u/moombahh

Previously only Kirk, Janeway, and Picard were announced. This confirms the other 4.

From: https://wpn.wizards.com/en/news/make-it-so-helping-your-customers-chart-a-course-in-magic-the-gathering-star-trek

Each headliner will be a physically signed card, with about 250 each. Physically signed meaning Patrick Stewart, for example, held and signed his signature with a pen on 250 of the Picard cards.

Looks like WOTC is changing things up and giving info on not only the headliner card, but the tier 2 chase cards too.

1: shattered mirror facet foil

2: japan showcase fracture foil

3: rainbow foil /500 serialized Bloodline Recollector

Hobbit CBBs currently go for far more than MSRP. Is it all due to hype? Or is the price justified?

The data shows that it’s justified; you’re getting an appropriate amount of value from each pack. You get about $702 in value from each Hobbit CBB.

Google sheets here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PQ2ZdPChfDVMMGZ5bOfIlyRXxzzQvHXstNJVV6R-YtM/edit?usp=sharing

But the value is probably going to crash soon right?

Going from historical data on SOS and MSH, that doesn’t seem likely. Prices are lowest around this time and will begin ascending soon until the slow descent happens a month from now.

Also, I don’t track this, but EDHREC data on Hobbit is extremely positive. It blows SOS and MSH away in terms of playability. For example, the 4th highest played new-to-magic mythic in the Hobbit would be the most played new-to-magic mythic in either of the previous sets. The highest played card in Hobbit (Gleaming Splendor) has a higher playrate than any new-to-magic mythic card since The One Ring. Insane.

Another important consideration is this: every single high-playrate card has a collector-exclusive blingy version. Some even have two! (4cmc smaug, arkenstone). This has accrued a large amount of value to collector boxes. One of SOS’s big misses (imo) was not having blingy versions of the Elder Dragons, which are popular commanders; WOTC left so much money on the table from that decision. The Hobbit doesn’t make that mistake. Every single high-playrate card has a blingy version. 

No matter how you feel about the Hobbit as a set, the CBB design is S tier.

So about $22.5k after fees for the seller. There are no longer people buylisting for $25k from talking to people privately who have pulled the Smaug. Will be interesting to see how this develops.

Edit: for people who suspect that I’m lying about privately messaging people who have pulled Smaugs, you can read my recent public comments in the past couple days with people who have indeed pulled Smaugs. We both went to DMs after. On Facebook there have been 16+ pulls. I’ve messaged some of them. The world isn’t a scary place, you can just talk to people.

Images taken from Dendem MTG on facebook, who is at the Star Trek convention where WOTC is talking about the upcoming Star Trek set. Treatment is similar to dwarven / elven / phyrexian language treatments WOTC has done in the past.

Everything is still speculation until they release the exact event cost + prizes, but if it's anything like Final Fantasy it's likely to be positive EV as the market prices for boxes are $900.

Link to previous FF event analysis https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1ldcs00/should_you_play_fin_arena_direct_probably/

If you were kicking yourself like I was last year for not playing as many FF arena direct events as possible, get ready for August 14th.

Link to event schedule https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/the-hobbit-event-schedule

Journey's End Games put out a buylist offer of $25k for a Gold Smaug.

There are 500 Gold Smaugs, similar to Bitterbloom Bearer and Emeritus. Both of the latter currently go for 3-4k. BUT Hobbit cbbs go for more, so let's say the appropriate price is 7k. Add on top of that that Smaug is a *much* more desirable character than both and it gets bumped up even more. Enough to hit 25k? I'm personally skeptical, but Tolkien+MTG always surprises me.

Reminder that people were buylisting the silver scroll foils for almost double what they're selling for today https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1snv642/buylist_for_silver_schroll_mystical_archives/

Edit: for posterity I think the price after a volatile release will slowly settle around 15-18k

With this, Kirk Janeway and Picard are confirmed. 4 remaining

As a reminder, there will be 7 different headliner characters with 250 of each headliner printed. The actors who play the character will physically sign each of their 250 cards