I know that in the current environment, it’s tough to keep track of everything that’s coming out. We’re bombarded every other week or so with previews, leaks, and spoilers, for Secret Lairs, Jumpstarts, Remastered sets, you name it.
Even so, it is my honor to report that there’s a relatively straightforward reprint set coming out January 13, 2023. It’s got some hot reprints, the mythics of which I covered last week, but today I want to break down your odds of pulling the cards you want most.
So let’s get into the math of the thing, and that’ll allow us to figure out if we want to buy Collector Boosters or singles.
This is the breakdown of what’s in a Collector Booster, and as a result, we can see that all the value is concentrated in the slot with the traditional foil retro frame cards or borderless versions. Lots of sets have variations, but this one is just retro and borderless and that’s it.
Let’s lay out which are which, in terms of rarity and frame.
| Retro Frame Rare (60) | Retro Frame Mythic (20) | Borderless Rare (23) | Borderless Mythic (17) |
| Divine Sacrament Enlightened Tutor Glory Lieutenant Kirtar Sevinne’s Reclamation Windborn Muse Wrath of God Arcanis the Omnipotent Denizen of the Deep Mystic Remora Mystical Tutor Opposition Stroke of Genius Vexing Sphinx Body Snatcher Chainer, Dementia Master Entomb Mindslicer Nantuko Shade Oversold Cemetery Royal Assassin Gamble Grim Lavamancer Overmaster Pashalik Mons Shivan Dragon Siege-Gang Commander Sulfuric Vortex Arboria Birds of Paradise Exploration Forgotten Ancient Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse Saproling Symbiosis Worldly Tutor Absorb Arcades Sabboth Decimate Phantom Nishoba Pyre Zombie Rith, the Awakener Sol’kanar the Swamp King | Lyra Dawnbringer Serra Avatar Test of Endurance Force of Will Time Stretch Urza, Lord High Artificer No Mercy Vampiric Tutor Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Last Chance Sneak Attack Worldgorger Dragon Kamahl, Fist of Krosa Nut Collector Sylvan Library Hunting Grounds Gauntlet of Power Legacy Weapon Urza’s Incubator Dark Depths | Enlightened Tutor Windborn Muse Wrath of God Denizen of the Deep Mystic Remora Mystical Tutor Chainer, Dementia Master Entomb Oversold Cemetery Gamble Grim Lavamancer Siege-Gang Commander Arboria Birds of Paradise Worldly Tutor Absorb Decimate Helm of Awakening Jester’s Cap Lotus Blossom Triskelion Gemstone Mine Maze of Ith | Lyra Dawnbringer Test of Endurance Force of Will Time Stretch Urza, Lord High Artificer No Mercy Vampiric Tutor Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Last Chance Worldgorger Dragon Nut Collector Sylvan Library Hunting Grounds Gauntlet of Power Legacy Weapon Urza’s Incubator Dark Depths |
Every rare and mythic has a retro version, and 1/3 of the rares also have a borderless. For the mythics, all of them have both a borderless and a retro, except for Serra Avatar, Sneak Attack, and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.
Given that Wizards is making it easier and easier to build an all-retro-frame Commander deck or Cube, I’m not shocked that there’s a lot more retro than borderless here.
Usually, Wizards collates things so that all copies of a card’s variants total the same amount. That does not appear to be the case this time. When looking over mass cracking data from vendor partners, the variant ratio on non-foil Retro to Borderless, for cards that have both does not look to be equal. Rather, the split seems to be closer to 2 Borderless for every 1 Retro version of a card like Sylvan Library that has both. This effectively means that mythics with both retro and borderless are twice as populous and that the variants don’t split the drop rate as we typically see in CBs.
For example, in the # of CBs one vendor opened, they pulled:
12 Retro Sylvan Library
23 Borderless Sylvan Library
12 Retro Sneak Attack
This suggests that there are actually 3x as many of the mythics and rares that have 2 variants vs. the ones that only have a retro version.
I suspect this is a goof, rather than a change in policy, but as we work with incomplete information, we will update accordingly.
As always, we’re operating on the basic premise that the ratios for cards are the same as a Draft Booster: 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or a 50% chance of being a mythic. That’s a 10:3:1:0.5 ratio, but to make things easy, I double it to 20:6:2:1. Translated, for every mythic, there’s 20 copies of a common, there’s 6 uncommons, and two rares.
We’ve got 60 retro rares, 23 borderless rares, 20 retro mythics and 17 borderless mythics, all of which are guaranteed to be foil in this slot. One thing to remember is that the total number of copies is the same for each card at each rarity, even if there’s less version. For example, If this set puts 300 of each mythic out there, that means there’s 150 of the Borderless Foil Lyra Dawnbringer, 150 of the Retro Foil Lyra Dawnbringer, and 300 Retro Foil Sneak Attack.
So when we’re calculating drop rates in this slot, we need to be cognizant of the different versions available. We also know from vendor experience that the cards with one variant frame are appearing around half as often as the cards with both.
I have changed the table to reflect this.
| Chance for getting that card (any version) | Chance for getting a specific frame | Estimated number of Collector Booster boxes needed for specific frame | |
| Rare with one frame | 1/70 | 1/70 | 5.8 |
| Rare with two frames | 1/70 | 1/140 | 11.7 |
| Mythic with one frame | 1/280 | 1/280 | 23.4 |
| Mythic with two frames | 1/140 | 1/280 | 23.3 |
So with this trick of giving almost all the mythics a second frame, they halved the drop rate for each frame. It’s also a great way to keep the price high for the special versions of a card, even if the price for the regular frame drops precipitously.
A drop rate of one every 280 packs for the rarest mythics is not far off from most of the other sets we’ve had recently, and this set is notably lacking in a subset or a super-mega-rare. There’s no serialized versions, no Lost Legends, no alt-art Japanese Mystical Archive. Let’s have a comparison with other recent sets:
| Card/Set | Collector Boosters to open one (approx.) | Card/Set | Collector Boosters to open one (approx.) |
| Phyrexian Foil Vorinclex (KHM) | 256 | Foil Etched Food Chain (2X2) | 280 |
| Japanese- Language Alternate Art Time Warp Foil (STX:MA) | 309 | Red Soft Glow Hidetsugu (NEO) | 1,828 |
| Foil Extended Art The Meathook Massacre (MID) | 151 | Phyrexian Foil Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU) | 346 |
| Foil Fang Frame Sorin, the Mirthless by Ayami Kojima (VOW) | 171 | Phyrexian Foil Ajani, Sleeper Agent (DMU) | 692 |
| Extended Art Foil Jeweled Lotus (CMR) | 400 | Foil Alternate-Art Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim (BRO) | 299 |
| Phyrexian Foil Urabrask, Heretic Praetor (SNC) | 492 | Retro Foil Sulfuric Vortex (DMR) | 70 |
| Borderless Foil Ancient Brass Dragon (CLB) | 352 | Retro Foil Sneak Attack (DMR) | 140 |
| Phyrexian foil (or foil-etched) Jin-Gitaxias (NEO) | 544 | Borderless Foil or Retro Foil Force of Will (DMR) | 280 |
Things being not-quite-as-rare to pull from packs doesn’t mean they will be common, though. Remember that this is a reprint set, in between two major releases. I am not expecting this to be a hugely opened set right away, but the initial burst of product, plus the trickle of remaining boxes to open, should keep prices down for a while. As I said last week, I’m not expecting to buy any spec copies for several months, but feel free to grab all the personal copies you want right away.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.