Let's Play The Double Masters Booster Box Game For Magic: The Gathering! 

Just FYI Prof when I try to tap “read more” it makes me tap on the link and go to the video. Great intro!

label it "watchdogs garruk edition" :P

Already saw it! It’s beautiful.

Saw it already, but great video, as usual

Reprint equity does exist, even if the card stock costs the same by reprinting and decreasing the value of the existing cards means they cant get people to buy boxes looking for those cards in the future. Not "screaming" or anything just saying

Are you ignoring that every booster contains two rares?

@@fernandobanda5734 which most of them cost less than $1? yes

@@garlicxlr Customers: But the secret lairs are close to the secondary market WotC: Splinter Twin unbanned! Customers: That still doesn't- WotC: We removed 25 cards off the Reserve List! Customers: But they are worthless like Sedge Troll WotC: Return to Kamigawa!

@@xChikyx Read what I'm writing about. I'm not saying you should buy a box, I'm saying there IS a very clear and justifiable reason to charge more outside of the secondary market. Wizards knows what they're doing.

@@fernandobanda5734 so, double rares mean triple the price of a normal booster? that obviously makes sense, it's obvious it's not because of the whale bait rares included because obviously wizards have no idea how much a force of will or a mana crypt or a jace cost in the seconday market because the secondary market doesn't exist, right?

This. Would make boxes that cut it close more suspenseful and boxes that hit the threshold early more exciting if we know how many packs are left.

Good idea !

yes! I was thinking the same

He had one in some older videos

@@shawnthetaco10 this would also allow people to skip to the end of the box... which is a bad idea because RU-vid monetizes by way of watch time not views....

Always!

I was thinking the same thing as I watched this video. Thank you, Professor!

The goat honestly.

This, this is what makes the Prof my fave mtg content maker. There are others very entertaining but Prof has that and also good wholesome advice always.

@@TolarianCommunityCollege you said m21 was a great set, which only has 8 cards over $10. Throne of Eldraine has around 6 and Battlebond only had 7. All good/great sets. All about $100/box. Double Master has 45 cards $10+ for $300/box. If they don't print double masters and instead use the cards as the chase cards (7-8 per set) for the next 6 sets at $100. Thats $600 for essentially the same cards. (Seeing as all the value in a set is in the chase rares) Azusa was a $25 card that came down to $10. Wound reflection was a $25 that came down to $10. Seems like impact on card prices are similar. Yes $600 spread out over a year is more affordable, but $300 to get 6 sets of rates at once seems OK. Not too mention, the value of the rares and mythics are much higher than in m21 or battlebond. And for comparison Ultimate masters had 29 cards over $10. Seems like the value is ok to me.

Hes gonna sell the singles just to buy them himself

Many Magic the Gathering players ask the question, "How do I get into MtG Finance?"

I love how the camera lingered on that one

Hell yeah

NIIICE!!!

@@daltonbuchholz5061 some people don't have a choice. Luckily I live pretty close to Star City Games so if I want to buy a lot of magic I'll go there and save a lot of money. That said MTG is a sink hole.

@@daltonbuchholz5061 pardon me while I get fresh meat and veggies at my LGS. Local Goods Store? Oh wait, that’s not it.

what a champ

Me too.

Unless you're playing limited

123phi123 the limited for this set is like 60$?

Joshua Martin i've opened a couple boxes and i have broke even at LEAST each time 🤷🏻‍♂️ keep in mind the price of cards will rise too

With this set specifically opening packs is a true fools errand. I bought singles the Saturday after release on tcg; the cards were relatively inexpensive and already have gone up about a collective 40% in value. You just have to understand the market and it’s very easy to do well after a release.

Yea I got absolutely hosed too. Maybe half my value back. This one set has be on the "singles only" train from here out.

Warhammer 40k (an expensive AF tabletop miniatures game) already looks cheap compared to MTG. (Trust me, I play both. After spending like $400 in 40k you'll not really spend much more except for buying a box of guys whenever-you-feel like it. Not like MTG where $400 will get you a single stack of cardboard that is destroyed because of a spilt drink)

It already got me to quit the game

I just print proxies now if my friends want to play. The price point is too high for me and I make a pretty solid annual salary plus time and a half overtime. Frankly I don’t see how any kid, highschooler, or poor college student could get into this game in any kind of competitive manner. I got into it in college because my loaded friend bought me a deck to play. It’s just insane now though.

@@earbitter Yeah... Nowadays I just play on Table Top Simulator with buddies.

R.A. Klein II I hadn’t even thought of that! Good idea:)

they deserve it though

This is genius. Absolutely genius

Man this is good

Omg this is the greatest comment ever

I am having a lot of trouble understanding what this comment means... I get the message at the end but "Don't let them know I sold a goyf and How much for." makes very little sense to me. I know what a goyf is and I know there was probably some mistake in that sentence, but my brain is struggling to comprehend anything. Can someone explain what that sentence means, please? thanks, lol

@@sidneypowelstock6812 Aaron Burr, Sir. from the musical Hamilton

It's wild to me that a large portion of the value in these boxes is contained in box toppers and chase rares/mythics. The disparity between the highest and lowest value cards, and the distribution rates of each is astounding for such a high-priced product.

I'm glad you bring up confirmation bias. I want to urge people that everyone who is lucky to get godly pulls is not everyone who buys these packs/boxes. People keep using them as examples to why this is a good product. It's really not because it's overpriced gambling. Be wary is all.

@@Durgenheim Absolutely! For every FOW you pull, you will get dozens of jank rares and almost... kinda worth it cards in the $5-10 range. The dream is to pull that "awesome" high value card, but the reality is as the Prof said. The House will Always Win. Long story short, WotC and/or Hasbro is shifting Magic to be like Sports Cards. Brace Yourselves.

@@nicholas8739 Exactly! This is why Casinos operate their games in large, loud rooms with lots of pretty lights etc. They want you to get caught up in the excitement of the few people that are winning and join in. Like the Prof said: The House Always Wins.

Don't know how you consider the first box made by the force of will. Even if you remove the value of the force of will he still would have made well more then the cost of the box. And yes every idiot from here till Sunday recognizes that opening any box of magic is gambling. However opening boxs is still fun, people will still buy them, and if no one did their would be no increase of singles on the market. People want to buy boxs that on average of getting their money back, and honestly these boxs aren't bad for that. Would I still encourage people to buy singles over a box? Hell yes, but if someone is dead set on getting a box I would recommend this set because its just a blast to open.

Agree! Double Master made me want to open a Mystery Booster box. Do you think they will print a 3rd run?

@@johnmack6218 I doubt it. It was too good of a value. I got my box for like $90, and it had incredible cards. Such a fun product.

Wizards is doing alot of experimentation this year with pricing and pack styles. We've got collector boxes, the VIP boxes for the already double priced Double Masters, Jumpstart, the Mystery Box, and the new Set Boosters for Zedikar Rising all make me think Wizards is just going whole hog all on trying as many different kinds of things at once, and waiting to settle on which one makes them the most money for their investment of time/capital as the "way to go forward". I just hate that they're using their fanbase as guinea pigs for this during such a huge economic crunch... I get that they probably had most of this in motion well before the pandemic, but going ahead with all of it anyway instead of shelving some of them speaks to a callousness that overshadows their typical greed.

@Nick Fanchette for sure. And I'm still waiting on my jumpstart preorder....

Mistery was the best its terrible they didnt print a lot and just pushed too many other products

“You want to get ahead? Companies run by greed just wind up dead...” WOTC: “AYE YO YO YO YO”

he made a net profit in this video...so uhhhhhhh lol. but by all means, keep getting ripped off and buying cards at full market value, while people like me sell them, make profit and get to have fun opening packs and stuff for free basically.

​@@OrphanCrippler1 im new to mtg , should i buy a booster box if im looking to trade valuable card with friends and sell some ? can you really make money? do you often loose money at the current market ? my town gaming store cant answer me and you look like you know your stuff man ...

@@fredericklachance5033 if you want to sell cards and collect, your only option is to buy a box. If you just want to make a deck and play, buy singles. Also, stop trolling.

@@OrphanCrippler1 im not trolling i litteraly asked the same question to 3 guys, you, another one above and the video creator as a coment. but thanx for your answer.

@@fredericklachance5033 ah. It just came off as a bit....WELL ANYWAY lmao. If you buy a booster box, 7 times out of 10 you will get your value back out of it by sellijg the expensive singles. In my experience anyway. Collector boosters are another story, and fkr me have been a waste kf money. I do still buy them if i have the spare cash though, just cause theyre fun, and the lottery cards are really good. I personally buy set boosters most of the time, just because i like them the best, and you get a box topper.

To be fair, that wouldn't have saved that box.

To be fair, the entire discussion was biased and one sided

Fatal Push and Basalt Monolith weren’t counted for the first box, but that didn’t matter either.

Even with both basalt monolith and vexing shusher, he's still short approximately 20 bucks on the box.

VGJustice Could have included all them $1.50 range cards ....

😂😂

bought 2 packs for the first time in like 6months, insta regret

...Card Castle ad appears after he says buy singles for the zillionth time. We get it, like Rudy says you have a blinking ball and chain by them.

