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Magic Online allows Wizards to do things they couldn't ordinarily, like reprint cards on the Reserved List or have a tournament crash after 8 rounds. While sometimes its location in the digital world is a liability and people are reluctant to pay real money for fake cards, sometimes it's super worth it. Will this next Magic Online-only set be worth it? Only time will tell.
"Tempest Remastered" will be coming to Magic Online very soon. From the announcement,
Tempest Remastered is a 269-card set, containing 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares, and 20 basic lands from the Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus sets. Tempest Remastered will be available in booster pack form, with each booster retailing for $3.99
The main question is "Will Wasteland be in the set and will it be uncommon or rare or mythic?" which is silly because that's actually two questions, not one. We do know a small number of things.
Betcha Mox Diamond is in the set. We also know that there are Mythics in the set, which doesn't tell us much other than that expensive cards won't get TOO much cheaper unless the draft format is very popular. With roughly half of the cards in the Tempest block cut out, only the best of the best are making the cut and it could be an exciting Limited format. I look forward to spending every round sideboarding out a bunch of cards because MODO crashed during deckbuilding and it registered my pool as my deck.
What do you want to see in the set?
I think that what will happen will be somewhere on a spectrum from “The set will suck, and the value of the cards won’t change much” to “The set will be awesome to draft, and the value of the cards will go towards bulk.”. And the tendency is that cards will move more and more towards the “go to bulk” end of the spectrum the more “sessions” we have with this set being draftable (I doubt that the set will be worse to draft than plain old tempest block). All these “supplemental products” do, financially speaking, is increase the supply of cards while not increasing their demand (unless Tempest Remastered Constructed becomes a sanctioned format people are willing to play on MTGO). I am not an expert in MTGO finance (is anyone?), but my advice is to try and find a Greater Fool to sell at retail (or even less) any Wastelands you are not planning to use until TPR comes out to. Of course, it is hard to find a buyer that wants them for over 35, and the spread on Wastelands is around 50 tix on MTGO currently.
Something interesting I noted is that while Wasteland is an uncommon in that set, there are 110 uncommons in that set, making the odds of opening a Wasteland in the tempest pack of a TSE draft of about 2.7%. If the card ends up being a mythic rare in TPR (given the standard 121 sheet), the probability of opening one in a 3x TPR draft is just slightly smaller (2.4%). According to these numbers, my prediction is that Wasteland will be in the set (there is no reason to “print” it otherwise) and will be mythic. I also guess City of Traitors will be mythic (actually higher chance of opening it in 3x TPR than in TSE), so will Intuition (much higher chance to open, same with any other Tempest rare they put as mthic) and Time Warp. I hope Hatred will not be in the set (I didn’t play back then, but I heard that Channel+Fireball can be broken and unfun to play against).
There is zero percent chance Wasteland does not get included. Their announced goal for the product to make Legacy more accessible makes no sense otherwise–it cannot be a coincidence that the first block they choose to “remix” contains the single-most expensive Legacy staple online.
Seems to me a good time to pick up Legacy staples from other sets like VMA.