BFZ Expeditions: Variance
Economics forum
Posted on Sept. 8, 2015, 9:38 a.m. by Kravian
I'm mostly curious about how much people expect them to vary. Technically each will be equally scarce, but I'm sure there will be a range of prices (with fetches up at the top). What will that range be?
Also, will there be a "Khans Effect" on other staples from this set as people chase expeditions and open BOXES and BOXES chasing expeditions?
@Boza I highly disagree with selling immediately if you open a eternal staple like a fetch. These cards are played equally across Vinage, Legacy and Modern. The prices will be the lowest shortly after release but will increase dramatically over a medium period of time. These will be one-time never again promos that see play across all formats they're legal in. Just look at the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon promo. They're worth much more than the original, because of being rare and promo. That print will never happen again and thus it's much more valuable.
September 8, 2015 9:53 a.m.
@ Putrefy, Thank you bringing Ugin promo. He is a perfect example:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Ugins+Fate+Promos/Ugin+the+Spirit+Dragon#paper
Look at that graph of his, he has only gone down since release. So, you can easily assume that the Expeditions will follow a similar trend - sell afap (as fast as possible), get them for cheaper later.
September 8, 2015 9:59 a.m. Edited.
Boza, I think your estimation of prices is highly skewed. Seeing as you can find a Scalding Tarn
online for about $160 each, I can't see this printing exceeding that value as it's not the original foil, and will be generally more common than the foil Zendikar printing. I could see each foil promo enemy fetch in BFZ reaching about 80-90% of the value of it's original foil counterpart, but not exceeding; the same can be said for the shocklands as well. That being said, the most valuable card you could pull from this set would indeed be a foil Scalding Tarn, which I can see sitting around the $110-$140 range. But hey, I'm just speculating - we'll see where they land.
September 8, 2015 10:04 a.m.
The thing with Ugin though is: he is played little. In Standard as well as Modern he sees only fringe play. Compare that to Modern and Legacy where every other deck runs 6-10 fetchlands. Especially the impact of legacy-players should not be underestimated. Look at the Force of Will Judge Reward Promo for example.
@vishnarg I don't think you realize how rare the Zen Exp lands truly are. The chance of opening 1 is a bit lower than opening a foil mythic. Which is something like 1 in 6 boxes.
September 8, 2015 10:05 a.m. Edited.
I would still rather own an original Zendikar foil fetch than one of these new ones. Still, we'll see, prices for preorder should be up on TCGplayer in the next week.
September 8, 2015 10:10 a.m.
To give you a little foretaste of what's to come, prices in Europe (MCM) currently:
Prices for fetches range from lowest Marsh Flats 135 Euros which equals 150$ to highest Scalding Tarn 260 Euros, which equals 290$.
Shocks range from 95 Euros to 130 Euros (105$ - 145$).
In the end it's a big gamble anyways.
September 8, 2015 10:17 a.m. Edited.
Eh, so I was close with my estimations. The Mtgoogoldfish site I linked earlier also has some prices on the expedition lands that I just noticed:
Tango lands at 70, steam vents at 160, arid mesa at 220. http://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/EXP#paper
All of these are estimations rather than actual prices. You will likely see wild fluctuations in the days following release.
September 8, 2015 10:29 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
Putrefy: The chance of getting an epidition is a bit higher than getting a foil mythic. The anouncement says "you can expect to open one only a little more frequently than a premium foil Battle for Zendikar mythic rare". More frequent is a higher chance. Your assessment of how the price will be is a spot on though. Being much rarer cards than the original foil fetches as well as being "full art" (why couldn't they be actually full art like Mutavault) will make them much pricier.
September 8, 2015 10:42 a.m.
Whops, got that one wrong. I apologize. Still they will be quite rare :)
September 8, 2015 10:43 a.m.
@vishnarg there's no way that the original foil printings are more rare than these will be. The original printings are rares, therefore, their foil printings show up as often as any foil rare. However, the new expedition lands are going to show up at the same rarity as a foil MYTHIC rare. Foil mythics are more rare than a foil rare, if you knew nothing else this would be enough to tell you that the expeditions will show up less often than the original foil printings did.
@Putrefy They said officially that they were going to be as common as a foil mythic rare which is about 1 in 6 cases, like you said. However the also said that because there are 15 mythics and 25 expedition lands in the first set, they will feel like they appear slightly more often. Even though they will feel like it, it doesn't change the fact that they are still going to be distributed at the same rate as a foil mythic though.
September 8, 2015 10:57 a.m.
I am still unsure if this will be the same case of Ugin where he only dropped or a case where they just rise over time because of the fact that they're totally unique and actually highly playable. Can't say for sure.
September 8, 2015 11:06 a.m.
I think the fact that they are heavily played in any format they are legal in will have the price increase over time. I pre ordered a case that I plan on holding onto for a while for just this reason, resale value should be insane in within a few years.
September 8, 2015 12:30 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #15
being a foil promo and having full art to go on will make them more desirable than ugin promo I would assume. though they aren't actually full art. the're more 3/4 art. which is kind of disappointing.
September 8, 2015 12:38 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #16
Umm, Boza, did you actually look at the Ugin's Fate Ugin Price graph?
When it first came out, it was at $130, and then dropped down to $100 a few days later. However, if you had waited a week and a half, it was at $250 - and since then has slowly been making it's way to around $200. That certainly doesn't suggest that selling immediately is the best option.
Also, while this is purely speculation, given the rarity of the lands, I can't see them going for less than the regular foils - and probably somewhat more. But time will tell.
September 8, 2015 1:23 p.m.
abenz419, you are forgetting the fact that Battle for Zendikar will be at least twice, if not triple, as opened of a set as the original Zendikar. Plus, collectors always value original printings more (barring a change in artwork or something, but generally the older the better). For this reason I don't expect them to exceed their old foil counterparts.
September 8, 2015 2:20 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #18
but this /is/ a change in artwork /and/ "full art".
September 8, 2015 2:27 p.m.
Collectors value full art foils more than most alternatives. If that weren't true then unhinged lands wouldn't be like $10. Collectors like pretty rare things. These are pretty rare things. They essentially like anything that proves how rich they are - these do that.
September 8, 2015 2:39 p.m.
As a collector I can tell you that that line of thinking is not always true. These full art (3/4 art?), foil prints will be sought after as much or more than the originals. Not to say that some people won't still prefer the original but these will be harder to get and that's what collectors usually want.
September 8, 2015 2:40 p.m.
weisemanjohn says... #21
There are essentially two things you look for
1) what does it look like, is the new art better? (Lightning Bolt vs Lightning Bolt Does it have some distinguishing mark? (See the difference in Rancor vs Rancor)
Or
2) is it rarer (argument for older cards generally)
If it is both, then you get mass money.
Otherwise they will sell for approximately the same.
In this case, they are both rarer, and generally look better. The fact that you cannot get a nonfoil version also means people cannot take the cheap option for the "better" art with nonfoils. They will be solidly $200+ for fetches, $100+ for shocks, and $50+ for tangos (until they prove themselves more or less valuable)
September 8, 2015 2:54 p.m.
$100 for shocks? Fat chance, you can buy most ABUR's for less, lol.
September 8, 2015 3:12 p.m.
vishnarg original print for foil Steam Vents are currently over $100 right now.. idk why you think it's such a stretch for these cards to be worth so much. I think you highly underestimate what people are willing to pay to have a limited released product. Especially ones that are staples in nearly every format
September 8, 2015 3:55 p.m.
@vishnarg Even if the new set is twice as opened as the original, your still forgetting the difference in distribution of a foil rare and a foil mythic. That would still put them no where near as common as the original foil printing.
Also, I'd say this is a huge change in artwork, considering they've made them full art and changed every image to tie it in with the Zendikar theme.
So with as rare as their going to be, how playable they are in eternal formats, and all of the new art it would be highly unlikely for these to be cheaper or easier to pick up than the original foil printings. There will also be a type of "prestige" associated with them, as collectors like having things that they can say few others have. Plus, the way they've promoted it, "expedition lands" are special to Zendikar (Zendikar is a lands matter plane) so these will be a one time thing. Your not going to be able to wait a few years for a reprint to come around so you can pick one of those up. The only ones available will always be whatever gets opened while the set is still in print. All of these things are going to create demand for an already hyped card which (just like any other card) will drive up the price.
September 8, 2015 3:59 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #26
I think the distribution would be close because it's the difference between any foil rare and only these as your options for this slot.
September 8, 2015 10:54 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #28
in the foil rare spot you had the chance of getting any foil rare for the set, in the bfz expedition slot you can only get these lands.
September 9, 2015 8:07 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #29
I'm not sure you are understanding how this is working. There is any expedition about as common as any foil mythic rare. If a card is a foil it has an equal chance of being any card in the set. So to compare rarity of the slot you need only compare the raw number of rares to mythics. In a large set such as original Zendikar and BFZ this is 53:15. With 25 expeditions and 53 rares this means that for each printing of each foil rare there are 0.6 printings of each expedition.
