Over the past week there has been a lot of chatter about Eternal Masters on social media. I’ve seen a lot of finance people speaking poorly about this set, but I find myself on the optimist's side off the coin yet again. This set was well designed in many ways. Certainly we didn’t get blessed with tons of Portal: 3 Kingdoms reprints or bombs like Rishadan Port, but we still were given many gifts in this set. I’ve written a lot about what I love about this set in my last two articles so check those out if you missed them.

The first article I wrote about the set was Looking for Value, where I broke down much of what you’re going to see with today’s data. That article is the preface for this one and provides much of the background for why these are the cards I’m talking about and what you should keep your eyes out for.

Last week I brought you another Top 10 article, but this time I focused on the future financial gainers that you should look to track down. Take a peek and let me know what you thought about my picks!

For now, let’s look at some real data. Six boxes may be a small sample size, but it gives us a great deal of information to work with. Using the decklist layout, I will show you what relevant cards I opened.

This includes all the mythics, even bulk like Worldgorger Dragon and Sphinx of the Steel Wind; all the rares that are $3 or higher (which aren’t likely to drop much more, if at all); any sweet foils I opened (the best one I pulled was a foil Natural Order but that was from prize packs for a Limited event I played in); and finally a giant section of uncommons. From my previous articles you should remember that there is a ton of value in this lower rarity for Eternal Masters, more than any other set.

Total: $286

One thing that stuck out to me right from the get go was that most of the money doesn’t come from your mythic rares. Sure it was great to open a Mana Crypt, but it wasn’t the other mythics pulling the value of this box up where it should be. All of the rarities helped secure a profit on this box.

Total: $263

Despite having the worst mythics of any box I opened (and hopefully worse than anyone else's as well), this box still paid for itself. I think the main reason why I was able to keep a stable profit here was due to the thirteen rares that had decent value. We also have the possibility to pull Wasteland which is the rare version of a bomb mythic.

Total: $294

Oh man, was I disappointed to open Sphinx of the Steel Wind and Maelstrom Wanderer again, but at least I had Mana Crypt to make it sting a bit less. Mana Crypt has already begun its ascent once again and I expect that to continue, although it will probably get there slowly.

This box brought up the fact that I have been averaging $40+ in uncommons so I started paying more attention to those numbers for the second half of the boxes.

Total: $321

If you take a look at Box 4, you’ll notice that there weren’t many cards that were valuable. This may happen sometimes, but hopefully you will pull some great foils to make up for it like I did. Six foils someone cares about is really good from what I’ve seen. There are a lot of bulk commons and uncommons, but when you open a hot foil it feels so good.

I wanted to mention that I think foil Goblin Charbelcher stands to grow in the future. That art is sick and I think a lot of players will be drawn to it.

Total: $310

When your box contains three $50+ cards, it’s easy to find a large profit margin. I think a lot of players are going to love the foils of the Mirage block tutor cycle as well.

Sometimes we do interesting things to obtain our boxes. For this particular one, I paid for it with bulk commons and uncommons. I started cleaning out my basement and making a space for my collection. To free up more room, I gathered up a ton of bulk. There is a local store that opened up and they are offering great buy prices on bulk as long as you take it in store credit. Rather, I should say they were buying bulk at a good rate, until I unloaded nearly 30k worth to them.

Total: $222

Alright so I wasn’t really planning to get a sixth box. I had already opened my five that I knew I was getting plus all the packs from Draft, Sealed, and prizes from those events. I didn’t figure that I would need more product from this set. That was all great until I realized I was only nine cards away from a complete set. Being so close to that new goal, and owning a store, I made a decision to grab one more box.

I loved opening this set, but based on the lowest value box, I think I should have just bought the nine cards I was missing and left the sealed product in my store. It’s so fun to open though! Luckily I did get some of the cards I was missing and I also opened some never-before-foiled cards for my cube!

After taking a look at some real numbers I think it’s safe to say that on average you are likely to open what you pay for as long as you got a decent price for your box(es). For my product, I averaged $283 per box, which I think is a solid place to be. If you are paying over $300 per box, though, I don’t think it would be a great investment.

Overall, although I was happy with my turnout, I think the average should be a bit higher for a set like this. MSRP is supposed to be $240 so on that note, the boxes would be well worth it. Unfortunately nearly every business is selling for more than that amount.

One other aspect to keep in mind is that I didn’t open any bomb foils. I had some decent pulls but nothing over the top. If that had happened, my average would be drastically higher.

There are plenty of ways to obtain your boxes though. For this set, I think it might be safer to utilize some store credit. You can get a decent trade-in bonus from a number of web sites and then buy your boxes from there. Most likely your local stores have the same type of deal as well. I still think this set is a great investment; just be careful about how high that initial investment really is.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Until next time,
Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter