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