back in a heartbeat tho.
New art is always collectable in my opinion. Even if it’s a junk rare new art means somebody wants it. Foil is good to but it’s harder to find that buyer that’s looking for that one foil common to complete their all foil deck. Even I’m guilty of buying foil singles of my favorite uncommon cards. New art even more so.
As the prices stand now, a collector BOX has 16 cards of rare or higher for ~$230. Almost $15 per rare/mythic! Meanwhile a draft box with 2-4 rares/mythics per pack will average around 72 rares/mythics per $255 box. I’d much rather pay $3.50 per rare/mythic than $15. Not to mention there aren’t even set boosters! Collector boxes need to change
Arent they just called rings? O rings typically mean a completely different thing in various diff.. fields? By fields i mean stuff like, from neumatics(think paintball) to just basically creating a protective seal from air/water/whatever. Ive also heard ppl say to avoid side loader binders. Any clue why? Last thing i was curious about how serious of a problem these things are. Ive never had any of these issues not even when pokemon initial released in the states. Ive only recently started looking into these things as ive gotten back into collecting so to speak. The main thing i see mentioned is to avoid sheets/sleeves made with pvc, and to go for acid free sheets. Ive been finding it hard to find info on this stuff because unless youre going for the top end sleeved pages or what have you they dont always advertise what they are made out of or any of that stuff. I received a really cool binder as a gift and it came with its own sheets that i like but i have no idea if i should even worry about replacing them. Im probably going to do so because to top all those concerns there seems to be a thin film of oil on the inside of some of the sheets and it would be far too much trouble and unsafe to try and clean then reuse them imo. If anyones reading this and has opinions/info id love to hear it. Thanks for your time <3