He still made over $50 per box. Sounds like a good business to me

It's Saturday, August 15, let's play the Singles game. How does this game work? I go out to my LGS and buy singles that total up to the value of the newest booster box set released and try to build a deck. Actually this sounds like a pretty good game.

Buy a bunch of singles, put them in cubamajigs, and then open those on camera, and pretend. "Oh my god, a 4th oubliette?! How lucky can I get to get a full play set from one box!"

fgreger oh shut up it is and you know it

Idk where youre from. But many forms of gambling are legal lol.

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck and feels like a duck it's probably gambling.

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece You say legality is not about opinion, but that is LITERALLY all it is. They are opinions of communities that they agree to live by. It's why there are arguments about the legality of abortions or even capital punishment.

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece sure it's legally not recognized as gambling in the us(honestly not sure about some European countries). Regardless saying it is legal gambling doesn't really have much to do with the law. It is only saying that it is gambling (by other definitions) that also happens to be legal. I honestly don't care a whole lot because some gambling is fun. It is also just easily super predatory which is basically what this is or at least can be. Anyways wasn't really interested in arguing the finer points of gambling law but rather making a pithy statement/argument for internet points ;)

I know, right? I opened 2 booster boxes and 16 vip boosters and god zero fow((( only card I really want from 2XM((

@@Polmax2312 I wanted a complete set of foil Urza lands and my first two boxes didn't do the trick(Only got one). I have two more booster boxes on the way.

joeshmoe66 luckily I managed to pull the full tron (without karn to complete the panorama) on my first try. But getting full playset of 12 lands gonna be hard... I ordered singles cause I expect foil panorama tron to skyrocket.

@@Polmax2312 I wanted the swords and fow, still waiting for my box but the 6 vip I got were ok, 2 swords,karn and blight steel

@@Polmax2312 For that 2K you could've just bought a stack of FOW, but ok...

Same bro, too bad I don’t have the money to buy another one :(

I only made like 130 back on mine. I literally pulled the worst mithics

Mine was pretty insane pulled a Mana Crypt and a Foil Mana Crypt in one pack. Pulled an Urza's Power Plant and an Avacyn for my Box Topper.

I got 2. First one was great. Second one was TRASH!

@@m3gaschmeat324 I had decent mythics (Karn, Avacyn, Ensnaring Bridge, Batterskull and Dark Confidant), but not a single rare above €3 and my box toppers were Phyrexian Metamorph and Meddling Mage. I'll never ever buy sealed product again. €260 for the box, ~€190 in return. Friend of mine bought three boxes and got shat on by the box toppers in two boxes. Double Masters is so incredibly top loaded that you simply can't break even if either your mythics or toppers suck (or both). Prof got super lucky with the first box, though he still got carried by the Force of Will and SFM topper.

Edh doesnt care about sealed product unless it's a precon. Buy singles.

And definitely make the tough trade decisions

Proxies!

I support proxies if you own one real one or if you are temporarily play testing to decide if you want to buy.

That's the problem with proxies. Everyone has their own rules and requirements and if yours don't match with mine then we can't play.

Market value is basically only what people are willing to pay for it. Not what SCG has arbitrarily declared it to be

I think that it’s simply the fact that this is a product that attracts hardcore collectors and players, and no matter what, there will ALWAYS be people willing to spend whatever they have to in order to get the best cards. WoTC knows their audience, and they will continue to price their future “collector sets” (masters, secret lair, etc.) accordingly.

When a video first gets posted, RU-vid has itself a little heart attack and needs an hour or so for everything to properly sync up in terms of displayed views, comments etc

@@TolarianCommunityCollege that is the best way I have ever heard it described

Im genuinely surprised I haven't heard anyone starting such a case by now.

@@Highstar7331 tl;dr Gary has shadowspear equipped and can prove Magic is gambling (imo). Did a little reading on my lunch break. There was the case in the 90's that tried to use federal gambling/racketeering laws as cause to label MTG as gambling. The case failed due to judges seeing it as a state law problem and not applicable to the federal laws that focused on mafia style gambling fraud. Meaning that their is no blanket decision on MTG not being gambling in the states. Only that their is no case law or precedent. This makes their defense somewhat hexproof. Something I thought about in reading the defence, Gary. The defense argument was that the cards, like baseball cards, are equally destributed and have equal potential for collection and play. The idea being that cards do not have more or less value. And that the rarity of the card is more of a sweepstakes and not one being more valuable than another. My thinking is that they acknowledge power level and what rarity means for the game and desirability of a card. In Theros: Beyond Death they reprinted Gray Merchant in uncommon to balance power of the set. By showing they understand the power of a card means they understand the playability of a card over another. That all cards are not equally desired, wanted, collected, or played. That this is evident in market demand and context of gameplay. And being the designers of the game they should know what would be considered strong in the game they design. If that wasn't the case then they took their cue from the secondary market and agreed with Gary's play value as defined by its market value. It seems to me that they have undermined the principle of their defense. Why change a cards rarity if rarity is meaningless in gameplay terms and collector demand?

