Random Bulk Lots

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Good Day folks,
We want to yatter to you today about the deals to be made from some online retailers.

We first started thinking about ordering sets or lots of cards - both random and organised sets after corresponding to our good buddy over at Casual Magic. We were a bit tentative about this but thought that this route may have some benefits over purchasing packs or boxes of booster packs. We had also read some good and poor reviews of this . . . well, this is ours.

There are 249 cards in Rise of the Eldrazi. More speficially, there are Mythic Rare, 53 rare, 60 uncommon, 101 common, and 20 basic lands. As we wanted to cherry-pick our rares after the release of RoE, we thought about pre-ordering a bulk random lot of RoE uncommons to obtain a near-instant collection of the latest 'n' greatest set. To this end we went to Troll and Toad and purchased 3 (three) X 50 Random Rise of the Eldrazi Uncommons - that's a total of 150 cards for $1.99 each (now $2.49 at time of post).

Here's the video dissection . . .

PROS
We rounded out our collection of the new set very nicely. We also actually received 157 cards - instead of the 150 - yeah(!) T'n'T get bonus points for the seven extra cards they had slipped into our order. We're not sure where you live but up here in the great white north, one can expect two things - polar bears knocking over garbage cans and expensive magic cards. Single uncommons usually run around $1 each and more if they are rather good cards. Having puchased a bulk random lot essentially saved us close to $120 for 150 cards after factoring in shipping up here - a very decent deal.

CONS
These are a random bulk purchase so expect random - multiples of one card and none of others - even with three lots purchased. Absent cards of note - Soulbound Guardians, Time of Heroes, Wall of Omens (!), Inquisition of Kozilek , Jaddi Lifestrider, Joraga Treespeaker, Pelakka Wurm, Enatu Golem, and Skittering Invasion. If you really want to get a hold of a specific card in a random lot, just simply purchase the single and don't hope you will get what you want.

Here are the details of what we received in three 50-card uncommon lots.

TOTALS
Count Name
3 Affa Guard Hound White
1 Emerge Unscathed White
2 Kabira Vindicator White
4 Luminous Wake White
4 Mammoth Umbra White
4 Oust White
0 Soulbound Guardians White
3 Survival Cache White
0 Time of Heroes White
0 Wall of Omens White
4 Crab Umbra Blue
2 Domestication Blue
2 Drake Umbra Blue
1 Enclave Cryptologist Blue
2 Guard Gomazoa Blue
2 Hada Spy Patrol Blue
3 Merfolk Skyscout Blue
3 Phantasmal Abomination Blue
1 Reality Spasm Blue
5 Unified Will Blue
3 Arrogant Bloodlord Black
2 Corpsehatch Black
2 Curse of Wizardry Black
7 Escaped Null Black
0 Inquisition of Kozilek Black
5 Nirkana Cutthroat Black
4 Pawn of Ulamog Black
2 Skeletal Wurm Black
2 Suffer the Past Black
4 Virulent Swipe Black
1 Akoum Boulderfoot Red
7 Brimstone Mage Red
5 Explosive Revelation Red
4 Forked Bolt Red
4 Lust for War Red
5 Rapacious One Red
3 Soulsurge Elemental Red
4 Surreal Memoir Red
2 Traitorous Instinct Red
3 Valakut Fireboar Red
2 Beastbreaker of Bala Ged Green
5 Boar Umbra Green
2 Bramblesnap Green
4 Broodwarden Green
2 Gravity Well Green
4 Irresistible Prey Green
0 Jaddi Lifestrider Green
0 Joraga Treespeaker Green
0 Pelakka Wurm Green
3 Prey's Vengeance Green
2 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Dreamstone Hedron
0 Enatu Golem
4 Not of This World
2 Ogre's Cleaver
1 Pathrazer of Ulamog
3 Pennon Blade
3 Runed Servitor
0 Skittering Invasion
4 Warmonger's Chariot
157

Summary - this is a decent deal - make tracks now. These guys had fast shipping and were the first to get to my door. There was a small issue with a customs brokerage fee as it had come across the border but it was put to bed by the great folks at Troll and Toad in a efficient and effective manner.
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Surmise Surprise

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Howdy MTG folks,

Rise of the Eldrazi is set to be released on April 23, 2010 with official previews starting on Wizards of the Coast on April 5th. We have already seen seven cards spoiled to date and the fan community is on the edge of their seat anxiously awaiting for rest of them to be revealed.

We, certainly like many of you, get hit with quite a large number of new cards during this time running up to the official release which we all attempt to evaluate and then place in categories of awesome epic / good / situational / poor / nasty-bad and the like. We endeavour to determine the usefulness of individual cards within our current deck builds, builds we may want to develop, and what we may want to keep for some yet unknown development.