September 9, 2015 9:26 a.m.
asasinater13 says... #30
that .6 number assumes we open the same amount of bfz as we did original zendikar, and we're likely to open a very, very large amount more bfz than zen. I wouldn't be surprised if double was opened, which would put .6 to 1.2, which would make expeditions slightly more common. I'm not saying expeditions will be cheaper, but that because the expeditions are their own spot in a pack instead of competing with other foils at their rarity pulling any expedition could be more likely than pulling a specific foil rare (or one out of five specific) from original zendikar.
September 9, 2015 9:40 a.m.
Gidgetimer & asasinater13- The more appropriate comparison is to foil mythic rares, of which there are 15. Now there are 25 BFZ expeditions so you have a 15:25 ratio of mythics to expeditions. So that means for every foil mythic you'll get 1.7 Expeditions.
September 9, 2015 9:41 a.m.
Actually, the Expeditions are more common than foil Mythics. Check Mark Rosewater on that one.
Still, as of right now it appears I was mostly wrong. Scalding Tarn form Expeditions is currently available for preorder on Ebay for about $330. Whether anybody would actually buy them for that much has yet to be seen... seeing as I could buy 2 foils of the original Scalding Tarn, or a playset of non-foil, or even a goddamn Volcanic Island all for less, I would never in a million years buy that. However I know there will be Legacy and Vintage players that may buy these, and if I pull any of the expeditions you will certainly see it on the market the next day.
September 9, 2015 10:02 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #33
Mathematically speaking, if the ratio is a set number, the degree to which the set is opened has nothing to do with how available the Expeditions are in relation to the rest of BFZ, slight chance variances aside.
September 9, 2015 10:06 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #34
JWiley129: your math is backwards. If there are the same number of spots (aproximately, what I read on the mothership was "only a little more frequently"). Then if there are more possibilities for what the slot contains, it is less likely to get any single resut.
If this confuses you think about a coin and a d6 each randomized 60 times. You would expect the resut "heads" to come up more frequently than the result "1".
September 9, 2015 11:59 a.m.
Gidgetimer - How is it backwards? I expressed the ratio correctly and did the division correctly of 1 foil mythic to 1.7 Zendikar Expeditions. That indicates that Zendikar Expeditions occur about 66% more often (assuming an even distribution of mythics and expeditions), which is slightly more likley.
September 9, 2015 12:02 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #36
You have aproximately the same chance of getting any 1 of 15 mythics as you do of getting any 1 of 25 expeditions from how I understand the anouncements. If you randomly pick 1500 out of a pool of 15 you will get each one aproximately 100 times. If you randomly pick 1500 from a pool of 25 you will get each one aproximately 60 times. While the prevalence of getting an object from the pool is exactly equal, your chance of getting any single resut from the pool is lower.
Again if you are having trouble visualizing it roll a die 60 times and flip a coin 60 times and tell me if you get more "head"s or more "1"s.
September 9, 2015 12:37 p.m.
weisemanjohn says... #37
We are looking at a shared slot of mythic rare foil and zendikar expedition foil. You will only get one of these in a given pack.
Now, since there are 15 mythics in BfZ and 25 expeditions, you have a higher chance of opening the expedition than you do the mythic.
Between the expeditions and mythics, you have an equal chance of pulling any given card of the 40 different cards that fill that slot.
September 9, 2015 12:46 p.m.
@vishnarg actually I mentioned in an earlier post what maro said. He said they are distributed at the same rate as a foil mythic rare. However, the are 15 mythics and 25 expeditions so it will feel as though the expeditions get opened more often. So while it may seem like they get opened more often it doesn't change the fact that expedition lands and foil mythics will be distributed at the same rate.
September 9, 2015 12:47 p.m.
Gidgetimer - First, that reasoning is flawed. You're asking about the theoretical probability not the experimental probability. Because there do exist experiments where I roll more "1"'s on a D6 than get Heads on a coin. However weisemanjohn has the right of it. There are a total of 40 different cards that can occur at the foil mythic slot: A foil Mythic or a Zendikar Expedition. So IF you get one of those 40 foils you have a 25/40=63% chance of getting an Expedition and a 15/40=37% chance of getting a foil mythic
September 9, 2015 12:51 p.m.
When asked on maro's blog what slot the expedition lands would fill, his response was that he was 80% sure they would take the slot of a common. So unless something official has been announced since then, I would operate under the assumption that it will take the spot of a common and not the foil mythic like you have assumed.
September 9, 2015 12:58 p.m.
abenz419 - Except that foils in general replace a common...
September 9, 2015 1:37 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #42
From the way I interprit it, since they said it would be about as rare as a foil mythic specifically. They are just using that as a reference point. If it were to just be an adition to the foil sheet they could have said it that way.
The way they do foils is that they print sheets where each card occurs equally. It is not like non-foil where they print sheets of each rarity and put a set number in each pack. Once you get the 1 in 6 pack that has a foil you have a 1 in 264 chance of it being any card from the set. In essence you have a 1 in 1584 chance of opening any specific foil.
There are not special slots for each rarity so saying it occurs "a little more frequently than a foil mythic" would not only be untrue since the chance would be over 1.5 times, but also misleading. Now if they meant that there will be a slightly more than the 1 in 105.6 chance that you open any foil mythic and say there is a 1 in 100 chance of there being an expedition at all that makes much more sense.
September 9, 2015 2:24 p.m.
Well, I can see people still haven't seen what I mentioned multiple times. I'm not making this stuff up. Mark Rosewater literally said they are going to be distributed the same as a foil mythic rare. He also said, that because there are 25 expedition lands in the set and only 15 mythic rares, that it would feel as though the expeditions appear more often.
So guys, there is no guess work to be done. No math to calculate. The expedition lands are being distributed at the same rate as foil mythic rares. So regardless of how you think it will work or what kind of math you think you have done, your not going to change the fact that they are both being distributed equally.
September 9, 2015 3:05 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #44
As an aside, looking at what's been printed, and what hasn't for expeditions, I'm feeling that I have a hunch on what's coming up in Oath Expeditions. 15 slots.
5 will be the 5 Enemy Tangos5 will be the cycle of 5 new dual man-lands.
That leaves five more. Right now, I'm thinking the original Zendikari dual man-lands will get full frame reprints to fill the last five slots. It just seems to jive. 10 shocks, 10 fetches, 10 tangos, 10 dual-mans.
September 9, 2015 3:23 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #45
Source? I'm not trying to be an asshole but: I haven't seen it, can't find it, and don't believe everything someone says they saw on the internet.
September 9, 2015 3:35 p.m.
Named_Tawyny - Except there are 20 Expedition lands in OGW. And 10 of them are probably the manlands.
Gidgetimer - MaRo says it in the BFZ preview show. You can find it on the MTG Youtube channel close to the end of the video.
abenz419 - Just because we know the distribution does not mean we don't have to do math. The Expeditions outnumber the mythics by 10, so the expeditions will show up slightly more by the nature of there being more. But you already know that :)
September 9, 2015 3:40 p.m. Edited.
Named_Tawyny says... #47
Yeah, I'm not sure why I got the number 40 stuck in my head. o.O
September 9, 2015 4:44 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #48
I'm not impressed by the assertion that we can stop discussing everything simply because we have some vague answers from MaRo about what will or won't happen. That proposal is ignorant of the reason for the discussion, which is to determine the comparative availability of these Expedition cards for market purposes. And if we can calculate that availability, then all the better.
September 9, 2015 5:01 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #49
From the way he said it it does sound as if they will be just another card on the foil sheet. But from the article anouncing them on the mothership it sounds as if they are just trying to use that as a reference point. I personnally would believe the article that probably had to be proof read over a guy who seems like he would go off script a lot. I also find it doubtful that they are going to be on the foil sheet since they are English only.
I guess we won't know until some more analytics are released on the pack breakdown.
September 9, 2015 9:12 p.m.
I think it's funny that the Tango Expedition lands are preordering for so much. Why would you want to pimp out the worst possible cycle of rare lands aside from maybe check lands? I would rather foil out my kidney first even if I had to be awake with only local anesthetics and watch the surgery.
I think Tangos are just fine for standard but seriously they'll have limited value in other formats if any.
Boza says... #2
Quickest and most accurate answer - nobody knows for sure. Zendikar fetches will generally be worth more than Tarmogoyf, upwards of 200, with Scalding Tarn breaking into 300, I presume. Other fetches - 100-150, Shocklands - 80-100, Tangos - 40-50.
Second question - yes, so if you open one at prerelease, try to sell immediately, as the set actually being open will decrease the value very rapidly. You can get the ones you need the cheapest during the beginning of Oath set.
September 8, 2015 9:48 a.m.