2017 Gift Pack Foils

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aleksandr
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2017 Gift Pack Foils

Post by aleksandr » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:58 pm

What are folks thoughts on the cards in the 2017 gift pack?

According to WOTC's site, the contents of the box include:

5 premium basic lands by artist Mark Poole (known as the "Shooting Star Lands")
2 premium creature cards (Metalwork Colossus and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider)

The 5 lands are indeed promos as indicated by the shooting star set symbol (not to be confused with the "Shooting Star Lands" that they mention--that is in the artwork) and are flagged as promos in the collector's number info at the bottom.

On the other hand, the "premium creature cards" appear to be nothing more than the same copies you can pull in a booster pack of the respective card. Artwork is the same, collectors # info is the same, set symbol is the same. I know many people are calling these promos (and the page on this site does as well), but I can find nothing to indicate that these are different or special in any way.

Obviously, everyone's manner of collecting varies, but for me, a promo has to have some kind of differentiation in order to mark it as such. If, a few years down the road I am looking through a bulk foils box and come across a Metalwork Colossus, how do I determine whether it is from a booster pack, a standard showdown pack, or this gift pack?

Or, am I missing something obvious that differentiates these cards?

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dragsamou
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Re: 2017 Gift Pack Foils

Post by dragsamou » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:30 pm

aleksandr wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:58 pm
What are folks thoughts on the cards in the 2017 gift pack?

According to WOTC's site, the contents of the box include:

5 premium basic lands by artist Mark Poole (known as the "Shooting Star Lands")
2 premium creature cards (Metalwork Colossus and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider)

The 5 lands are indeed promos as indicated by the shooting star set symbol (not to be confused with the "Shooting Star Lands" that they mention--that is in the artwork) and are flagged as promos in the collector's number info at the bottom.

On the other hand, the "premium creature cards" appear to be nothing more than the same copies you can pull in a booster pack of the respective card. Artwork is the same, collectors # info is the same, set symbol is the same. I know many people are calling these promos (and the page on this site does as well), but I can find nothing to indicate that these are different or special in any way.

Obviously, everyone's manner of collecting varies, but for me, a promo has to have some kind of differentiation in order to mark it as such. If, a few years down the road I am looking through a bulk foils box and come across a Metalwork Colossus, how do I determine whether it is from a booster pack, a standard showdown pack, or this gift pack?

Or, am I missing something obvious that differentiates these cards?
Hi Aleksander

I have created the subsection, when they were first announced by WotC and labeled as Promos and didn't modify it since that time. I was expecting the cards to have at least the Promo mentioned next to the numbering, but they look like regular Premium to me without any difference with the Aether Revolt version . Therefore, I need to remove those two cards from the 2017 tab of the Holiday Gift Box Cards subsection except if anyone can tell me what differentiate them.
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cataclysm80
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Re: 2017 Gift Pack Foils

Post by cataclysm80 » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:03 pm

If they're distributed with the promo cards, they are very likely a separate printing on a different sheet than the cards from booster packs. This means that they could have differences, even if those differences are very tiny and require magnification.

They would not pull these promo cards from the regular booster pack print run because that's a lot of work, and because it would reduce the number of these cards in booster packs.
If these are distributed with the promo cards, they are very likely printed with the promo cards.

They could also be printed separately and still look the same, but there is potential for difference. It's just a matter of how closely you want to look at the card.

A comparable example would be all the Ice Age promo cards which were inserted into magazines.
They are still promo cards, and available in sealed packages, even if you might not be able to tell them apart after opening them.
The fact that they exist as promo cards is worthy of noting for historical reasons, don't erase them from Librarities. In the future, someone may acquire a sealed package and want to know what's inside without having to open the package.

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Re: 2017 Gift Pack Foils

Post by dragsamou » Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:56 am

cataclysm80 wrote:
Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:03 pm
If they're distributed with the promo cards, they are very likely a separate printing on a different sheet than the cards from booster packs. This means that they could have differences, even if those differences are very tiny and require magnification.

They would not pull these promo cards from the regular booster pack print run because that's a lot of work, and because it would reduce the number of these cards in booster packs.
If these are distributed with the promo cards, they are very likely printed with the promo cards.

They could also be printed separately and still look the same, but there is potential for difference. It's just a matter of how closely you want to look at the card.

A comparable example would be all the Ice Age promo cards which were inserted into magazines.
They are still promo cards, and available in sealed packages, even if you might not be able to tell them apart after opening them.
The fact that they exist as promo cards is worthy of noting for historical reasons, don't erase them from Librarities. In the future, someone may acquire a sealed package and want to know what's inside without having to open the package.
Hi Tav

I have removed them from the tab but not from the index. WotC has also changed the sentence from Promo to Premium. There's a lot of Premium cards that were included in a lot of sealed products but I never add those on the website except if they were Promos (and that you could make the difference easily with a regular version), but they are always been mentioned in the index of the appropriate subsections and now on the huge Compilation of Manufacture Information for MTG Products topic.
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