@@TolarianCommunityCollege Oh yea absolutely didn't expect you to mention them just thought it would be helpful for anyone in the comments who happens to play both. Great work on the video btw prof!
This video is 100% necessary. These mystery repacks are shameful trash. Don't think for a second that you were too negative, Prof. You maintained a high standard of professionalism throughout. I know I am not classy enough to do that. Your criticisms were harsh, but absolutely true.
Eh. I agree they are bad but I wish walmart still sold older packs because return to ravnica was boring as hell, I bought these garbage cubes ONLY for the Hope's of older packs. I pulled an emrakul Aeons Torn from one of those
I never bought those clear boxed magic "sets" because they looked sketchy and they looked like crap and to me it was obvious that it was not a magic the gathering official box so I never bought them in fear of getting ripped off. I'm glad I never did now that I watched this.
These are easily searchable, I've bought two of these cubes. One had an archenemy deck the other was a commander deck..... Take the mystery out of it, just search it and hose them instead.
“The mystery box could be anything! It could even be packs and singles that are sold elsewhere! You know how much we always wanted one of those!” “Then let’s just go buy th-“ “We’ll take the box!” 🤦🏻♀️
“If it says ‘mystery’ on the box, it’s crap. They’re trying to rip you off.” Wow, I didn’t know the professor had such strong opinions on Mystery Booster.
To be fair, I do believe he said it was a very welcome exception. Unfortunately I just started watching his videos and getting into Magic. The boxes cost double to buy now than they used to
Wizards released a "Mystery Dungeon" promotional product that has valuable exclusive products, but is controversial because it is not available in all areas and the theming of the cards is liscensed from other franchises such as The Walking Dead.
Addendum: That promotion was actually called "Secret Lair" lol. Mystery Dungeon is a Pokemon game. During my fact check I found what they were probably actually referring to. Wizards is selling Mystery Boosters that are essentially the same marketing philosophy but at least slightly less blatant and heinous. Buy singles.
I shamefully bought WAY WAY too many of these. About 30. Yes 30, I don't know why. I did get a Commander deck. Just one Commander deck. What a colossal wast of money.
@ I bought one of these that contained an Eldrich moon pack that had 15 Zendikar cards inside. It was reglued. I messaged MJ Holdings and they mailed me a new pack. It does happen
WalMart: "You can have the lovely Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck the lovely LGS is selling, or you can trade it all for what's in this box..." Suckers: "The box! THE BOX!"
$20 dollars for that?! I'd rather spend my $20 on a Guild Kit. Edit: Oops! The Professor made that point in the video. My apologies, dear Professor. :)
@@questionyourself718 Elder Dragon Highlander. The Elder Dragons were the first notable Legendary Creatures, and the Highlander movie comes with the quote "There can be only one," which is used because its singleton.
Target has a similar product without the outer packaging that hides its contents. You can actually see the size of the decks - sometimes the front card too so you know what the deck is - and the booster pack cycle. I have bought several that had 2 commander decks in them. They are rare, but at $20, 2 CMDR decks return a decent rate.
This literally just saved me “a new player” from potentially buying one of these an hour of now when I was going to go buy some MTG stuff from my local Walmart. Thanks.
I literally had to stop in the middle of this video to go sign up for the professor's patreon because it dawned on me how much money he saves me on a consistent basis and the fact that I just love his videos.
The ones near me at target went for 20 for 4 random old precons. At the time, that was basically 4 fully fledged decks ready to thrown down with my friends.
The problem is that the people this video is reaching are the ones who already know how bad these products are. It's, like you said, the grandmothers and parents who don't have any better idea who will pick this off the shelf haphazardly for their kids. And with how much children love these "mystery products" parents are likely to choose something with that label rather than a carefully constructed deck like a guild kit. I know it's not likely, but I hope that somehow this reaches at least one person like that. I hope that this can help at least one kid experience Magic in a better way than this when getting a gift.
You might be right that some of these are probably bought by people who don't know any better (parents, grandparents, kids). But given that these cubes are actually kind of hard to find (meaning they disappear quickly from the shelves), and from the many posts here from Magic players (including myself) who have bought these cubes, I expect these are largely being bought by Magic players who do know better. There was a lot of early hype when these cubes actually did (occasionally) contain a Commander deck and I'm sure many people snatch these up hoping to score something sweet. I fell for it but that won't happen again.
You are exactly right. My girlfriend randomly bought me on of these a while back while she was at Target. She spent 30 dollars on this particular one and I felt so bad because I knew how crappy these are but I didn’t let her know. I was very grateful that she thought of me, and even bought me mtg. But I opened the box and there was a welcome deck or two, a land pack, two packs of dominaria and amonkhet or something and the black deck from nissa vs ob nix duel deck with the crap rares left in it. She later asked me if I got anything good and I said yeah! I felt bad lying about it but couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth at that time. Later on though, I mentioned that a lot of those mystery packs have bad cards in them and that they can be a rip off.
I saw your Twitter post yesterday about how you hoped the negativity in this video wouldn't be too off putting, but I'd say it was the exact right amount of negativity for such a garbage product
My family used to buy these for me when I was younger, and one time we did get lucky and the deck was the dragon arch enemy deck. But in the next one (they had bought two) the deck was a pack of 30 basic land, I reported it to Walmart and got a full refund because that's not even part of a deck
at my school we did a tournament with Card Kingdom's battle decks and it was a lot of fun and totally worth the $10 to buy the deck and even after we were done we still play with them. A fantastic product for sure.
