Does Mystery Booster 2 Have Any Reprints for Modern?
Hello readers! Happy Wednesday. Today we’ll start the month of October with some
Urza's Saga (White Border)
Prior to MB2, Urza’s Saga saw a recent premium reprint as a Store Championship promotional card, and a more accessible List reprint. Notwithstanding these small reprint events, there hasn’t been a substantial bump to the overall supply of this card since its initial printing in
So what effect has MB2 had on market prices for Urza’s Saga, a classic Modern staple? It’s put a small dent in the price level on the secondary market. Right now the market price for an MH2 Saga (where the most price data is available for) is sitting around $35 by comparison to almost $45 when the month of September began. Clearly, lots of MB2 packs have been opened since the Festival in a Box shipments have entirely been fulfilled at this point.
The resulting number of packs being cracked flooded the market with white-border Sagas dragging down the overall price level. Is this the floor? No. Recall that MagicCon Las Vegas is set to be one of the largest events of the year at the end of October. As such, my expectation is that another subsequent jump in supply will probably hit the market around the end of the convention. Probably not as much as the Festival in a Box wave, but still pretty significant. I would venture to guess that the floor for this card is likely around $30 when all is said and done.
| Urza's Saga (White Border) | ||
| Urza's Saga |
Flusterstorm (Future Sight)
Now, unlike Urza’s Saga, Flusterstorm has seen many reprints, and has hung around a bit longer. While it’s one of the most utilitarian counterspells in the game, it can only hit instants or sorceries, and benefits from stack-heavy, interactive metas… Of which Modern is not one. Given that Modern is a “Creatures Matters” meta regardless of whether it's at its most stable or most unstable, cards like Flusterstorm simply don’t have the consistency to meaningfully impact the game, especially in a 1-versus-1 format.
Flusterstorm has also been around much longer than Urza’s Saga, with its original printing stemming as far back as the original set of
While it may not see extensive play in Modern, it does see extensive play in Commander, particularly cEDH, which lives and dies on the stack. Conveniently still very much in demand, MB2 continues to push Flusterstorm’s price on a downward trend. With any luck, we’ll see its original printing settle around $15 and its Iconic Masters printing ideally below $10 with the help of MB2.
| Flusterstorm (Future Sight) | ||
| Flusterstorm |
Pact of Negation (Future Sight)
Unconditional Counterspells are a hot commodity in any format. Obviously, the more eternal the format, the higher the accessibility to such precious forms of Counterspells. Recently, however, in
Price-wise, Pact has been flat for a minute. For the past year or so, it’s sort of teetered around $13 or $14, and hasn’t moved much. This is in part because the market is already pretty saturated with copies, between the original
| Pact of Negation (Future Sight) | ||
| Pact of Negation | ||
| Pact of Negation (Borderless) |
Underworld Breach (Future Sight)
While more prevalent in cEDH, Underworld Breach does see occasional play in Modern, although things are less clear as to its utility in a meta dominated by the Energy mechanic. Having said that, Prowess strategies and
Artifact-based combos are notoriously difficult to interact with in Modern, but also require multiple pieces of setup, making them somewhat fragile and inconsistent. However, since Breach-Station lines work with your graveyard, new pieces of synergy like
So where does this leave us? Unlike Urza’s Saga, Breach seems to be increasing in price even in spite of these reprint events. In all likelihood, this is because the increase in demand for Breach in a post-Nadu world likely outsizes the increase in supply, although I suspect this won’t be the case for long. Right now Breach sits at around $13, but I would expect it to fall to $7-$10 after Vegas.
| Underworld Breach (Future Sight) | ||
| Underworld Breach | ||
| Underworld Breach (Borderless) |
Thassa's Oracle (Future Sight)
Our final card of the day is the classic cEDH staple, Thassa’s Oracle, which has been seeing a considerable uptick in Modern play–sometimes just “winning the game” is pretty good and worth playing across multiple formats. In Legacy, specifically, Thassa’s Oracle (“Thoracle” hereafter) synergizes nice with the former Modern menace,
In Modern, similar play patterns are emerging alongside the formerly mentioned Underworld Breach, but with Grinding Station as the primary means to mill yourself out. Thoracle is just clean. Love it or hate it, it’s a very streamlined and unambiguous way to win the game. cEDH players have long known this, so it’s no surprise that the cEDH community in a post-Nadu, post-Crypt, post-Dockside, post-Jeweled Lotus world still falls back heavily on this lovely little Merfolk to close out games efficiently.
Much like Breach, Thoracle also originates from
| Thassa's Oracle (Future Sight) | ||
| Thassa's Oracle | ||
| Thassa's Oracle |
Final Remarks
MB2 was obviously a novelty reprint set with some inside jokes in the form of white border cards, and some nostalgia wrapped up in the Future Sight frame. However, the set did give us one of the highest-quality reprint pools of a dedicated reprint set in years. While the availability of the set in the Festival in a Box Secret Lair was criticizable, it turns out more than enough of MB2 booster boxes found their way around to players, leading to a flood in the secondary market of some really high-quality reprints that perhaps were once thought to be lower in supply than reality bears. What’s more is that some of the reprints are incredibly timely given the direction that Modern is going.
So what are you waiting for? Go to a convention if you have one nearby, play some Mystery Booster 2 sealed, and don’t be afraid to snag that Underworld Breach or Thassa’s Oracle if you’ve been waiting for a reprint!
Further Reading:
Corey Williams is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He considers himself a macroeconometrician with his research body reflecting work in applied macroeconomics and econometrics. Corey is an L1 Judge who started playing Magic around Eighth Edition. He enjoys Modern, Commander, cEDH, and cube drafting. Outside of Magic, he loves running, teaching, and the occasional cult movie.
