Hello and welcome, everyone, to another edition of the Box Report! I’ve been so excited to write this article because I can’t wait to break down the profit margin for boxes of Modern Masters 2017. When the set was first spoiled, we were all flying high with hopes and dreams about what our boxes could look like. There are fetches and so many amazing mythics this time! I heard this line of reasoning many times, and admittedly, thought the same thing myself. So, my goal today is to break down some actual boxes and see just how awesome (or not) they really are.

Before we get started, I had one concern. Take a look at the price breakdown of the mythics in this set.

Tarmogoyf $90
Liliana of the Veil $70
Snapcaster Mage $38
Cavern of Souls $36
Linvala, Keeper of Silence $14
Voice of Resurgence $11.50
Craterhoof Behemoth $10

Griselbrand $7
Temporal Mastery $3.50
Domri Rade $3
Olivia Voldaren $2.50
Bonfire of the Damned $2.50
Sphinx's Revelation $2.50
Entreat the Angels $2.50
Past in Flames $2

I think you can already see what I’m about to say. There’s a huge gap between the prices of half of the mythics. The top half creates an awesome feeling, while the bottom half is losing you money. Hopefully what we’ll see is that the bomb rares make up for the low-end mythics. Let’s jump into the box break down and see what’s at the bottom of the box.

Box 1 Price: $113

The total mythic price for this box equaled a mere $7, which doesn’t even cover the price of one pack. Despite having only low-end mythics, which hopefully doesn’t happen very often, the box value still crept up to $113. There was only one fetchland as well, so this box seems like the worst combination of cards: terrible mythics and not enough good rares to cover the cost of the box.

Box 2 Price: $200.50

As you can see here, we only had two mythics, but one was Snapcaster Mage. Another key difference from box 1 is that there were three gleaming fetches to lift the price of the box.

Box 3 Price: $124

We have another mediocre-at-best type of box with this third one. It seems like we need one of two things to happen for our box to hit the level necessary for us to profit. First, opening one of the four high-end mythics drastically helps. Second, multiple fetches or bomb foils will bring your value up as well.

Box 4 Price: $241.50

Box 4 is where it’s at. Obviously you can’t open the two best mythics in every box, but when you do, there’s definitely profit to be made.

Those four boxes were together as my case. So, the total value for my case was $679 and my average box value was $170. That seemed to be quite a low average, so I gathered some more data from my friend’s boxes. Here’s what they opened.

Box 5 Price: $170.50

No good uncommons, or more likely, someone needs to sort better. If you add in the price of the uncommons to the box, you might break $200m but if not, you’ll at least be closer to that number.

Box 6 Price: $309

There may have been no good uncommons and all bad rares in this box, but two ‘Goyfs?! I think that’s all I need to say right there. #twogoyfs. Okay, okay, the foil Marsh Flats is sweet too and deserves mention. Foil fetches will still be worth some money, and opening them is sweet too.

Box 7 Price: $236

There are only two mythics here in this box, but when you only have two mythics, there are more packs to pull the pricey rares. This box showcases that concept pretty well.

Box 8 Price: $228.50

Not counting crazy stuff like what happened in boxes 6 and 7, I think this box 8 is the best you can hope for from this set. You have a couple decent foils, the best mythic, multiple fetches, and also a handful of decent rares. If you are looking to open product for this set, this is your bulls-eye.

Comparing the first four versus the second four boxes, it would seem that I got the smaller portion of value. Using all the data, admittedly a small sample size, we arrive at a total of $1623.5. These box values give is an average box value of rounded off to $203.

To summarize, here is all the data compacted for ease of comparison.

Box 1: $113
Box 2: $200.50
Box 3: $124
Box 4: $241.50
Box 5: $170.50
Box 6: $309
Box 7: $236.50
Box 8: $228.50

Average Box Value $203

I’m not sure what all the preorder prices were for Modern Masters 2017 or what your local stores are charging for a box right now, but online I see them around $210 for a single box or a little cheaper than that for a case. My box report says that on average you should break even and get some extra cards in the process.

For those of you interested in my calculations, I just used TCGplayer mid prices to calculate the value of these boxes. Because the low and mid values are not far apart, I feel like these numbers create an accurate representation of the value you can look forward to.

One final note. There were cards like Zur the Enchanter, Pyromancer Ascension and Terminus that I figured would add to these boxes, but they are basically dollar rares now, and I only included them to mention them here. Foils like the tri-lands and signets are worth keeping your eye out for, though, because the lands are at least $1 each and the Signets fall between $2.50 and $4.

Until next time,
Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter