@@TolarianCommunityCollege Oh yea absolutely didn't expect you to mention them just thought it would be helpful for anyone in the comments who happens to play both. Great work on the video btw prof!
This video is 100% necessary. These mystery repacks are shameful trash. Don't think for a second that you were too negative, Prof. You maintained a high standard of professionalism throughout. I know I am not classy enough to do that. Your criticisms were harsh, but absolutely true.
Eh. I agree they are bad but I wish walmart still sold older packs because return to ravnica was boring as hell, I bought these garbage cubes ONLY for the Hope's of older packs. I pulled an emrakul Aeons Torn from one of those
I never bought those clear boxed magic "sets" because they looked sketchy and they looked like crap and to me it was obvious that it was not a magic the gathering official box so I never bought them in fear of getting ripped off. I'm glad I never did now that I watched this.
These are easily searchable, I've bought two of these cubes. One had an archenemy deck the other was a commander deck..... Take the mystery out of it, just search it and hose them instead.
“The mystery box could be anything! It could even be packs and singles that are sold elsewhere! You know how much we always wanted one of those!” “Then let’s just go buy th-“ “We’ll take the box!” 🤦🏻♀️
“If it says ‘mystery’ on the box, it’s crap. They’re trying to rip you off.” Wow, I didn’t know the professor had such strong opinions on Mystery Booster.
To be fair, I do believe he said it was a very welcome exception. Unfortunately I just started watching his videos and getting into Magic. The boxes cost double to buy now than they used to
Wizards released a "Mystery Dungeon" promotional product that has valuable exclusive products, but is controversial because it is not available in all areas and the theming of the cards is liscensed from other franchises such as The Walking Dead.
Addendum: That promotion was actually called "Secret Lair" lol. Mystery Dungeon is a Pokemon game. During my fact check I found what they were probably actually referring to. Wizards is selling Mystery Boosters that are essentially the same marketing philosophy but at least slightly less blatant and heinous. Buy singles.
I shamefully bought WAY WAY too many of these. About 30. Yes 30, I don't know why. I did get a Commander deck. Just one Commander deck. What a colossal wast of money.
@ I bought one of these that contained an Eldrich moon pack that had 15 Zendikar cards inside. It was reglued. I messaged MJ Holdings and they mailed me a new pack. It does happen
@@questionyourself718 Elder Dragon Highlander. The Elder Dragons were the first notable Legendary Creatures, and the Highlander movie comes with the quote "There can be only one," which is used because its singleton.
$20 dollars for that?! I'd rather spend my $20 on a Guild Kit. Edit: Oops! The Professor made that point in the video. My apologies, dear Professor. :)
WalMart: "You can have the lovely Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck the lovely LGS is selling, or you can trade it all for what's in this box..." Suckers: "The box! THE BOX!"
This literally just saved me “a new player” from potentially buying one of these an hour of now when I was going to go buy some MTG stuff from my local Walmart. Thanks.
The problem is that the people this video is reaching are the ones who already know how bad these products are. It's, like you said, the grandmothers and parents who don't have any better idea who will pick this off the shelf haphazardly for their kids. And with how much children love these "mystery products" parents are likely to choose something with that label rather than a carefully constructed deck like a guild kit. I know it's not likely, but I hope that somehow this reaches at least one person like that. I hope that this can help at least one kid experience Magic in a better way than this when getting a gift.
You might be right that some of these are probably bought by people who don't know any better (parents, grandparents, kids). But given that these cubes are actually kind of hard to find (meaning they disappear quickly from the shelves), and from the many posts here from Magic players (including myself) who have bought these cubes, I expect these are largely being bought by Magic players who do know better. There was a lot of early hype when these cubes actually did (occasionally) contain a Commander deck and I'm sure many people snatch these up hoping to score something sweet. I fell for it but that won't happen again.
