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Soon-to-be-Reprinted: Examining Garruk vs. Liliana

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Over the past couple weeks, we've gone over the important reprints in Elves vs. Goblins, Jace vs. Chandraand Divine vs. DemonicOne last set is part of the Duel Decks: Anthology collection, and that's Duel Decks: Garruk vs. LilianaIs there anything good in this one?

garrukvsliliana_productshot

 

One last time, I will give the disclaimer that all prices cited are TCGplayer mid and just there as a frame of reference—expect prices to drop once these decks are reprinted.

Planeswalkers

You may have surmised from the deck title and picture above that Garruk Wildspeaker and Liliana Vess are included in this set, and you'd be right. Coming in at just under $16, the foil Liliana with Terese Nielsen art is one of the priciest versions of the card. Garruk's price of around $8 matches up more with the non-foil printings, which is probably due to the art being less cool, despite being also being by Nielsen.


Unfortunately, those are the only cards of decent value in this set. Everything else comes in at a couple bucks or less.

A Couple $2 Rares

This set's Mutilate has unique art, so it's the priciest version of the card at $1.98. Similarly, Bad Moon is the only printing with the 8C frame (Eighth to Conspiracy), which may make it desirable for some collectors. Still, neither of these rares even breaks $2, so we're not looking at anything exciting here.


Some Commons and Uncommons of Note

A few commons and uncommons come in at over a dollar. These are worth noting for those times that you buy a collection and are trying to pick the worthwhile Duel Decks cards.

Two copies each of both Rancor and Harmonize is pretty nice. Two copies of Nature's Lore, the only 8C-border printing, also adds some minor value. Treetop Village has always been played, and Invigorate is good enough to be banned in Pauper (but not really see play anywhere else). Finally, Snuff Out has unique art and its only 8C-border printing, which makes it more than six times as pricey as its Mercadian Masques counterpart.


Bulk Rares Close It Out

Unfortunately, the rest of the rares in the set are under a dollar. For reference, they are Ravenous Baloth, Plated Slagwurm, Rude Awakening, and Skeletal Vampire.


So is Duel Decks: Anthology Worth It?

From a financier's perspective, I'm not really interested in buying this $100 set for MSRP. Most of these cards will drop in price due to this reprint, and even if none did, I'm not sure that piecing out each deck would be all that profitable or worthy of one's time.

From a player's perspective, there's not a lot of tournament staples here. There are some great Cube/Commander cards, and eight foils for folks who love their shinies, but nothing that is ridiculously hard to obtain, short of maybe Demonic Tutor in Divine vs. Demonic. 

For a casual player, I think this is a great purchase. Eight preconstructed decks to mix and match among friends, with some powerful cards for future deck building, is a very cool thing. It seems like Wizards is aiming hard at the kitchen-table player with this product, but at a $100 MSRP, that may backfire.

Regardless, seeing a reprint of a set like this should put us all on notice. Nothing not on the Reserved List is safe from reprint. That includes individual cards, but as we're seeing here, it includes sets too. I doubt we'll be seeing a normal expansion reprinted any time soon, but supplementary sets like From the Vault, Commander's Arsenal, and Planechase seem to be fair game. Keep that in mind if you're investing in sealed product or cards printed in supplementary expansions.

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