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In the weeks leading up to the BFZ prerelease, I heard some conflicting reports about how rare an expedition would be. Even given the metric of being comparably rare to a foil mythic wasn't very helpful, as there are apparently a lot of wrong ways to do the math and a lot of personal bias on the matter. I talked to two vendors who have opened a ton of sealed product and one seemed to think he generally got a foil mythic every two cases and another thought he got two per case. Those statistics are extremely different!
While working the prerelease, we kept in contact with other stores to get figures on how many expeditions were being opened. From our local numbers it looked to be approximately one in every four boxes of product. From crowdsourced data gathered on Reddit, the number they reached was 1/112 packs, r one in every 3.12 boxes. Much closer to two per case.
Given this rarity, the pre-order prices for most of the lands look rather farcical. The idea of a case of an in-print set having approximately two shots at a $2-400 individual card is unsustainable. They are absolutely rare and will be valuable, but expect prices to drop quickly after the set launches.
I’m so glad to be right on track with this one. I hope everyone who read my article, saved their money for the inevitable drop in price. I have seen ebay auctions going for these crazy prices though so some believe these cards are worth as much as $350.
Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, and Flooded Strand may hold these obscene prices or at least close to them just by being blue. They may come down to $250 or so but the demand for these alone should keep them pretty high. The rest will fall but they are still going to be expensive for the most played ones.
If there’s 2 expeditions per case, then the chances of getting any individual expedition in any given box is…
2 expeditions per case / 6 boxes per case / 25 expeditions = 1.33%
Likelihood of getting a particular FOIL Khans Fetch was ~1.7%.
Therefore, if the same amount of boxes are opened, there would be 1.33 expedition Polluteds for every 1.7 Khans Foil Polluteds = 78%.
Plus, BFZ will be opened more than Khans. So, it’s be *VERY* easy to see a world in which there are an EQUIVALENT amount of Expeditions Deltas, Floodeds, Windswepts, Woodeds, and Bloodstaineds as there are Khans Foil versions.
Therefore, I can’t possibly imagine that the Expedition Delta and Strand stay in the $200-$300 range when their equally rare Khans counterparts are $80-$90. They’ll certainly hold some kind of premium, but not 2-3x. I bet the Khans Foils drop to $70, and the BFZ Expeditions for Delta and Strand eventually stabilize around $100-$120. Tarn and Misty might be higher around $150-$175, but those will be much much much much more common than the Zendikar set foils.
You have to factor in Magic Online redemption for the price setting of the Khans fetches though.
And Scalding Tarn Expedition is now at $350. Looks like the price did eventually balance out at the preorder price.
ive been holding onto 2 misty’s, and they’ve been at 250 range for awhile. Thinking of finishing the play set eventually. Thoughts on this? Also, what should i be paying for one? the two i currently have i pulled myself from packs and have been cased. Mint.