Is It Worth It To Buy A Commander Deck? Commander Masters Series | Magic: The Gathering 

This was going to be the set to get me back into magic after a long break, hoping to get 3 of the decks, buy some singles later to upgrade them... now I can barely buy 1 if I want to get the now spiked up priced singles... I would rather keep my money for bills unfortunately...

I’ve been having more fun with other games. It’s sad to to see WotC rip players off like this!

Those prices are nuts.

may i email you something to your gmail non buisness unfortuantly youtube wont let write my post. its not buisness related so why im asking .

I apprecate your honesty you pulled me back into your channel but not mtg. ALSO I i disagree with how you evalute value, slight adjustment/ 1 shipping and handlign per card at a 1 meaning only include cards at avalue of 3 or more cuz htats the only ones really worth or sellable as a small time collecter. as huge collector 2$ works regular people its gotta be 3$ or more. 2 adjust take 10% off cuz if you want to sell it now instead of maybe never it hast to be affordable or cheaper then majority o f other stuff espciallly if tyour smaller dont have credit with that provider like mecari or ebay cuz people may not be willing to take a chance on you otehr wise 2anything over 3$ what is its value when adjusted for 10 to 30% taken off profit + that 10% from 2nd point. Because 10 to 30% htats what they take at online traders/distrubters + the 10% you have to take off total price. also dont forget point 1. meaning if all cards over 3$ are worth about 60$ realistically you spent 80, and you sold them. youd have to sell them at about 50 to 55, sooo that said 55only 5$ cheaper, then they could otherwise get else where from a bigger distrubter or second hand guy. 55- 10 or 30% 45 or 50 - the 10 for shipping 35 or 40 meaning roughly you lost 40$ and are left with a bunch of cards that are unsellable. this is how its always worked out whenever i sold anythign COllectablity is not a real thing, if i got 35 or 40$ selling my self you could say 20 or 35 from a carshop really isnt that bad considering you dont have to deal with all the work of selling but, just to buy something 80$ and make only about 30$ is kinda stupid. and beats the point collecting is stupid when done for value, unless of course your shop then ya you need to collect based on values, but for regular people, i like collecting cards with pritty or sexy females on it or crazy unique terrfiyng beasts. where someone could collect dolls, the point is to have representive of your or things you love and enjoy not to have things your just really scalping and in way scalping has become synonymous with collecting and they hijacked the term MAYBE you need to do a video seperating SCalping from true collecting and remind MTG what Collecting is all about. the value comes from enjoyment and representation that a object can bring to a person, hence why i like kallia black red my favorite colors and a sexy female as well as tarmogoyf the card is easily replacble and there are cards that do what it does but way better, but its a terrifying looking beast as well as the dark depths i wanted to get a giant like tentacle tokens and octopus staute to get with the card just to throw on the table when i use it. FOr FUn. the reason things become valuable is because the average person wants them for some reason other then value but when you have people only scalping for value well it takes away all the value that could ve been cuz when somehting has no value other then value then your in a cycle of basically trying to undercut other people so it destroys the value raising costs while lowering the the value because nobody wants it its too expensive. I dont blame wotc entirely but their mishandling and playing into the scalpers is a big problem they are enabling the scalpers they should print and destroy the mtg scalping industry. they should work with their distrubuters to get tehm on page to ensure so they make thier money but carefully print and distrubte to extract all the wealth from the scalpers and so regular people can get the products they want i would still ike to message you email your gmail about my other full comment which is even bigger. on the subject of mtg. and their products. this comment sorta touched on it. but i expand much more i dont like how this SIte web doesnt allow for long commetns that could acutally be very productive, i know its commmmmmenttta section is reall ment to be a sesss pool to keep people at each other to help with the algo and the engagement with app , but they a problem too

Bingo.

Fax

Exactly

No printer. Fax. Facts.

Feels pretty accurate

Yeah he got triggered by chat lol. Out of touch thing to say regardless though.

Where does it say "Premium"? Right after the "$".

Do you have a link to the video?

that guy revealed his inner doucheness to the world.

Don't you guys have credit cards?

That’s what you get for playing such a terrible “format”

@@ozmond ok snooty booty. It's not the only one I play...

Cards that should be in precons if they were actually designed for their current price: Eldrazi: Pick like any of the Titans Slivers: Sliver Legion, Sliver Hive, etc Enchantment: Argothian Enchantress, Urza’s Saga Planeswalker: Jace the Mind Sculptor, 3-mana Teferi, 5-mana Teferi, Wandering Emperor, Tezzeret the Seeker, Dack Fayden (Greatest Thief in the Multiverse), Jace Wielder of Mysteries (which is legitimately a cEDH staple).

@@janmelantu7490 I agree with everything, but jace is hardly a cedh staple, I don't even know off the top of my head if there's any deck that plays him at all

@@andreaslion5877 Maybe “staple” was generous, but he at least was played in Thoracle decks that wanted redundancy or had fewer colors

@@janmelantu7490 true, you could run him for redundancy, but I generally don't see him in my groups, but maybe it's also meta dependent, not sure lol

In a bit of absolute comedic irony, in the Eldrazi Unbound deck I got, I pulled a Borderless Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in the Collector Booster teaser pack

I’m glad, I’d rather buy your coding game than one of these( & I was excited about them when it was announced earlier this year)

I second this. I have no idea how coding works and not remotely interested, but I'd rather pay the service, discounted or not, -Than pay for whatever these decks are selling for (Spoiler: Way too much for their worth).

Please no. Until wizards stops these anti consumer practices, i hope mtg ends. Its a shame that the game is so good that it allows for such scummy practices by wotc&hasbro

@@pepi560 hmmm I hope the BS ends but that MTG thrives

Which ones? Thinking about playing with that

You shouldn't expect a cedh deck with every card being perfectly tailored, there were obvious upgrades for literally every deck that's come out. And the eldrazi deck does come with most of the eldrazi supporting cards.

Absolutely! When the set was announced i predicted that they would put Kozilek in the Deck and reprint Ulamog and Emrakul in the Boosters. That was before i knew what the Commander Decks would cost. With these prices it would have been a no brainer to AT LEAST reprint the Ceaseless Hunger and/or the Butcher of Truth in the deck as well!

​@@theholywand11 not when you ask for double the price. Were they priced like the rest you could make an argument for the upgrades. But with eldrazi and sliver you are asking people to spend more than 100 without upgrades, and in the case of the slivers the main upgrades are all lands which are expensive.

​@@theholywand11It doesn't have to be a cedh deck but it's called "Eldrazi unbound" and is three times the price of a normal deck. It doesn't live up to the name or price.

Wizards didn’t say that commander masters wasn’t a premium product. They said that the commander precons weren’t a premium product. Also. They didn’t repeatedly say it like you claim, it was just mentioned on a stream.

​@@julianvickersFair distinction. Still doesn't explain the premium price tag on non-premium decks.

So... Are we waiting for Wotc to charge $20 for a Wilds of Eldraine draft booster, or do you think that will be 2024 product?

Ding ding ding. This company continues to lose its soul.

Secret Lair Sliver legends here we come!

@@SamJones1337 soul don't make money. also wizard of the coast don't make magic. it employs people to make the product but they sure don't want you to think about that as they fire and re hire cheaper and cheaper

Wotgreed

Mtg dlc

Ironic thing they coulda made. 5 color eldrazi deck with the devoid stuff so that would open up more eldrazi stuff

Akschually, It's called "typal" now, mkay?! Don't want to offend some munchkin in the US, now do you. /s

It's the same 3 jokes@@RiseInAfterlife

I have been waiting for this product for years now, and it's such a letdown. Only 10 eldrazi, only one titan, and only one new eldrazi design. No Eye of ugin, no Void Winnower. The commander even has a booring design, not caring about eldrazi, just colorless 7+ mana spells. It really blows. Some cool new cards, and the fact that they went for colorless, are the only upsides to this

@@HakazeI could be wrong but WOTC shows just shows how greedy they’ve become over the years by printing a few good cards in a commander precon deck and selling it in a premium price while pretending the individual cards won’t tank overtime.

Nah, don't you know that if they would do so, the game would die? That's why every TCG out there follows WotCs lead, and either doesn't reprint at all or they price reprint sets double-tripple the price of normal set. It's literally the only way they can survive out there. Just a sad world if you can't survive as a company without selling cardboard for x300 the price. I mean, we know that because literally every card game also has do deal with foil curling...because you just can't make money without it anymore...card stock is too expensive to be profitable.

​@@neros_sorenI mean Yugioh sells reprint sets all the time and still does well and retain value. So quit spouting bs.

i learned that from Warhammer Gameworkshop few years back

@@PopoTCG Holy balls...you really need a sarcasm sign held up for you to understand it, don't you? At least at the point at which I was mocking MTGs foil curling issue that is not present in ANY OTHER TCG, you should've realized as much. Next time, read properly before you attack someone. I mean, "every TCG out there follows WotCs lead"? Didn't ring a bell already? Touch grass buddy...

@@PopoTCGwas my first thought, 25 years and they get reprints all the time. Honestly refreshing

which store is this? would love to support it if I am in the area!

Mine's only doing 80-85. Not as good as 50, but hes also taking a hit for us. Support these gamestores.

@@at802 He isn't making a profit selling the decks at $50

@@at802 wholesale on these is closer to $60, I think it was like $56 or something

$140 for Eldrazi at my store

Hey - I'm right there with you. I've got a decent collection, with reserve list cards and I used to buy the commander decks each year. I stopped doing that in 2021 and I'm at the point now where I might just sell everything. With all the IPs it seems like there isn't any creativity with MTG anymore. All they do is reprint and use a new ip which doesn't fit the lore of MTG. (Lord of the Rings is probably the exception).

I stopped playing about 8 to 9yrs ago, probably closer to 11yrs. It just felt like things weren't the same anymore. Found myself spending more and more money I couldn't afford to spend on some cardboard. I've picked up MTG recently after a friend got me back into it, but now I feel like I want to get back out after what little I've done. It disheartens me to say it, but I'd rather put my money into the stock market. Use CDs, bonds, ETFs, Mutual Funds, etc... as trading cards, and, truth be told, I'm more likely to get more out of it than anything else. Sure, it's not as exciting as popping an instant, playing a sorcery, equipping that enchantment, and such, but I'll make some money along the way.

I'm getting to be the same way. Love the game, love playing it with friends. And maybe I have a enough cards to do that for a long time without buying much more.

Magic hasn't been for me since 2020. I refuse to buy a card past Commander Legends at this point, and I'll only buy directly from an LGS by me. Its the only way I can not feel guilt about playing this game.

I think pokemon tcg is what you are looking for then

Try proxies too, if you haven't.

Double Masters was my wake up call last year and it's only gotten worse since then.

@@Lucarioguild7 Same here. 2X2 coming out right after Commander Legends 2 and having all the actual commander reprints at a much higher price felt like a slap in the face. Between that and the premium prices on the 40K decks (no, I don't think they were ever worth $60+ dollars), I swore off buying new product from WotC.

I’m going even further. I ordered a $400 printer. I’ll be able to print mint quality proxies. My objective is to make them so good you can’t tell the difference at a game store without removing them from the sleeve and examining them. So the shop can’t get in trouble. I’m about to have a full play set of mana vaults, doubling seasons, mana tombs, dual lands, every tax card, shock land, gates, pains, etc.

​@@NockergeekNetI disagree with you about the 40k decks. Those really were something special. The all new artwork, the dedication to having lore accuracy to 40k, and the sheer quantity of new cards in each deck definitely set them apart from the standard precons. I don't regret buying any of the decks at very early pre-order pricing of $60 each. The fact that a year later three of the decks sell for only a small amount less and Necron Dynasties (which was unfortunately not included in this video) actually still sells for $20 more than I paid for it, I feel it stands the test of time as a particularly higher quality product to justify the higher price.

Same here. I was thinking about getting the planewalker deck but after seeing a few things coming out the past few weeks decided to spend that money on some small upgrades to my other precons.

I really think you'll feel more engaged and satisfied if you build cool decks yourself, the precons are becoming increasingly poor options.

My group loved the Warhammer precons and found similar enjoyment in the LOTR ones as well. The Riders of Rohan one in particular is pretty powerful out the box. Definitely look at those before going near these even more inflated priced ones

​@@StarkMaximum I heavily agree, especially given how bad the mana base usually is... friend of mine started playing and got that MOM humans precon. You'd think that with an aggressive strategy like humans it'd be smart to only play lands that come in untapped, yet it feels like half of the mana base etbs tapped

Any chances you can tell me the model, you intend to buy?

What’s the model?

You don't even need a high quality printer, a 50$ printer works just as well. Print the card in color, use a glue stick to stick it to a land, sleeve it, and it's almost impossible to tell it's not a real card unless you're looking for it. I still buy single because it doesn't really feel like my deck it it's all proxy, but it's really usefull if I want to use the same card in multiple deck or for super expensive single that are essential for my deck.

If Wizards had an MSRP on their products, this issue could be mitigated. Sadly, paying $70 for the Eldrazi deck is more an outlier than the rule.

I got mine for under 90 on Amazon. You bet I’m recording the opening

I managed to snag mine from Amazon for $68 so I'm getting mine for a pretty good deal.

pre-ordered mine like 6 months ago for $80 on Amazon after I saw 40k get borderline scalped . I have most the old eldrazi stuff and enjoy the tribe so I'm not mad

I’m just gonna use my in store credit

After watching the rest of the video I'm going to argue against myself here. The Warhammer 40k precons were premium as in they had more work out into them. Art wise and card design wise. These aren't premium in any way except the price. So while we all know Wizards is making precons not as good as they could be on purpose this seems to be regardless of price

Every set is made worse on purpose to preserve reprint equity. Not saying I agree, just that it's how it is.

Wizards has clearly stated that Commander Masters is not a "premium product". ...at $240 for a 4-booster Collector Booster "Box".

The existence of premium precons contradicts itself since precons are (usually) for newer players but target established players with their contents

I understand not making preconstructed decks absolute powerhouses out of the box. But they are typically playable, fun, focused, and for $40 when they release they are typically worth it in my experience and if you can find them later at a mark down even better. I have a problem when they release a set where decks range from 1.5-3 times the price when they same amount of value is in each because it’s a “Masters” set. Reprint sets are healthy for the game, and should be affordably priced, and while I understand that not absolutely everything in this set is a reprint, I understand that most of it is and the ones people are chasing are. The set makes itself, and they give us NFT artwork for some powerhouse commanders, and expect us to pay top dollar.

great decision tbh, good for you!!

Hell, there was SO MUCH POTENTIAL they had, and it got wasted. Hell, since it's a masters product, give them some cards based on more casual formats. We got Planechase with MOM and DW, why not give Commander Masters archenemy support with some new and old schemes based around the commander

When I pre-ordered the deck on Amazon they were $67 and change. So getting them from distributor for $60 each seems reasonable, and they went up from there.

My local store is doing 75 and the other greedy one is doing 100 lol

​@stevenwilliams1140 really greedy one by me was doing something really ridiculous like $120 or $130

@stevenwilliams1140 this is about what I paid under 300 which included tax and expedited shipping so 75ish each total

@@Gzilla313 Amazon has a lot of operating costs to cover, so I'd be surprised if their algo was only pricing in $7 over wholesale. And if it's a third party selling on Amazon, Amazon takes a percent for referral fee, a percent for fulfillment fee, so the sell price would also need to cover those.

What price were the pre-orders for? I pre-ordered mine for $65 each(all but super friends), and at 65 I kept my order, but it's still too high. I feel like 50-55 would have been the sweet spot, and $80+ would be a hell no

@@etapollo13 mine were from Amazon and it was locked in at around $70 or so each iirc

Got them for $65. Might be returning

Or at the very least Eye of Ugin. I recall a lot of players expressing bafflement that the sliver deck didn't have Sliver Hive. A lot of people are already accusing WOTC of purposefully omitting these cards so they can sell them in a future 'premium set'.

Not to mention the titans themselves. Mainstay in basicly all eldrazi decks, not just the commander decks

The single biggest issue is WotC floating the pricing like they do rather than putting an MSRP on it. If it'd had an Ancient Tomb, the price would have gone up higher to account for that.

@@chiblast100x My question is why price gouge at all like this. You could make more money and bring in more players by pricing these Precons lower and still Have value in them.

@@chiblast100x And this is why MSRP needs to come back. It tells every store what to sell the boxes for, and if they don't everyone knows they are ripping customers off.

my store made it 175

I love supporting my lgs, but the markups on everything are making it difficult.

Omega oof. I need to get back to drawing my own proxies.

Buying magic cards in this country is atrocious. I can't even find them in stores anymore, when my LGS does have them it's only like half of the precons and they're outrageously expensive.

I see them at 440$ for the set of 4. From set to set I have to look at a lot of store because the price are roller coaster and it is not always the same store that got the best price.

You're missing a lot. You don't have to be up to date with releases to enjoy a nice Commander game. (But if you can't resist the urge to upgrade your decks nonstop, good for you that you left.)

Proxy my dude.

@@tsakowich Thanks, but for me the fun of playing Magic is playing with Magic cards. Proxies wouldn’t change my underlying disinterest in the overall state of the game.

@@SethHornplay flesh and blood. it’s genuinely a great game that isn’t trying to gouge their collectors into the ground financially.

@@razzc7for now….

Unfortunately they can’t print “imprisoned in the moon” in a colorless deck. But a colorless Saga depicting the SOI story, perhaps? It could’ve been a cool mirrored pair with the “Battle at the Helvault” saga in the Enchantment deck.

​@@janmelantu7490or a saga depicting the fate of Hanweir, they literally had an ARG telling Hanweir's story running up to the release of Eldritch Moon. Hell, give new versions of Hanweir, Brisela and the chittering host. If we can have four saurons and six Urza's all as cards in their set, why can't we have 2 Hanweirs or 2 Brisela's close to a decade apart?

I mean, people hear "Plant Synchro" and they assume it's basically a Plant tribal deck, but that's really not the case. It's a Synchro deck that uses a notable number of Plant monsters to get their plays going (Lonefire Blossom, Gigaplant, Spore, etc). People hear a creature type in a deck and they assume it's all "X monsters get whatever boost" but sometimes it's just "all of the starters that get my deck going are Plants so I called it a Plant deck".

Tbf, YuGiOh Decks are typically named after their primary engines.

They did this back in 2012 for the Commander’s Arsenal, they made oversized versions (like old precons) of reserved list commanders. Doing thicc versions would actually be a Celebration of Commander’s history! Sliver Queen for the Slivers, Karn Silver Golem for the colorless deck, Rasputin Dreamweaver for the Planeswalker deck (he’s Blue-White and Basically a Planeswalker), and for the Enchantment deck either Lady Caleria (in-colors), Adun Oakenshield (graveyard shenanigans in mostly the same colors), or Asmira Holy Avenger (graveyard in just Green-White, but not super valuable)

I saw enchantments on a big card shop site for like $39 today but I’m kinda waiting for the whole case to drop

Me and my three buddies in my commander POD always go in on a draft box and the person who does best in the draft or whoever wins the commander game we play picks first out of the goodies from the box and then so on. We absolutely will not be buying even a draft box of this over hyped and over priced set of crap. Sure the alt arts look great and whatnot but none of us can justify trying to get more than a few misc. reprints that we dont have yet. What a damn shame. Thanks for nothing Hasbro/WOTC!!!!!!!!

I only have one deck, and since the moment I knew about the sliver deck, I have been looking forward into have achieving one. But since I don't have much knowledge about magic, it's been hard for me. And now that they have released this precon I have doubted if it was worth it to buy it. Do you know if I can get a sliver deck cheaper than this one?

I'm sure there are/will be plenty of videos of people playing the decks out there. That being said, as the Prof just said, you can build one of these (probably with better lands) for far less than the price tag of the whole deck (especially if you own quite a decent collection of cards already), so no need to avoid them just don't buy the decks as they are.

or as he recommended buying older ones these might drop in a few months and then I would love to know how these four work and how well they are designed

Spike Feeders have a couple of videos on gameplay: one with un-upgraded precons and one where they spent 50$ on upgrades.

Usually he does mention how they play but skipped out on it this time for some reason.

I mean a good way to play test them is just to find a play group that does not mind proxies and play test the whole deck with proxies.. then you can enjoy the overpriced product for free lol (well nearly free it would be like $3.00 ??? for paper and printing? not sure here)

Not to mention Fastlands, Painlands, and Slowlands. And those are useful in formats besides Pioneer! It’s not like the Battlebond lands which are literally only good in multiplayer, so it’s not like a precon would be scalped for them.

@@janmelantu7490 oh yeah, the manabases on those decks were actually pretty decent, they even had some buddylands and manlands like mutavault in the case of the humans deck. It is amazing that with commander being the most popular format, they refuse to give people a decent manabase

Not even a triome and I seen farseek in at least two of the decks

@@matthill8284 not to mention all the slow fetches in the Sliver deck.

I feel that's the only market for the sliver deck. Everyone who already has a deck just wants the maybe one or two good cards out of it because they already have better options. Anyone else is just wanting a sliver deck they can start with and it's an okay baseline if you're planning on upgrading.

I got mine from Amazon at $65 back 4ish months ago when only the names were announced. I still almost cancelled, and can't imagine people paying 100+