Helvault during Pre-Release Event (Avacyn Restored)

Information about new Magic items and events.

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Foil Helvaults

Post by Default User » Wed May 02, 2012 7:49 am

WotC has confirmed that there were just 30 foil Helvaults. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/A ... arcana/963

That means that there are only 3240 foil tokens, and if I understood correctly (54 of each promo in the vault) 1620 of each foil angel/demon.

So 33 tokens equals 1 % of the population and 17 of any foil promo will be another 1 %... I think I will try getting the tokens.

E-bay had foil a token at 5.1 $, but the current auction of 110 $ for two is ridiculously overpriced. (hopefully)

Non-foil promo's are currently very cheap, postage is almost equal to the set price (1.35 € for the cheapest set and 1.1 € for postage)
Global old art Lightning Bolt collector, mainly missing fwb and Summer.

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Re: Foil Helvaults

Post by axcel » Wed May 02, 2012 11:36 am

Default User wrote:if I understood correctly (54 of each promo in the vault) 1620 of each foil angel/demon.
No, it was 54 promos total, so approximately 11 of any given angel/demon. It means we have ~330 foils of each character.
Not much.

I'm glad I had bought my foil Gisela before she was known to be SO RARE, because right now getting one might be near to impossible.

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Post by dry cereal » Thu May 03, 2012 3:01 pm

the store with the cat is MY HOME! I know that cat! :D

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Post by yvel » Thu May 03, 2012 10:50 pm

lol, cutty :)

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Post by mystical_tutor » Fri May 04, 2012 11:01 pm

An auction on "you know where" today ended with one of the large foil cards going for $127.

This is very discouraging to me. I am seriously considering what direction my future collecting should go--if any direction at all. If WotC continues to do this at future events (distribute VERY small quantities of a special card) there is no use in me trying to keep up.

If my math is correct there were less than 300 of each of the large foils distributed. That would make them 5 times more rare than an Alpha Black Lotus.

sigh....

Gary

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Post by dry cereal » Fri May 04, 2012 11:48 pm

I understand it is frustrating right now, but it is not a speed match. Give it time to see what develops. And remember, sometimes the fun is the chase, not the cheese! Keep heart!

Best,
Ben

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Post by mystical_tutor » Sat May 05, 2012 12:02 am

dry cereal wrote:I understand it is frustrating right now, but it is not a speed match. Give it time to see what develops. And remember, sometimes the fun is the chase, not the cheese! Keep heart!

Best,
Ben
Those are wise words, my friend, I hope I can put them to use. As it is, right now I feel like I just got kicked in the face and wondering if it is worth recovering just have it happen again.

Gary

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Post by berkumps » Sat May 05, 2012 1:39 am

The Shichifukujin Dragon is 1100x more rare than an Alpha Black Lotus. Just saying.

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Post by axcel » Sat May 05, 2012 2:03 am

mystical_tutor wrote:An auction on "you know where" today ended with one of the large foil cards going for $127.

This is very discouraging to me. I am seriously considering what direction my future collecting should go--if any direction at all. If WotC continues to do this at future events (distribute VERY small quantities of a special card) there is no use in me trying to keep up.
Good point, I've been thinking the same thing. One of my minor collections is Kieryluk's art and this Griselbrand made me wonder if it makes any sense.
Am I expected now to buy every such a ridiculously rare card?
Is it fair to print money, give it to a limited amount of people (for nothing in particular... c'mon, Mutavaults were at least prizes!), and then expect the rest of us to fight for these few offered for sale?

I know, I know, collecting is not mandatory and nobody is actually forcing me to spend my money on it... but still, I feel like they're trying to manipulate me. "Oh you're going to buy it anyway, we know it. This, and any such ultra-rare promo in the future... Yes, you are..."

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Post by GlobalBoosterHunter » Sat May 05, 2012 6:38 am

Hmmmmm


Saturating a market with dubious 'collectibles' until everyone gives up.

Seen it before, stamps, phonecards and coins! The various postal services, telecommunication companies and mints start producing increasing numbers of collectible series.

