Collector Booster Sample Packs are one of the more interesting features of the current MTG lineup. They are packaged as a free extra in non-premium products, giving players a taste of the sharp alternate art cards they might get if they grabbed a full Collector Booster. Usually, the cards included are nothing special. However, sometimes there are exceptions, as in the case of the Bloomburrow Collector Booster Sample Packs.
A player recently shared his draws from one such pack on the r/MTGFinance subreddit, and the results are astonishing. They included a $250 card, which overturns existing assumptions about the contents of these packs.
A really expensive sample
The card in question was a foil exalted anime card of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. At the time of writing, this is the third most expensive card in Bloomburrow overall at $259, surpassed only by the foil exalted anime card versions of Chatterfang, Squirrel General, and Ms. Bumbleflower. This is a fantastic move for the post’s author, platinumjudge. What’s more, it’s also a move that many players didn’t even think was possible.
In the original post, platinumjudge noted that they shared it “in case other people were wondering if this was possible.” The rest of the thread was full of players who were just as surprised as they were. “That would be really surprising. They’ve always excluded the special treatments from the sample packs,” foycs123 noted. Others offered possible explanations for how such a rare card ended up in a sample pack like this.
“Was your Precon made in Japan? Raised foils are only produced by Japanese printers and therefore it is probably impossible to open such a foil in a Sample Collector Booster made in Belgium/USA.”
GrowthAchieved49
Whatever the reason, the fact that anime imprints can be found in the Bloomburrow Collector Booster Sample Packs is significant. These are by far the most expensive cards in the set, comparable to some of the series cards we’ve seen in the past. Even at the low end, with Kastral, the Windcrested, prices for these things are still over $60.
The fact that these cards can be found in sample packs is definitely a big plus. As we’ll see in a moment, it wasn’t always the case that you could find the best cards in a set in sample packs. However, considering it took so long for someone to report finding one this way, they’re probably too rare to actually affect EV at Commander Precons. They will However, they do make for some extremely saucy package opening videos.
Behind the curtain
The surprise of players when they saw anime foil cards in a collector booster sample pack leads to a larger discussion. Specifically about the mysterious nature of this product in general. There is very little information about what you can and can’t find in sample packs. This leads to a lot of speculation and surprising moments like this.
There are a few sources we can look to for information on this. Collector Booster Sample Packs first appeared in the Streets of New Capenna Commander decks. In the First Look article for that set, Adam Styborski states that Sample Packs “contain two cards from what you might find in a Streets of New Capenna Collector Booster.” There is no mention of an exclusion here, so theoretically every card in the set would be up for grabs. However, this was not the case.
With the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, the sequential cards were removed from the sample booster pool. On the other hand, the sample packs for Tales of Middle-earth actually contained exclusive extended art foil cards that couldn’t be found anywhere else. As they say, ups and downs.
This example from Lord of the Rings seems to have gotten stuck in players’ heads. In Platinumjudge’s thread, many referred to the “rules” the set had established and assumed they would apply to Bloomburrow as well. If there were no series cards, why would anime foils be any different? Wizards’ official description for Bloomburrow Sample Packs doesn’t help much either.
As a fun extra, it’s not particularly important that sample packs are completely transparent about their potential contents, but it’s definitely worth keeping this example in mind when evaluating sample packs in the future.
Read more: Price for iconic Lord of the Rings land rises by over 130%
