One Magic Card to be opened from a pack

  Something topical that actually happened in the collectible world was the verified acquisition of the 1/1 ring from the magic lotr set. For context, to capture the spirit of the story of the ring, WOTC created a super special version of the one ring card. They made a singular copy of it and put it into a random english collector booster. This card had the entire TCG world going crazy. Huge bounties going up to 2 million USD came out within the week of the set releasing. Collector booster boxes were retailing for well over $500 per box and the upcoming gift bundles were hitting prices that were well over what could be considered spending the money for fun.


From a business standpoint, this was one of the best things that WOTC could’ve ever done for themselves. They basically guaranteed that until the ring was found, the whales would be pulling this product off the shelves. I’ve seen people sitting around with 10-20 boxes all sitting there in hopes of reselling or opening the one ring themselves. I saw people at SCGcon Baltimore proudly displaying thousands of dollars worth of product, but one of it would stand up to the massive amount of collector boxes they were begging people to buy. I think a lot of people got very rich from the pure volume of stuff being sold. 


From a hobby standpoint, I will admit I am absolutely infatuated with the pack cracking feeling. I know most of the time it’s a waste of money. Heck, I would be surprised if I could ever turn a profit with the things I’ve opened during my time playing magic. I hate what the one ring did to collector boosters. Normally, I love to get like one or two collector boosters per set just so I can get some bling and enjoy the set the way I want to. The ring turned that into basically me investing a whole box worth of money into two boosters packs. I didn’t do that obviously, but I guess the brightside is that collector boosters have tanked as a whole now that the cat is out of the bag. Just this morning as of writing this, they are down over $150 and will most likely continue to drop until they are the “normal” collector booster price. Even with the chance for the serialized sol rings and chase box toppers, I feel that the rest of the set doesn’t offer enough value wise to really justify stating this expensive for long, especially since we know there is a second wave of collector boosters coming out later this year. 


In the end, I don’t think it really matters for the non-whales of the hobby. The mass openings probably made everything cheaper on the secondary market. I just kinda hate how the conversation of the one ring kinda dominated the conversation for a while. I sure hope it doesn’t set a dangerous precedent for the future of mtg sets. We already have multiple art treatments, foil types, and now serialized cards which makes so much variance and wildness flying around that it becomes very hard to actually keep track of what’s going on per set. I might just be sounding like a boomer, but I know I’m not the only one who has had these thoughts. I really enjoy seeing all the sick new arts and stuff, but I hate that I will see 15 versions of the card I want when trying to find it on tcgplayer.


Before I get too off topic. I am very glad for the person who opened it. I’m glad they were smart enough to have PSA grade it before coming out with the information. I’m also glad that we can go back to not holding our breath waiting for it to pop up. Eventually we’ll probably forget about this hype because I know that something that is crazier is going to happen in a future set. Not immediately, but definitely later. They must know just how crazy it got.

Hey, if you wanted to open the one ring why don’t you go open my social links and follow me on everything. Sorry, I’m trying to be a good content creator and that involves super cringe segways. Hope you enjoyed reading this in some way, I will be back tomorrow with more!

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