You are exactly right. My girlfriend randomly bought me on of these a while back while she was at Target. She spent 30 dollars on this particular one and I felt so bad because I knew how crappy these are but I didn’t let her know. I was very grateful that she thought of me, and even bought me mtg. But I opened the box and there was a welcome deck or two, a land pack, two packs of dominaria and amonkhet or something and the black deck from nissa vs ob nix duel deck with the crap rares left in it. She later asked me if I got anything good and I said yeah! I felt bad lying about it but couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth at that time. Later on though, I mentioned that a lot of those mystery packs have bad cards in them and that they can be a rip off.
This is how we protest capitalism: steal from mega corporations, selling the singles, and using the money to go to FNM at your LGS. Spread the wealth around! Socialism for your local game store!
I saw your Twitter post yesterday about how you hoped the negativity in this video wouldn't be too off putting, but I'd say it was the exact right amount of negativity for such a garbage product
My family used to buy these for me when I was younger, and one time we did get lucky and the deck was the dragon arch enemy deck. But in the next one (they had bought two) the deck was a pack of 30 basic land, I reported it to Walmart and got a full refund because that's not even part of a deck
Target has a similar product without the outer packaging that hides its contents. You can actually see the size of the decks - sometimes the front card too so you know what the deck is - and the booster pack cycle. I have bought several that had 2 commander decks in them. They are rare, but at $20, 2 CMDR decks return a decent rate.
I literally had to stop in the middle of this video to go sign up for the professor's patreon because it dawned on me how much money he saves me on a consistent basis and the fact that I just love his videos.
You might be able to write to the company that does the repacks and explain your disappointment in order to get a replacement product. Granted you might get more BS but at least you will get something more than lands. Its worth a try!
at my school we did a tournament with Card Kingdom's battle decks and it was a lot of fun and totally worth the $10 to buy the deck and even after we were done we still play with them. A fantastic product for sure.
I remember seeing people take these boxes over to the produce section and put them on the weights to see which ones weighed the most to buy 20 dollar commander decks.
Except wotc knows this now, so they weigh all the cubes to make sure they're at an even weight. Damn them!!! I blame bad boy gaming for putting all over YT. Now the chances of getting a commander deck is basically nil
Sure... you can buy six of these garbage packs and have a one in a few thousand chance of getting Jace. OR you could just buy the single from Card Kingdom, and be guaranteed the exact card you want. Yeah it costs way more than one mystery box. But you won't end up with a stack of jank cards, lands, and dollar (or less) rares.
I was just about to get one of these at walmart today, then my little brother told me to watch your video first and instead I got a recent booster pack... I have a Hydroid Krasis L0L
This is a problem for all Major TCGs Pokemon MAGIC Yu-gi-oh AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE OR MEASELS OR ANY OTHER SUPER INFECTIVE DECEASE. And any sports version aswell for the most part atleast modern ones though (these do vary)
@@m4l4kan I like how much this sensibly supports the Tutor's point: they CAUGHT...on...CAUGHT us. Dude, we were "CAUGHT" when we were 5. This is abusive if we have a long term relationship.
@@m4l4kan I was going to say this. I've bought one of these things because it weighed more. Then I opened it and found a basic land pack and half a duel deck. They bamboozled me once, but never again.
The ones near me at target went for 20 for 4 random old precons. At the time, that was basically 4 fully fledged decks ready to thrown down with my friends.
Back after the first commander decks came out, they had these but you could see what was in them and a good bit of them had three commander decks in them for $20. I bought so many of those and ended up with great value.
The local game store where I lived as a kid had a mystery thing that actually wasn't crap. Every now and then, the owner would open displays (or booster boxes as they seem to be called now) to fill out his binders for single card sales. When he did, any rares he got that he already had four or more of in those binders would go into a Mystery Rares Box. The box contained reverse-sleeved cards (so you couldn't see what card was in the sleeve) and it cost $1 to get a card at random from the box. Most of the times, you'd pull low-cost cards, of course, but every now and then someone would pull something properly cool and/or actually expensive. It was a good, fun and cheap gamble. Everyone at the store loved it.
James Blunt Walmart sells them on the face of a blister of 3 booster packs. You can see the boosters and know what ones you are getting but the price is the same as buying the 3 packs alone. At least the ones I see.