For them you are paying for a service you will never use. You buy a stamp, which is just a token to show how far you have paid to send a letter, but you never send the letter. The phonecard is just a way of recording how much talk time you have prepaid for and they know you will never spend the coin you just bought to put in an album.

The above three examples all make money directly for the companies, they get greedy and go into overdrive! Each time you watch it happenning and you are sure they will see what they are doing to the hobby and they will stop in time.

I am in a collectors' club, we used to be mainly coins, banknotes and phonecards. None of the 50+ members collect phonecards anymore (do they still make them?) and at age 40, I am one of the youngest coin collectors, and I only collect bullion.

In MTG's case, all the money is made on the secondry market, the people taking the mickey are the collectors who open rare items and put on such outlandish premiums. However the free market reigns, if the price is too high it will not sell, but if enough people think it is fairly priced then it will.

I though bringing out foils was a step too far and that is when I stopped collecting sets. Then I heard about mythic rares and figured they had found a new way to milk the market. Of course you have your foil mythic rares.

WotC have to have a way to keep people coming back, I am seeing whole booster boxes of openned Avacyn Restored for sale at $40. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Avacyn-Resto ... 20c52bdb00

They have been opened to find a few cards and they have boxes of rares, uncommons and commons they don't care about. Obviously wizards' plans to increase sales by seeding a few money cards per box are working. Why bother to map boxes when you can open every booster inside it and cover your costs by selling a few foil mythic rares and other key cards.

By giving people a lottery ticket you keep them coming back for more. Otherwise, why would anyone buy a booster? Isn't it common knowledge that it is cheaper to buy singles than it is to open a booster in the hopes of pulling a particular card?

Same with the show promos, what better way to convince the fence sitters to come along, the lure of a big money pay out if you get lucky, money for nothing!

I now have to locate and buy approximately 60 different Avacyn Restored boosters, to keep the booster set up and running, about 170 new boosters from around the world each year while still trying to locate the missing 51% of the existing boosters, over $800 a year spent on the hobby but that only really equates to $3 a day, I spend more than that on coffee and I know which I would rather do without!

Whatever the costs of the cards you need each year, just divide by 365 and that pittance will be the daily cost of your magic fix, now subtract from that the money you will make when you go to sell the collection and you realise you are actually saving money, win:win!

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Post by mystical_tutor » Sat May 05, 2012 3:01 pm

Mark;

It is good to hear someone with a different collecting experience review market stratigy of "collectable" publishers. I have collected stamps and coins (in that era there were no phone cards.... LOL).

You missed one very important point about boosters though. It is obvious, because of the fact that you have a zillion UNOPENED boosters that you don't neet the real "fix" that has propelled MTG for a large percentage of it's following.

There is a mental rush for most of us every time we open a booster. Will it have a Black Lotus in it... will it will it will it....., oh, well maybe the next one, Just one more, that has to be it.....

This is akin to looking through coins for a 1926 "far six" or a 1914-D US penny (been so long I may have gotten those dates wrong).

It is really hard to put a money value on 'getting your fix'.... LOL.

I just pulled a foil Temporal Mastery.

Gary

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Post by mystical_tutor » Sat May 05, 2012 3:28 pm

axcel wrote:
mystical_tutor wrote:An auction on "you know where" today ended with one of the large foil cards going for $127.

This is very discouraging to me. I am seriously considering what direction my future collecting should go--if any direction at all. If WotC continues to do this at future events (distribute VERY small quantities of a special card) there is no use in me trying to keep up.
Good point, I've been thinking the same thing. One of my minor collections is Kieryluk's art and this Griselbrand made me wonder if it makes any sense.
Am I expected now to buy every such a ridiculously rare card?
Is it fair to print money, give it to a limited amount of people (for nothing in particular... c'mon, Mutavaults were at least prizes!), and then expect the rest of us to fight for these few offered for sale?

I know, I know, collecting is not mandatory and nobody is actually forcing me to spend my money on it... but still, I feel like they're trying to manipulate me. "Oh you're going to buy it anyway, we know it. This, and any such ultra-rare promo in the future... Yes, you are..."
We must remember that the fine folks that bring us our favorite pastimes (whatever they are) mostly do it because of that end of quarter "bottom line". If they are worth their salt at all they must manipulate us to pry that dollar/euro/yen/wan/rubble/sheckle out of our pocket when we normally would buy coffee with it.

