Planechase Anthology

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Yesterday, as it was raining here in Barrie, was spent with the MTG Realm group getting in on some Commander action.  One deck played by yours truly (CopySix) performed pretty damn good.  Essentially, it is green / white aura decklist and at its nucleus is a modified 'Savage Auras' preconstructed deck from Planechase 2012 with Krond the Dawn-Clad as Commander / General.  In fact, the group has a number of cards from both Planechase (2009 and 2012) in the tall stacks.  

Which brings us to today's topic - Planechase Anthology.

This special set was announced back on May 16th, and is to be released at the end of November.  We sort of glossed over this news as WotC for some odd reason dumped ALL the big news all at once making it a bit difficult to absorb and process everything (think squirrel after a double-shot of espresso).    :(   Not kewl.

Anywhoos, there has been quite a lot of complaining in a good many forums about the price tag with this set - about $150.  We want to express out opinion here - we think the suggested retail price reasonable.  Before we get there - let's see what our coin can purchase -

Planechase Anthology showcases cards, both Planar and normal, from Planechase (2009) and Planechase 2012. Planechase Anthology will contain the following:

• Four Planechase 2012 theme decks
• Four slide deck boxes
• Oversize slide deck box
• 35 double-faced tokens
• A special edition planar die
• Four Spindown life counters

• A strategy insert
• Oversized Planar cards (86), which includes the 40 plane cards from Planechase (2009) and the 32 plane and 8 phenomenon cards from Planechase 2012
• Promotional plane cards (6): Celestine Reef, Horizon Boughs, Mirrored Depths, Stairs to Infinity, Tazeem, and Tember City

The four theme decks from 2012 are further described here -

Chaos Reigns features Cascade. As such, it embraces randomness and chaos, burying its opponents under the weight of multiple spells and creature-entry effects in a turn.

Night of the Ninja features Ninjutsu. To support that theme, it contains small evasive creatures that can get through your opponents' defenses and get upgraded to Ninja-hood. It also has some card-drawing and control elements.

Primordial Hunger features Devour. The deck is filled with creatures that love to die, often giving you replacement creatures in the process. Tokens abound.


Savage Auras features Totem armor. Enchantments and enchantment - supporting spells are en masse, alongside creatures that thrive under the effects of Auras.

The value comparison to be made is rather simple.  Each of the 2012 Planechase Theme decks, still sealed and available in the market are commanding a price anywhere from around $35 to $40.  To collect all four essentially meets the MSRP, with the remaining content pretty much gravy.  Welcome to value-Town.  Think about the six promotional Plane Cards - good luck getting all six from the same retailer / vendor at a reasonable price. Most definitely worth it in our opinion.
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