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9.28.2010

MTG PreRelease Promos

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Good Day folks and Happy Tuesday,

We had a blast during the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release last weekend (see our last post for the video and details) and are looking forward to the official launch this weekend. In the meantime however, we are drooling over the lovely foil prerelease promo, Wurmcoil Engine.

This does give us pause to think about recent release and prerelease promos . . . we think that these have generally been improving - getting better cards over the last few sets. To this end let's have a quick look.

First off - if you have never been to a prerelease or release event, promotional cards are provided to players participating at sanctioned prerelease tournaments. These were first introduced way back for theTempest prerelease in October, 1997. Prerelase cards are typically marked with the prerelease date to identify them as the prerelease card. Starting with Onslaught the prerelease cards bear their expansion symbol as a watermark.

Lorwyn Wren's Run Packmaster 29-Sep-07
Morningtide Door of Destinies 19-Jan-08
Shadowmoor Demigod of Revenge 19-Apr-08
Eventide Overbeing of Myth 12-Jul-08
Shards of Alara Ajani Vengeant 03-Oct-08
Conflux Malfegor 31-Jan-09
Alara Reborn Dragon Broodmother 25-Apr-09
Magic 2010 Vampire Nocturnus 11-Jul-09
Zendikar Rampaging Baloths
26-Sep-09
Worldwake Comet Storm 30-Jan-10
Rise of the Eldrazi Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 17-Apr-10
Magic 2011 Sun Titan 10-Jul-10












A quick comparison of prices - courtesy of MTG Mint Card which we will consider a very decent benchmark.
Wurmcoil Engine / Sun Titan / Comet Storm

As you can see, if we use the metric of singles prices, the promo cards obtained at the prerelease are pretty decent.

On top of this, we are also impressed with the tip-top alternate art we are seeing with the newer promo cards - just fantastic / beautiful. A good example - check out the upcoming Scars of Mirrodin release promo, Steel Hellkite (Japanese source - we've been unable to get an image of an English card yet).

Finally, here's an image we took at last week's prerelease - the back of a tips-and-trick card featuring art from the next upcoming set, Mirrodin Besieged, due in early February, 2011.

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2 comments:

  1. Yeah, Wizards has been pushing the Prerelease promo as a way to draw in the more reluctant players. They try to choose cards that will entice someone to come play who generally doesn't like to attend tournaments.

    It's still too early to tell if Wurmcoil will remain big or not, but the excitement over that card at my local event was quite high, and many people were trying to trade for playsets or even more.

    Still, starting with Vampire Nocturnus in M10, WotC has been on a pretty good roll of giving us totally badass Mythics at these events. Only Comet Storm was really a dud, but I think alot of people really expected a bit more form that card.

    Sun Titan isn't exceptionally valuable right now, but is still highly playable, and really is only as low as it is because it is overshadowed by the Grave and Primeval varieties.

    All of this has served to make Prereleases a must-attend event for the casual crowd, which is what they were shooting for.

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  2. Anyone else notice that the Myr on the Mirrodin Besieged preview looks like Sarcomite Myr from Future Sight?

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