My comment it a muse that maybe I need to focus and thus to limit the amount I need to spend to achieve a worthy goal. I did that when I decided to do English only cards. Where do I need to go now?

It might work out, actually. They broaden the spectrum or up the value, I cut what I collect. The fail point will be where they, by production, either make what I collect too expensive or worthless. Mark has spoken well to these points.

After all, for all of us, the only thing that really matters is that we collect something we are proud to own and can feel good about accomplishing. Whatever gives us "bragging rights" among our friends.

Still in this situation I feel that a take by a player of over $200 when the rest of us got.... and had no chance at the real goodies... It does not set well and just isn't right. If my buddy pulls a foil Jace and I get crap rare at least I feely I had a chance to get that booster. I had no chance to attend a store that got the premium 'vault and the players overseas were really screwed.

I'm still bummed.

Gary

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Post by GlobalBoosterHunter » Sat May 05, 2012 5:21 pm

mystical_tutor wrote:...You missed one very important point about boosters though. It is obvious, because of the fact that you have a zillion UNOPENED boosters that you don't neet the real "fix" that has propelled MTG for a large percentage of it's following.

There is a mental rush for most of us every time we open a booster. Will it have a Black Lotus in it... will it will it will it....., oh, well maybe the next one, Just one more, that has to be it.....

Gary
I still remember sharing a box of Revised with a mate! We couldn't afford a whole box to ourselves!

Back then we didn't now how many different cards were in a set, which ones were rare or how many uncommons were in a pack. We didn't know what any of the cards were worth, you couldn't buy singles and the internet was empty (plus we had to go to one of the new internet cafes to get online)

When we opened a booster we were generally surprised, we were all hoping to pull a Lord of the Pit, the most awesome and rare card there was, but most of the time we just stared at the rare card and tried to work out whether we could use it or what it did.

We didn't have Scrye for ages. I was putting together a set of Revised and that was pretty much the bible we all referred to when deck building. It used to drive my friend nuts when I opened something I didn't have because he knew he would never get to see it in action until I pulled a second one.

Then set lists used to come out a month or so after the sets, which was great because by that time I had a lot of the cards but just needed to know what remained for my sets. We had a regular supply of Scrye by then so we were looking out for cards we had seen mentioned and we had a working price guide to help with swaps, no more would my friend trade away a Nightmare for what he really needed, swamps!

Then they started giving away cards in the magazines, I remember getting a Norrit before Ice Ages, it really made you want to wait outside the hobby shop on the day the owner said he was getting the cards in. Would there be another Stone Rain type card in the set to add to the land destruction deck that everyone hated?

Now you have spoilers, and guess what, they spoiled it!

Now when you open a booster you are after a specific card, if you don't get that card it is a let down. You already know all the cards in the set, there are no surprises left, you know how many cards, the rarety, you even know the value of the individual cards. You even know what a good number of them look like and there are plenty of commentators giving you a run down of the top 10s.

I have some unopened boxes and starters from older sets and I have purposely not read anything about the sets. When I get some of the old friends over we will crack them like the old days, none of your drafting, just a starter and half a dozen boosters each and then we will play (once I make everybody sleeve them first, I bought sleeves as well, the are all still sealed up to)

A lot of the fun dried up once the mystery was gone, well not so much dried up, the focus shifted, from an orgy of cracking packs to deck building and better playing habits.

I have around 1350 unopened boosters and I can't say I am not tempted to see if I have that final fourth Jester's Cap (I needed one for my mill deck and I had five unopened boosters at the time, the first of the Global Set, my mate could not understand why I didn't open them to check) But I have no trouble not openning the modern sets, I already know most of the cards anyway.

Ahhhh, the good old days!
Last edited by GlobalBoosterHunter on Sat May 05, 2012 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by GlobalBoosterHunter » Sat May 05, 2012 5:26 pm

Double post, well it is 02:11, I am not a morning person!

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Post by yvel » Fri May 11, 2012 2:32 pm

I have an extra Griselbrand oversize foil for sell, if someone want it before auctions.
Pm offer

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