After the first week of Kaladesh spoilers we had so many great cards spoiled. So many in fact, that I was a bit skeptical. How could Wizards of the Coast intentionally spoil 13 of the 15 mythic rares in the first week? Well we quickly found out on “Masterpiece Monday” that there were 30 Masterpieces to be in the booster packs of Kaladesh. Before we delve into exactly what this will do to the price of Standard cards going forward, let’s clear up any misconceptions about Masterpieces.

What is a masterpiece?

Mark Rosewater explained last week, Masterpiece is a new rarity of card that will be in all Standard booster packs going forward. Similar to Zendikar Expeditions, these will be very rare and only available in foil. The Kaladesh Masterpieces are called Inventions and will occur approximately once in every 144 booster packs. That’s about one per 4 booster boxes or 1.5 per case of sealed product. Also much like Zendikar Expeditions, these cards appearing in Standard booster packs does not change what formats they are legal in. They’re basically super ultra rare cool looking cards that help subsidize the cost of the booster product they are found in.

The Good

Masterpieces will function a lot like Expeditions did in Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch and take up a large chunk of the expected value of a booster box. This means that as a result, the rest of the cards in the set can’t be worth as much money. That might seem very presumptuous but it’s always been true. The cost of a Magic card in Standard has an upward bound that is directly related to the expected value of the set. When a box is expected to have a value that is greater than the whole sale cost of a booster box (about $80), then it is profitable for stores to open boxes for singles. They will continue to do this until there are no more boxes available (which is unlikely these days) or the cost of the cards drops enough that it isn’t worth doing anymore. This means the more that Masterpieces are worth, the less the rest of the set will be worth. It keeps cards cheaper for people playing Standard and Modern and lets people who want the sweetest Cubes, EDH decks, and other Eternal decks the ability to make them unique.

The Bad

There’s not a whole lot if you only play paper Magic. If you’re like me and have an addiction to foils, you might be mad that you need to allocate more money for said foil cards but those are really not the worst of problems to have. The biggest issue with Masterpieces in every set going forward is that it will make drafting on Magic Online a lot worse. The price of cards on Magic Online is directly related to their real world value due to redemption. In order for set redemption to be profitable, the cost of the entire set must be less money on Magic Online than in paper. This might sound all fine and dandy until you know this caveat; Masterpieces (much like Expeditions) are not redeemable on Magic Online. Starting with Kaladesh, Masterpieces will not appear in booster packs either. This means the expected value of a booster pack will always be lower on Magic Online because masterpieces are not in the set or redeemable. This will make drafting more expensive.

Historical Data

The average value of a Battle for Zendikar Expedition is $112. The expected value of the rest of the box, according to Dawnglare, is $32. That’s pretty miserable. With Zendikar Expeditions adding $28 of EV to each box ($112 / 4 boxes) almost half of the value of the set is in Expeditions. Oath of the Gatewatch does slightly better as it has less valuable expeditions. I don’t know if I’d want to try to imagine how much Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher could cost if there weren’t any Expeditions in that set. But we’re not here to dwell on the past. Let’s talk about Kaladesh. The first website to have pre-orders for Kaladesh masterpieces was StarCityGames.com. They set the bar and we’re going to be looking at what has happened since then. The average pre-order price of the 30 masterpieces started at $84.67. That’s a bit less than Battle for Zendikar Expeditions but more than Oath of the Gatewatch Expeditions. The value of masterpieces would add about $21.17 to each box, which makes it pretty much a middle ground between the two sets. As of this writing, they are completely sold out of every masterpiece. This is not necessarily indicative of the popularity of the cards. I have a feeling that only a small conservative number of them were actually listed for sale.

Today’s Masterpiece Trends

Most stores haven’t listed their masterpieces yet, so really the only way to see current prices is on TCGPlayer. As of this writing, the average price of the Kaladesh masterpieces has increased to $95.47. The number isn’t exact because Steel Overseer, Mox Opal, and Scroll Rack were sold out when I checked. I used the last sale price to calculate their price. It seems that some people believe that StarCity had severely undervalued some of the masterpieces. Mana Vault, Lightning Greaves, and Lotus Petal, and Aether Vial have the highest deviations from their SCG pre-order prices. I’m not sure if these prices will hold because the only data we have is from severely over priced Zendikar Expeditions. I am confident we will see a trend similar to the non-Expedition Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch cards where Standard is extremely affordable and everyone can play any deck they want. While some people remember it as being one of the most expensive Standard formats in years, the cost of the cards in Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch was actually the lowest for Standard sets in years.

Looking at Kaladesh Preoder prices

Well the first thing I’m going to say is if you pre-ordered any Chandra, Torch of Defiance hoping it would become the next Jace, the Mind Sculptor, I have bad news for you. Chandra will be good but she will likely fall in the same vein as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and fall from an unsustainably high price after the Pro Tour. If you want Chandra for EDH or Modern look to grab her near the end of year as she comes back out of the stratosphere. I’d say the same is probably true for the rest of the Planeswalkers. My best advice for this set is unless you’re playing in a SCG Open on release weekend, just wait to buy your cards. You might save a few bucks if something spikes but you’re more likely to lose a lot of money as the value of this set falls through the floor due to masterpieces.

Wrapping it up

Masterpieces are going to be great for Magic going forward. It’s a way for Wizards of the Coast to monetize players that only play formats that don’t use a ton of Standard cards. It makes Standard cheaper for people who love that format. The only causality really is Magic Online drafters who will really feel the pain of masterpieces making the singles worth much less. I’m eager to keep watch on the prices of these masterpieces. If they fall too quickly it might make sense to pick up a few before they rebound. Do you have any questions about Masterpieces? Leave a comment below if you have a topic you’d like me to cover in a future article!