Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: card games, magic, Magic: The Gathering, MagicFest, MTG, MTG Finance, MTGRichmond, Mystery Booster, Tabletop, wizards of the coast, WotC

"Mystery Booster" Playtest Cards Rise in Price – "Magic: The Gathering"

A few weeks ago, prior to MagicFest Richmond, we at Bleeding Cool reported on the existence of the Mystery Booster product for Magic: The Gathering, essentially a grab-bag of a product which had in it cards from most of Magic's 26-year history. Additionally, when it was unveiled at MagicFest Richmond at long last, it was revealed to also contain in each pack a "playtest" card, which could be one among a very large list of cards that were never released and probably won't ever be in the future, either. We also learned through Magic: The Gathering designer Gavin Verhey that while these Mystery Boosters were only going to exist at conventions at the present time, in March of next year they will start seeing a presence at local gaming stores and potentially other such venues.

So, here is the dilemma that all of this Mystery Booster holdoff from local card stores poses.

On MTGStocks.com, a reputable website that documents changes in trending Magic cards and their prices on the secondary market (fluctuations and all), the site's "Interests" page has become flooded with changes primarily centering around the playtest cards we mentioned above. A deeper inspection into these playtest cards shows a wild and diverse (and very concerning) trend: While three to four of these cards are showing up in secondary markets at less than ten dollars USD, the value of these cards is extremely jumpy, with some being as high as nearly $350 USD.

As it stands, a lot of the playtest cards are also unmarked in price so far, meaning that it's entirely possible that some of them will be even more expensive than Time Sidewalk (pictured above). And, heck, Time Sidewalk may not even be able to retain its $350 price tag for too much longer anyway. All of these cards have the same effective rarity, and all of them are printed at the same rate. It would be folly to assume that these stay up there when they aren't even legal in any format but its own Limited environment, right? Right? They aren't even the original stickered cards!

But I've yammered off a bit too much now. What do you think? Does any of this make sense to you? Let us know in the comments.

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