Why pay $999 when you can get tournament egal cards for cheap?
Wizards of the Coast couldn't have predicted the backlash that Magic: The Gathering's 30th Anniversary Edition has received – they're wizards after all, not precogs. After the possible unlicensed card art, and ridiculous price point for cards that aren't even tournament legal, a local game store in Sweden has created its own unofficial version of the 30th Anniversary Edition, using real cards.
“When I heard about the Anniversary packs and the honestly ridiculous price point I just thought to myself: but for those prices you can basically buy real duals and power instead of buying a couple of non tournament legal boosters,” said William Ljungberg, owner of the stores Mindstage and SvenskaMagic, to Wargamer. "I expected people to think it was a bit funny that you could actually do this, but the response has been huge with so many positive comments,” he continued. “I think that – for the first time in Magic’s history – players are all in agreement over something.”
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As MTG players were understandably frustrated with the $999 price of the 30th anniversary edition, Ljungberg, just for the fun of it, created 40 custom booster packs full of old cards, and priced them at SEK 2500 ($220) each. There are $8830 worth of cards split between the 40 packs, which includes Revised dual lands and Unlimited Time Walk. He detailed this process on the SvenskaMagic forum.
As for why players are pissed at the $999 MTG 30th Anniversary edition, it's not only due to the absolutely ludicrous price. While the collection includes reprints of Magic's Beta in original retro frames, as well as new modern frames, it will not be tournament legal and will have an exclusive card backing which will prevent it from being usable in most formats.
Another issue that's cropped up with the 30th Anniversary Edition is that it may contain a card with art that Wizards doesn't own the rights to. Justin Hoover, the son of deceased Magic artist Quinton Hoover, has alleged that the card named Meekstone used art created by his father, and Wizards has not been in touch with him regarding the required permissions and rights.
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Vaspaan Dastoor is a News Editor for TheGamer. Previously worked at IGN India and constantly tries to get people to make time for an LOTR marathon. He can be found giving hot takes for cold responses at @DastoorVaspaan