Battle for Zendikar Event Deck Revealed!

We finally got a full look at the Battle for Zendikar Event Deck list today, and it’s a doozy.

Smothering Abomination. Whisperwood Elemental. Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Hangarback Walker. Llanowar Wastes. That’s a lot of value packed into these decks, and you can be sure they’ll be selling at above MSRP for the next few weeks.

Now, before you completely pull the panic cord, I want to note a few things. Yes, the price on these chase cards will suffer, no doubt about it. But it’s also not the death knell for them, and chances are if you need these cards to play with, you’re likely supposed to hold them. Back in the day, we saw Thragtusk—which occupied a similar “all over Standard” role as Hangarback—shrugged off multiple reprints and remained more than $20. I don’t expect Hangarback to do quite that well, but it’s worth taking note of. Furthermore, Windswept Heath lost about 30 percent of its value after its own reprinting, so unless you’re getting more than 70 percent of retail for these chase cards, you’re not going to “profit” in the long term by selling yours now with the intent to rebuy in a month.

Still, this is very much going to inhibit the prices of these cards, and while I still like Tasigur as a long-term spec, this does damage its ceiling a bit and push that timeline out even further.

One final note, even if it seems obvious: if you can find these at MSRP, it’s very much worth your time to buy them and trade out the contents from inside, at least for the first few weeks.

Happy prereleasing this weekend!

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter/Twitch/YouTube

10 thoughts on “Battle for Zendikar Event Deck Revealed!”

Reminder – these are almost always available at MSRP from big box stores

Corbin Hosler says:

September 24, 2015 at 12:18 pm

Yup, good call. Definitely a good place to start.

Worth noting they’ve moved to putting mythic rares into these packs. They’ve jumped the shark with BFZ IMO.

Now I’m pissed… I had been telling people to avoid Tasigurs cause he was going to get reprinted. Then I read every article on here and every finance writer saying he was a good trade target even between $6-8 so I finally started including him as a target in trades…I gotta trust my instincts more. Nobody’s fault but my own, just super pissed at myself. And to include Hangarback already seems bizarre but that’s Wizards for ya.
There has to be some pattern I/we can figure out with Wizards reprinting cards because the Event Deck could easily have been a real deck in Esper Dragons like the mono-black event deck in the past, not some garbage made up deck they could cram Taz and Hangarback into to get more copies out there. Whisperwood and Warden are less than $5 mythics so there wasn’t much need to reprint them. Rares above $5 and mythics below $5 are reprint targets??? I don’t know, but Wizards is killing me with all these supplemental products and reprints.

Fuquan says:

September 25, 2015 at 3:41 am

Although I dislike Tasigur and Hangarback Walker being in there as well, the foundation of this deck is real. Zulaport Cutthroat is very similar to Blood Artist and has synergies with everything that leaves bodies behind (Hangarback Walker, Blisterpod, Whisperwood Elemental, Sultai Emissary) and a Sac-Outlet (Nantuko Husk, Evolutionary Leap) or chump-blocking. While my approach is more Rally-ish (leaving HBW out of the equation), I truly believe this deck to be a solid option for Abzan after rotation. So, no, it’s not some “garbage made up deck”, in my opinion.