Literally bought one last night by weighing them first to see if I could try for a commander deck by going for the heaviest one. Turns out Wal-Mart has also heard of people weighing them and I ended up with half of a Duel-deck and a pack of Kaladesh basic lands. Not entirely worth the price at all tbh. I'd go with the Prof on this one, don't keep trying for "Mystery". Save your money and buy exactly the cards you want for a price you agree with at Local game stores or online sellers like TCGPlayer or CardKingdom.
My mom and I purchase these just to have some quick fun and open some packs. We never thought “We could get a commander deck!” We thought “This would be a great way to hang out and have some fun playing magic!”. While I think we will still buy these to have fun and hang out, I really appreciate you opening my eyes to how much garbage is in it.
What a nice informative video addressing an actual issue in the community. I love how Tolarian always takes the players int- Oh, it's a card kingdom advert.
I’ve been teaching a lot of my friends MtG and getting them into the game, so imagine my disgust when I heard one of them say he bought a mystery cube... already shared all of this with them and it helped show them the light. As always, thank you Professor!
In the good old days damaged boxes of coldsnap were sold on Yahoo Japan. Looked like the boxes had been dropped in the warehouse or something. About half the cards were not hashed, but when you're paying $20 per box you still get value.
The irony is the same argument can be made for all booster packs. Why do they package a bunch of common and/or useless cards in a package that you cannot see? Why not just allow someone to buy the cards they want directly?
I feel like this is a situation where the person in charge of these mystery boxes is actually knowledgeable about MTG. They are guiding the re-boxing process for maximum profit. Makes sense from a business perspective, just kind of scummy.
I appreciate this video and how simplified it is presented. If you didn't understand then prof uses a Family Guy clip and says don't be like Peter... I laughed so hard
This is why when I sell bulk online, I label these up front as bulk lots and say they are wholesale cards with very little to no likelihood of having high-value chase cards.
The booster packs aren’t sealed to the side of the package, and with a little tap you can shake the pack to the side and see the deck inside. Sometimes you’ll pick one up and a pack will already be dislodged because I don’t think the person who stocks the trading card section at Walmart cares how damaged the cards are when they put them on the shelf.
I'm sad I'm only allowed to like this once. I think the reason why a lot of people keep buying them is because they no nothing about magic. I'm not saying this in a mean way, these people are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so on. They don't know the difference and just buy anything that is flashy and says mtg on it. I think the problem here is not for mtg players, but for non-mtg players (I could be wrong, but I feel this is the case and makes it even harder to fix).
Yep, it's kind of up to the players to communicate what they want though and not be vague or shy about it when asked. I'm actually really proud of my parents - my birthday was recent, and before that I was talking to them about Magic during a visit. I had accidentally sent a deck list intended for a friend to my mom in a text message, and so they were asking me about it at the time. Come my birthday, they'd apparently gone to the (absolutely fantastic) LGS in my home town and picked out not one, but two Revised duals and a Surgical Extraction (right before the price spiked). tl;dr: share your hobbies with your parents ;)
Thank you for YOUR opinion. Consider that the perceived resell value of the contents of the mystery cubes is not the ONLY factor. A) This is a free-market. Getting any financial recoup from damaged or otherwise unsalable product is a wise business decision. It's likely that the manufacturer of the repacks isn't making much money anyway. They have to sort, group, and package the cubes. The cost to Walmart is probably in the $6 - $8 range. Sam is more than doubling its investment. Yay!! Commerce!! B) These items aren't targeting MtG collector$$$. They're aimed at uninformed (and that's okay) kids and parents that don't have any idea that Magic the Gathering exists outside of the local Walmart. And tell me honestly, isn't $20 a small price to pay for a few moments of peace as a child opens a new toy? (remember, MtG is a toy) C) If Joe Schmoe plops down $20 on a mystery cube as his FIRST MtG purchase and gets hooked, then educated, then spends oodles of time & cash at a local game store, is that "total garbage"? There's more to MtG than money. There's value in playing/replaying this game. If it only cost $20 to get into it, that's a frickin' bargain. Garbage to some. Treasure to others.
