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Insider: Taking a Second Look at Commander Legends

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My previous article regarding Commander Legends called out a few speculation opportunities for two of the new commanders. Sadly, none of those targets has really shown any gains, though none have lost any real ground either. Admittedly, my excitement for this set as a whole has also waned; it could be from the pretty lousy box I cracked, but it could also be because a lot of the cards that looked broken when spoiled haven't been so in all actuality.

Once a set's hype has died down, we can get a better picture of its overall financial impact on the game. Players were able to acquire their boxes on 11/12 and a lot of product has hit the market.  We have already seen the most hyped card Jeweled Lotus tumble from around $100 to under $70 and I expect it will continue to fall, though I am not as pessimistic as others and see it likely sitting around $40 when all is said and done.

Data

One of the biggest factors in card values for this set is the fact that there are so many rares and mythics; 77 rares and 22 mythic rares. In each pack, you get a non-legendary rare or mythic; 2 legendary cards that can be uncommon, rare or mythic; and a foil which can be any rarity. Each box contains 20 packs. So let's break this all down:

  • 52 Non-Legendary Rares
  • 17 Non-Legendary Mythics
  • 25 Legendary Rares
  • 5 Legendary Mythics

It's also important to point out that Magic cards are typically printed 11 cards across and 11 cards down or 121 cards per sheet, however, we don't have enough information to know what kind of sheet layout the Commander Legends is printed in. Thankfully, Mr. Thomas Vanek (a store owner in Europe and member of our Discord) opens a lot of boxes and collects the data from his openings. He opened 460 regular boxes and the pull rates were as follows:

Regular Booster Box

  • 9606 Non-Legendary Rares which equates to 20.88 per box
  • 1560 Non-Legendary Mythics which equates to 3.39 per box
  • 5048 Legendary Rares which equates to 10.97 per box
  • 428 Legendary Mythics which equates to 0.93 per box

Value

Now that we've looked at the drop rates for various cards in the set we should also look at the values. These have been tanking hard since boxes first started getting opened and singles started entering the market. While this is nothing new, in fact, it happens with every set, the fact that the chase card Jeweled Lotus has plummeted by over 60% says a lot about the value in this set, especially since as we discussed in the data set you honestly need to open multiple boxes to have a decent shot at getting a single copy of it.

Interestingly enough, it seems that the rare dual land cycle has actually rebounded some, with almost all versions sitting in the $5-$6 range before release weekend and now sitting in the $6-$8 range. The price on these boxes was also elevated with the going rate being $125-$135 at release, whereas, most Standard legal sets you can typically buy boxes under $100. This is important because as single prices fall any stores with remaining boxes lose incentive to crack them for singles and we may be quickly approaching that line if we haven't already passed it.

Currently, there are only 4 cards in the set, excluding etched foils, sitting above $20 market price and all 4 are mythics. There are only 2 rares sitting above $10 market price. There was also a lot of talk of stores not receiving the full allotment of product requested so there may even be a shortage at the moment, which doesn't bode well for these prices. I can honestly say I really regret purchasing a box myself, I pulled poorly which didn't help, but I stopped buying boxes and cracking packs because as is almost always the case you come out ahead if you just buy the singles of the cards you want. This set is no exception to that rule, so if you were thinking of buying a box, unless you plan on drafting with it, I wouldn't.

Analysis

Interestingly enough, we have a conflicting way to view this set for speculative purposes. It seems that supply has flooded the market which decimated singles prices and unless box prices deflate dramatically it's not worth opening more product because of this low value. However, due to the large set size and reduced number of packs in a box there is potential opportunity regarding any breakout stars, especially any breakout mythics because the probability of opening one in a box is lower than usual.

It's also important to remember that like all sets since Throne of Eldraine the extended art variants are only available from Collector Booster packs which are a more limited print run, though I honestly wonder exactly how "limited" it is. So in this instance, I like to look for the extended art variants either in foil or non foil that are currently pretty cheap compared to what I think future demand may hold. Here are a few of the cards from the set I'm actually interested in acquiring, though I may continue to wait another week or two to see if prices continue to drop. I will be looking for any inflection points on these cards' prices before buying in.


While this is no Expropriate, it feels almost like a toned-down "fairer" version. It seems WotC realized the potential for abuse and made sure that like Expropriate it exiles itself upon resolution. So far the most broken card I can see abusing Mnemonic Deluge with is Time Stretch, though I am sure there are others including the previously mentioned Expropriate if you can get it into your graveyard.


Here's another of the near bulk mythics you can pull from your box currently that has a lot of potential upside. Similar to Mnemonic Deluge it's really high casting cost likely keeps it out of any cEDH decks, but this type of ability is usually symmetric when you look at cards like Replenish and Open the Vaults, so a one-sided version is obviously going to cost more. This seems like an auto-include in any of the U/W/x artifact or enchantment based decks and the ability to get planeswalkers back is icing on the cake.


Port Razer is a bit of a toss-up, we've previously seen creatures that take extra attack phases to be either very powerful or very forgetful and it's a bit hard to tell where Port Razer falls right now. The reason I've included it on this list is mainly that it untaps all creatures you control regardless of whether they participated in combat and it doesn't require mana to use its ability. Obviously, the trick to this card is to build a deck that can make Port Razer unblockable.

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