A few weeks ago I wrote about my dream reprints for Eternal Masters. Now that the full set has been spoiled and is coming out next week I thought I’d go over my thoughts regarding this set. With MSRP at $10 a pack (and most stores selling them for even more) hopes of this set have been pretty high and it seems like Wizards actually did pretty well overall. Great staples —Sneak Attack, Karakas, Jace, and Top—all made it in which really excites me. I’m also really excited by the drafting prospects (anybody else dying to draft waterfalls?).
While this set is good I know this isn’t quite everything to give Legacy the real punch it needs. Not that I believe all the hullaballo that Legacy is dying by any means—it’s easier for me to play Legacy than Modern where I live but I know that isn’t true for the entire country. There are some great staples in this set that will really help people who are looking for just a few more cards to convert their Modern deck to Legacy or for people who are most of the way there but not quite yet. Sadly though there are still so many expensive cards that people will need to build even the most basic of decks.
I don’t see these prints making a huge change in prices or metagame. People expected this set to really drop prices but with stores charging around $250-300 per box I don’t expect to see any major changes. The print run is way too limited to make much of a dent in supply, especially for some of the most needed cards being printed (such as Jace, Wasteland and Force). Of course these printings will be cheaper than the originals but probably not cheap enough to make a huge difference.
While there were some great D&T and reanimator pieces printed, there wasn’t anything reprinted that should make any one deck explode. So many people were expecting Imperial Recruiter to show up and warp the format (the prices on Aluren still haven’t dropped) but that turned out to not be true as well. Mana bases still cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars for most decks. While it’s great to see Wasteland, Maze of Ith and Karakas, that doesn’t really solve any of the other issues involved in buying a Legacy mana base. If we had seen more cards along these lines we might be having a different conversation right now but sadly we have to take what we get.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still buying a box. Aaron and I plan on drafting it with friends over beers and hope to get a few fun things. I know we probably won’t exactly make any money on the box but we should have fun and get a few good card—that’s good enough for me. If next year brings Eternal Masters 2 and this year’s Conspiracy 2 brings good presents (please Flusterstorm) then I can see this drastically changing.
And I really hope it will. Legacy is a format that has fought to survive and done a good job of it. It’s a format that you can have a lot of fun with, without having to buy new cards every other week. I was really happy to see Wizards print Eternal Masters and I hope that we’ll see some more Legacy support going forward.
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH. She has recently succumbed to MTGO.