Based on all of this mental exercise, we may then begin to speculate over the future monetary value of the given card and then start planning what to pre-order or what to 'wait for' until the price comes down. We, like many of you perhaps, pre-ordered cards knowing that the price would naturally fluctuate but will settle on the going price of the day and hope we get good value.

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Some of the smarter Pre-Orders we had done just before Worldwake was released was Stoneforge Mystic and Basilisk Collar. We had a good feeling about these two cards and prognosticated that once they began to see play locally and on 'the circuit', many would re-evaluate the cards, acquire them, create a demand and subsequently increase the cost to obtain the cards.











Anywhoos - Here is what we had pre-ordered and the local price at the time . . .
Stoneforge Mystic, 4 x $ 1.50 = $ 6.00
Basilisk Collar, 4 x $ 3.00 = $ 12.00
Yep - a total of $ 18.00 but we felt we could develop a great deck around this and the other cards that were being previewed at the time.

Fast Forward to today - These same cards now are demanding a much higher price (locally) . . .
Stoneforge Mystic, 4 x $ 9.00 = $ 36.00
Basilisk Collar, 4 x $ 9.00 = $ 36.00
Yep - what cost us $18 would now have cost $72.00 and we feel rather good about saving around $54.00

Sooo - in summary, pre-ordering can be rather beneficial in saving your money or if your speculation was a bit off, could have cost you more than it should eventually have. Prepare yourself - read the reviews, play-test with proxies of these new cards and then plan your pre-orders so you will be the one smiling at Friday Night Magic with a great deck that did not cost you your arm and leg.

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For reference, here are some approximate prices for the top twelve cards in Zendikar and Worldwake - Remember - this is a snap-shot and is garuanteed to change.

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Worldwake Pre-Orders Delivered!

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Hey there MTG fans,

Not too much happening in the way of Magic the Gathering news. We have been running a series on casual deck ideas - these are decks which use at least 50% fresh mix from Zendikar and Worldwake. Stay tuned for more of these coming up - we are not even close to getting through some of the fun builds one can have.

For today however, we have some nice news to report - We finally got our Worldwake pre-order ! Yep - a truckload of new Worldwake card goodness was waiting in our mailbox yesterday. We usually get our singles from a very well known on-line retailer in Florida (CoolStuff Inc.) and it typically takes just under two weeks (8 to 10 business days) to get to our sorry frozen a$$ here near the north pole.

Anywhoos - out of all the cards we had pre-ordered, our most anticipated order was not a card at all - it was a playmat. We are rather deprived and have never owned a playmat. As we sometimes take our cards to unsavoury places to play, we felt we would be better served to disinfect a playmat instead of 60 individual cards.

Righto - the playmat - we have a thing for the new Worldwake Admonition Angel (perhaps not the most epic card in this set, but the card is decent enough and we loves 'em that sweet art by Steve Argyle.

Sooo - we ordered that deal which they (the retailer) sends along 10 very random rares along with the playmat. We did not have very high expectations for the random rares but really did not care very much as we felt the playmat was just about worth it on it's own. Here's what we got . . .


Randoms with approximate cost : Lord of Tresserhorn ($1.50), Junkyo Bell ($0.50), Soulblast ($0.50), 2 x Hikari, Twilight Guardian ($0.50), 2 x Vassal's Duty ($0.50), Relentless Assault ($0.50), Spellweaver Volute ($0.50), Akuta, Born of Ash ($0.50) . . . We'll be sticking these in our bicycle spokes when the snow melts and the glacier recedes out of the mall parking lot.

We will start showing some real cardboard mtg casual standard builds with fresh Zendikar / Worldwake and report back to you guys how well they fared.

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In other news ->

This Rise of the Eldrazi Booster Box description had been let out of the bag for a week or two now . . . .

In their quest to uncover ancient treasures, Planeswalkers have awakened the Eldrazi - parasite titans of the aether, imprisoned on Zendikar for thousands of years. Seemingly unstoppable, these world eaters threaten all of the Multiverse and their very presence has changed everything you know about Zendikar. To survive, you'll have to be at the very top of your game. Rise of the Eldrazi is set 3 of of 3 in the Zendikar Block.

Whoaz. That's heavy man. Dark and choatic times are ahead for the denizens on the plane of Zendikar. And you just know that these uncouth Eldrazi will be tracking icky aether all through the kitchen . . . erggh.

"Hey guys - what are you doing?!"
"Saving the universe mom . . . from the Eldrazi"
"Again? - OK, have fun. Don't forget to let the cat back in."
"k."

Yep - pretty much win from where we're sitting - stay tuned to MTG Realm for more nonsensical and witless posts.

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