[Magic]MM2 Unboxing or why MM2 is a failure

This is why MM2 is mostly a fail.


It is'nt that its a set of bad cards. I mean i am saying this as someone who has followed the game from 1994/6? From Revised to present. And I am utterly disappointed with the power level and general direction wizards have been taking the various strategies. I mean. My epitome of a weak set is Mecadian Masques. Now that set seems strong compare to sets today. Still. Its not like the past was not littered with weak sets Homelands and Fallen Empires come to mind for all the wrong reasons =)

Still we have'nt reached Homeslands and Fallen Empires bad (mind you those sets have their charm, I loved the flavour of those two sets as well as the story telling on the cards and the concept of multiple arts. The key area where those sets failed was power. The designers forgot the "card game" part of Magic.) And furthermore, there are the occasional gems from the various sets these days, but those are few an far between. I really enjoyed Khans. It had everything I liked. High power level, pushing the envelope. I mean delve was strongly pushed and that is what I like to see. I want to see the next Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time and probabl some other cards. Sure TC got banned. But I don't think it was going to kill Modern. Legacy is a little more questionable since it was very efficient and delve as a function accelerate much faster. The key difference is that in legacy, the environment was almost immediately warped, while in modern, the delve variants using TC were only just picking up steam. In standard. Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah. So I think that is a mark of a brave and innovative RnD. I applaud them for not giving up and still trying to make Ancestral Recall balanced. (Boys and girls, this is the ONLY way you will EVER get ancestral effects on the cheap, so try not to join the crowd that hates on power level). I actually feel that TC is balanced. It is just a little strong. it is not Bahroken as per say. It is just warpish. Kinda like brainstorm and Force of Will. Banning in legacy may be for the best as they might not want to take their chances with Legacy reaching equilibium with a new meta (which I think is definitely possible given Legacy's depth). Anyways that is a rant for another time.

We are here to say why MM2 is a phail.

Now I just opened a box and it was a good box. However it still only barely broke even given the cost in Singapore.  I think the price in Singapore is about 15% above MSRP or more. So its even tougher to break even. (I am assuming msrp of 240 and an exchange rate of 1.3)

 These are the okay uncommons:

I guess WOTC thought that by randomly turning rares into uncommons, they are giving more value. I think they fail to understand that most if not all the rares that got downgraded to uncommon were already dollar rares. A dollar uncommon for a normal booster is a good thing. Decent.  A dollar uncommon (and there are very few) for a 10 USD msrp pack is just.... a serious debit on their karma.

I did'nt really like MM1, but at least there was a substantial number of uncommons that I felt like protecting. This set's uncommon unfortunately felt alot like bulk.

This is the "group photo"

The box was above average with 4 mythics and 2 foil rares. Of the Mythics, I was lucky to avoid the comet storm! And had a goyf, and opal and Elesh! Vendllion CLique was very decent too. The other goyf was a lucky pull off 3 packs.

This is a view of the mythics closer. 

The decent foils:

Wiltleaf is nice, remand too is nice (I had no non-foil remand in the whole box... oh well)

The rares that probaly only worth a little but are cute enough to me.... Hello Apocalypse Hydra!!

The "money" rares. Thats the sad thing about modern. Thats a card like fuliminator mage can fetch 30 dollars. And hierarch??? :/

The cringe worthy foils:

The cringe worthy rares... mind you some of these rares would be alright if this set was priced normally.

Now this is a good box and I felt extremely lucky to have gotten this box. it could be worse. It could have been way way worse based on what I have seen. The sad thing is I only barely broke even with the extra goyf. Thats how high the pricing is in Singapore.

Thanks to my playgroup for helping me open up some smashing stuff!!!

Thank you all for lending your mojo ;)

Hmm so why is this about MM2 being a fail. The fact that I can open a good box and still only break even is terrible. It means there are quite very many disappointing boxes out there waiting to be bought :( This is the biggest failure of MM2: the fact that it is eroding ALOT of goodwill in its customer base. It is also eroding its business model. Think about it. If I open a goyf, should my feeling be "Thats so awesome" or "Whew". The way MM2 is designed is detrimental to the basic business of selling boosters.

Disclaimer: I did not actually want to buy the box. But preordering required a down payment of a sixth of the cost of the box. Just to qualify for preordering already required joining an event [later several retailers were allowing only customers who bought a certain value of product (I think it ranged from 300-500) before they were allowed to preorder.] After the full spoiler for the set was released, such "offers" magically disappeared. Anyways, the total sunk cost by that time for myself was about 100 SGD. Its really was not pretty and I was rather distraught with the prospect of a suck box. That in itself is a loss of goodwill for WOTC. The fact that a product brings stress rather than entertainment. Fail. Remember the modern event deck? Yeah thats two strikes. Strike two is already shame on me, I don't think I will be preordering any product that is overpriced anymore. There is no longer any trust when WOTC says a product is good. Good luck WOTC.