My local Walmart stopped selling Magic the Gathering products completely, they missed the boat on both Ravnica Allegiance and the Guild Kits. However, Target does a similar situation. $30 card boxes filled with random decks and card packs ranging from commander and starter decks to moreso commonly DBTK pieces. Usually with one or two booster packs and one or two promo cards. I used to buy them every so often, but I don't buy them blindly. They're nice enough to package them in a way where you can clearly see what's inside, and I'm extremely picky when it comes to them. "Yes I could buy this one but I don't need Spellslinger decks and I'd never play Lathliss so no thanks."
Actually I don't think I've bought one in two years...last one was around Shadows Over Innistrad since I remember the one I bought having a damaged pack of basic lands. They just aren't as interesting as they used to be.
I've noticed that they started repacking precons and packs in these mystery cubes and I stopped buying them when I couldn't see what was inside. However, in the past when I could see inside the acrylic cases, I did pick up some old event decks at a discount. Those were the only times I bought these repackaged Magic boxes.
Way back in the day, on occasion they actually would put in commander decks. You could use the scales in the produce section to weigh them, and if they were a certain weight they were a commander deck. I got my first commander deck from one of these trash fire cubes. That is the only nice thing I can say about this. It introduced me to my favorite format, even then the deck was bad.
In the past, I've gotten old EDH precons that were worth much more than the price of the mystery cube. If I can't tell whether there is an EDH deck inside, I don't buy it.
Yeah, but they don't fully hide the contents as well. You know the cards in the set. You know it's likeness to appear based on rarity. And! They gave you a format to play to get instant value from packs through sealed and drafts. If you don't like those odds, wotc fully support the secondary markets for singles.
At my local Walmart we've got a problem with people cracking open these kinds of products and taking any loose cards. I hadn't known any better so I took the gamble, got home and cracked it open just to find my Avenger of Zendikar foil missing. I figured whoever pushed said products had pulled the foils, but after talking to a couple local magic players, apparently one or two of them have been swiping them. Be wary, folks!
I bought one of these cubes for a kid I babysit's birthday. I think what tricked me the most was the size of the cube because you sorta expect it to contain more since it can hold more, but when you get home and crack it open it's basically a cube with some booster pack crunched in and a whole lot of air. The kid didn't mind but hey he was 6 so I guess the real target here for these cubes is parents looking for a quick impressive gift and little kids who see words like "mystery power cube deluxe ultimate energy FREE FOIL etc" and get a sparkle in their eyes that would make them bargain good behavior for a week in exchange for this cube of unlimited potential.
So this is 2 years in the future,I have found the cubes being incredibly worthwhile now. My family and I have collected somewhere around 6 or 7 and they all have had commander decks in them. Mine personally was a commander deck worth around $35 so I would say if you find one to pick it up. Everyone really enjoys the container too for holding spare cards.
I work for a company called Anderson Merchandisers. We stock MJ Holdings shipments in Walmart. I completely agree with this video. A friend of mine wanted to buy one those things, spoiler: he did. After I told him he would be wasting his money. I watched him open it. The deck provided had a single Artifact Equipment in it and the rest of the deck was common dual lands. 59 lands and an artifact you can't even equip to anything because it's the only spell in the deck. Hilarious. His two pack were very recent packs. And he pulled two 50 cent rares out of them.
At the beginning when Walmart first started doing these mystery cubes I "lucked" out twice and by luck out I mean I weighed the boxes and bought the heaviest one. Both times I got an EDH deck one Ob Nixilis C14 and the other Japanese Yidris. I recently went to my local Walmart where I purchased the other cubes and did my ritual of weighing them. THEY ARE NOW PUTTING IN BASIC LAND PACKS. The weight of a basic land pack is the same as an EDH deck. I WILL NO LONGER BE BAMBOOZLED AGAIN.
i will just say this, ive never paid more than 5 dollars for one of those walmart cubes... first thing is to weight check to make sure you get a commander deck, second they usually leave a booster upc exposed that still scans. if not a quick shake will flip a pack over.