Courts have already said the booster pack model of distribution isn't gambling

PreVideo, and I must agree. Maybe 1/6 boxes would have enough valuable foils, rares, & mythics to recover the cost, assuming Prof makes it to Box 6

the force of will pack one lmao

Alot of boxes are missing the box toppers according the game store I ordered mine from. My topper was missing and Wizards still hasn't address the issue, it's been about a week since I submitted my claim regarding the missing box topper.

I think the one that hit me the most throughout this whole vid were the Sen Triplets, and well most of the other Mythics; however, Sen Triplets was like 20-30 bucks not too long ago. Now it's only $10... That's insane. I get that there were other huge drops in prices, but I don't know that exact drop because, well, those cards were already over $70 at least and I don't even look at those cards to buy.

Because they can do it and people will buy it anyway

Their reasoning is that people will draft the set, and the chaff cards can often be good in that limited setting. That reasoning is very stupid.

the chaff makes a limited environment

I agree. Not even $2-$5 staples in about half the packs. I don't care if I don't get my money back in one big chase card. Like many players, I love limited and I love commander. I would be very happy with a plethora of cards in that range that I know I would use in decks. It really is a shame that this set, while having some amazing reprints, is all about THE BIG REPRINTS. And if you miss out on those your pulls are just horrible. I cannot even justify playing limited with this set with my family, let alone buying a whole box like we do for standard sets to play with.

@@dorsalfin22 The limited environment in this set is honestly fantastic, if you can do phantom drafts on MTGO I would highly recommend it.

@@dorsalfin22 Obviously you just need to scale up the KIND of limited you're playing. I assume you can overcome variance if you're playing a box league, and you can DEFINITELY overcome it if you're playing a box league with cases of the VIP boosters. I mean, that's clearly an egregious waste of money, but you have to admit, it'd probably be really fun if money was no object.

@@ccggenius Usually when I play limited it's with a booster box so that way if someone in the group gets a bad limited pool, they can try again. My pod is also full of general board gamers and since they're not all enfranchised MTG players, I like getting the boxes for everyone to play together. But unfortunately this set is out of my range. Definitely buying up singles though and looking forward to another printing of Jumpstart. That set is amazing for all of us because we can play with so many people who do not usually play magic.

Yeah really makes buying a single pack "as a treat" just not a feasable option at all. And a 70€ Winston Draft is also not really in the books for me either so... Skip. :/

You don't

@@fernandobanda5734 you do.

@@melonboi927 There is all sorts of Magic that can be played by avoiding cards with outrageous prices, or at least having to have many of them. It depends on who you can play against and what you want to play.

Exactly how I felt some years back, after having spent waaay too much money on this. It was like I suddenly woke up from hypnosis and realized that I can just buy games that come with everything you need, for less than half the price of a booster box. Turns out that board games isn't just a cheaper hobby, but it's also more fun, more balanced, (often) less luck based, and you actually sometimes feel like you're supporting underdogs who deserve your money.

@@Narstrand6 What limits you from enjoying some form of "closed" Magic? For example, a Duel Deck or Jumpstart is an entire game. Why is it bad that you don't have EVERYTHING? Can't you pretend that what you have is everything? Cubes and set decks work the same way, but they probably need more investment.

The ultimate price presented to consumers is dictated by sellers which is dictated by how much consumers are willing to pay for the product. Prices are always determined by what people are willing to pay. If the cost to produce an item is less that what people will pay it becomes discontinued.

So glad I did that. Got so many great commanders for cheap.

If not ruining at least hurting the game experience

no, it's actually this little thing called HASBRO. yeah they're gonna run magic into the ground or get it to 'evolve' like the sports card industry has. you will see 3 sects of players. those who spend whatever to have whatever, those who refuse to buy in and will only buy older sets, and everyone in between chasing both those sects. Hasbro is making WoTc provide different avenues of card types so that those who have/want to spend big money, can spend big money.

I personally believe you are misguided

It’s called gambling...if you’ve ever been to a casino then you know how hard it is to walk away from a slot machine or table when you’re “hot”. But the house (Hasbro/WOTC in this case) always wins.

Its not just MTG they are ruining. Check the prices of almost any sports card box that's come out this year. Its crazy. The finance people get mad because they don't want too much info getting out and educating people to not purchase their scalped products.

No i never do and nor will you