Magic: The Gathering The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Special Edition Collector Booster Box – 12 Packs (Collectible Fantasy Card Game),…

I am writing this review from the perspective of a collector who is also a lifelong fan of MTG and LOTR. When do the collector’s ever get angry? The players for years have claimed WotC/Hasbro cares more about collectors than the competitive scene, but this trajectory couldn’t make it obvious that nothing is further from the truth.

There’s something called The Collectability Paradox, which means that something cannot reasonably be classified as collectible if it is widely advertised to be collectible and is only bought by collectors. All those Nintendo Switch “collector’s editions” will never be worth more than their MSRP during your lifetime unless kept factory sealed, in which case it MIGHT appreciate enough over time to offset your losses to inflation. Same goes for all those “Limited Run” (lol) releases, day one editions, limited editions, collectors editions, special editions, whtaiewhgaisghnagoiag

What makes something worth collecting is the likelihood that you are in the minority of people who don’t use it as intended and preserve its condition. This is why most things we hear about that have insane value today are toys/games intended for kids of the past and intended to be manhandled, lost, chewed on/up, colored over, painted, damaged or destroyed. Cardboard cards, plastic dolls, stuffed animals, plastic building blocks, the boxes all these things come in. Most valuable vintage games have boxes that are more valuable than the cartridge itself. We usually kept the manuals, so they appreciated because paper degrades, but they were rarely thrown straight into the trash like big, bulky boxes. Old lego sets are almost always cheaper than the boxes they originally came in. The reason some legacy cards have insane value now (esp if Near Mint) is because the vast majority of cards were played with and over decades now have accumulated a lot of wear, tear, dents, nicks, boogers, sack sweat and grime. If you touch an Unlimited Edition card, there is a chance you could indeed be touching the very germs that came off your fat dad’s cheetoh-covered fingers 30 years ago when he first played the game. Fascinating, and gross.

Legacy foils at one point were actually extremely rare. To add to that, many people didn’t take them seriously and saw them as a loathsome gimmick, so they didn’t even get so much as a protective sleeve. The foil rare average was 1 per booster box. I remember people wanting high demand foil rares and had their wallets open and ready, but the supply just didn’t exist (Foil Rishadan Port demand back during the block’s T2 days was insane, even AFTER they restricted it). There’s a reason no one has 10 complete Foil sets of Urza’s Destiny, which nowadays would average about $10,000 per set, and could easily hit double that with high PSA grades. It would have required an insane amount of effort to put together and back then MTG seemed a lot more speculative than today where it’s established for the foreseeable future. In the days when TCGPlayer didn’t exist to ease the headache of filling in collection holes, finding ways to complete a set required patience, money and resourcefulness.

If you genuinely love both MTG and LOTR and want to enjoy a perfect marriage of subject and medium, go for it. If you are buying any of this stuff from the perspective of a collector, you are in for a rude awakening. Hasbro took true collectability the way of the dinosaurs back when they introduced the absurdity that is “mythic rares”. They did it again with traditional foils, alternate art, extended art and borderless treatments by introducing the “collector’s booster”. And now they are doing it, again, to surge foils with the advent of this hilarious horse’s butt of a rerelease called the “Special Edition Collector’s Booster”. You are not getting anything special. You are not getting anything collectible. Even when other owners die, this stuff will live on and be inherited. Hasbro has quickly accelerated MTG manufacturing to a level not seen since the baseball card fiasco of the 1980s and 1990s. I still have a full box of 1987 Topps sitting in a drawer at my mom’s house somewhere, not even worth the cardboard its printed on. Those cards are twice the age of some of you.

My box delivered pretty quickly and fully sealed. I agree that it’s not fair to give a poor review for what you pull out of these boxes. I got a bunch of cards that I’m stoked on as an avid LOTR fan, but nothing of significant value per se. My partner on the other hand also bought a box and pulled some incredibly valuable cards. My review is still 5 stars because the product is in perfect condition, and it’s been a while since I’ve felt excitement like I did while opening these packs.

I paid $320 (that includes tax) and the estimated value of cards I got totals to about $375. I’m not in this to make a buck, to me collector booster boxes are about pulling cool cards to play and add to my growing collection. I’m probably going to cave and buy another box 😅

It was shipped quickly, well packaged, and exactly as advertised on the website. I bought 2 and had excellent luck with both, including a serialized land card. However that is is no way an indication of how good, or bad, your luck could be. My 5 star is based off the seller, shipping, and how well it was packaged.

It is completely unfair for anyone to leave a poor review on a product like this because they didn’t get the cards they wanted out of a pack that is by definition random, and I would be writing the exact same review now even if I had gotten nothing of note out of these packs.

良かった

I got 13 mythic cards, so I can understand giving a bad review if a box only yields 4. MTG needs to make our expensive purchase feel worthwhile. The cards look amazing and the poster varieties are a cool flashback to the 60’s. I love looking through the cards and appreciating the incredible art. Even the common and uncommon cards look great! BUT, I am not happy about the current price for MTG boxes. I only bought this box because of the Lord of the Rings tie in and it was cheaper than the original LoTR collector booster boxes. This will be most likely be my last MTG purchase. It’s just to expensive for somebody like me that buys the cards as a collectible. Plus, almost every release starts with VERY high prices that steadily drop over the next year. If anything, be patient and wait for the price to drop to a reasonable level.