u/brogam3

The facts are simple:

Small set
Low power
Few art styles, few interesting motifs. You basically have the book style art which looks good and the dragon frame which looks bad and that's it in terms of interesting art styles. People are buying LOTR holiday collector boosters for high prices because of the many insane art pieces and lotr themed creatures that you can acquire, this is just not the case in this set. MSH has better, more interesting and just plain more art than this. Reusing the tarkir dragon border is also very lazy and makes it even lower value when you hit one of those because we just had a set with them. They are also literally reusing the one ring art and card.
Worst of all: Only one serialized chase which doesn't even have numbering which inherently means that it's less of an exclusive feeling when you get it. The price will still be high(ish) but it's lower than it would have otherwise been. The LOTR special boxes had tons and tons of different serialized cards that you could get. The Hobbit only has ONE(1). For that reason alone the gambling factor is reduced massively and let's be real, gambling is the only reason why people buy CBBs for high prices and actually open them.
Hobbits are thematically boring. It's a bit like making a full set about Robin instead of Batman but also Robin is 3 feet tall and has hairy feet. It's just not that appealing to pull hobbits. This is not going to pull LOTR fans like an actual Lord of the Rings set did. The "The Hobbit" movies were also far worse than the legendary lotr movies, interest will be much lower by the general population.

Sorry, there are just too many downsides for this set to be a hit. Far far smaller gambling factor, far less appeal for LOTR fans. This is more like a generic set release than true fan service.

Prediction: The Hobbit set already topped out in CBB price at ~700

Is your launch editor button suddenly missing too?