I remember seeing people take these boxes over to the produce section and put them on the weights to see which ones weighed the most to buy 20 dollar commander decks.
Except wotc knows this now, so they weigh all the cubes to make sure they're at an even weight. Damn them!!! I blame bad boy gaming for putting all over YT. Now the chances of getting a commander deck is basically nil
You might be able to write to the company that does the repacks and explain your disappointment in order to get a replacement product. Granted you might get more BS but at least you will get something more than lands. Its worth a try!
I was just about to get one of these at walmart today, then my little brother told me to watch your video first and instead I got a recent booster pack... I have a Hydroid Krasis L0L
@@m4l4kan I like how much this sensibly supports the Tutor's point: they CAUGHT...on...CAUGHT us. Dude, we were "CAUGHT" when we were 5. This is abusive if we have a long term relationship.
@@m4l4kan I was going to say this. I've bought one of these things because it weighed more. Then I opened it and found a basic land pack and half a duel deck. They bamboozled me once, but never again.
Sure... you can buy six of these garbage packs and have a one in a few thousand chance of getting Jace. OR you could just buy the single from Card Kingdom, and be guaranteed the exact card you want. Yeah it costs way more than one mystery box. But you won't end up with a stack of jank cards, lands, and dollar (or less) rares.
This is a problem for all Major TCGs Pokemon MAGIC Yu-gi-oh AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE OR MEASELS OR ANY OTHER SUPER INFECTIVE DECEASE. And any sports version aswell for the most part atleast modern ones though (these do vary)
James Blunt Walmart sells them on the face of a blister of 3 booster packs. You can see the boosters and know what ones you are getting but the price is the same as buying the 3 packs alone. At least the ones I see.
This is how we protest capitalism: steal from mega corporations, selling the singles, and using the money to go to FNM at your LGS. Spread the wealth around! Socialism for your local game store!
Back after the first commander decks came out, they had these but you could see what was in them and a good bit of them had three commander decks in them for $20. I bought so many of those and ended up with great value.
The local game store where I lived as a kid had a mystery thing that actually wasn't crap. Every now and then, the owner would open displays (or booster boxes as they seem to be called now) to fill out his binders for single card sales. When he did, any rares he got that he already had four or more of in those binders would go into a Mystery Rares Box. The box contained reverse-sleeved cards (so you couldn't see what card was in the sleeve) and it cost $1 to get a card at random from the box. Most of the times, you'd pull low-cost cards, of course, but every now and then someone would pull something properly cool and/or actually expensive. It was a good, fun and cheap gamble. Everyone at the store loved it.
In the good old days damaged boxes of coldsnap were sold on Yahoo Japan. Looked like the boxes had been dropped in the warehouse or something. About half the cards were not hashed, but when you're paying $20 per box you still get value.
I appreciate this video and how simplified it is presented. If you didn't understand then prof uses a Family Guy clip and says don't be like Peter... I laughed so hard
I've noticed that they started repacking precons and packs in these mystery cubes and I stopped buying them when I couldn't see what was inside. However, in the past when I could see inside the acrylic cases, I did pick up some old event decks at a discount. Those were the only times I bought these repackaged Magic boxes.
What a nice informative video addressing an actual issue in the community. I love how Tolarian always takes the players int- Oh, it's a card kingdom advert.
Way back in the day, on occasion they actually would put in commander decks. You could use the scales in the produce section to weigh them, and if they were a certain weight they were a commander deck. I got my first commander deck from one of these trash fire cubes. That is the only nice thing I can say about this. It introduced me to my favorite format, even then the deck was bad.
Literally bought one last night by weighing them first to see if I could try for a commander deck by going for the heaviest one. Turns out Wal-Mart has also heard of people weighing them and I ended up with half of a Duel-deck and a pack of Kaladesh basic lands. Not entirely worth the price at all tbh. I'd go with the Prof on this one, don't keep trying for "Mystery". Save your money and buy exactly the cards you want for a price you agree with at Local game stores or online sellers like TCGPlayer or CardKingdom.
I’ve been teaching a lot of my friends MtG and getting them into the game, so imagine my disgust when I heard one of them say he bought a mystery cube... already shared all of this with them and it helped show them the light. As always, thank you Professor!
The booster packs aren’t sealed to the side of the package, and with a little tap you can shake the pack to the side and see the deck inside. Sometimes you’ll pick one up and a pack will already be dislodged because I don’t think the person who stocks the trading card section at Walmart cares how damaged the cards are when they put them on the shelf.
Great seeing you at the MagicFest LA Professor! Even if only for a quick picture. Anyway I got one of these power cubes once after seeing the same one sit by itself at my local walmart for 2-3 months thinking I'd get one of the commander decks (I even weighed it). The cube itself turned out to be crap of course, but one of the boosters I got extremely lucky and pulled a masterpiece mana crypt! Tried my luck again a month later with a new set of cubes they got and got the worst ripoff ever, not even a deck, I got a pack of just basic lands. Many others have reported getting just packs of basic lands too!
Back about 6 years ago before these wee mysterys, we hit gold and got a Kaalia, Ghave, and Zedruu commander deck for 20 bucks. But we could see them from the outside. Never seen one that wasnt hot garbage since.
I feel like this is a situation where the person in charge of these mystery boxes is actually knowledgeable about MTG. They are guiding the re-boxing process for maximum profit. Makes sense from a business perspective, just kind of scummy.
I'm sad I'm only allowed to like this once. I think the reason why a lot of people keep buying them is because they no nothing about magic. I'm not saying this in a mean way, these people are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so on. They don't know the difference and just buy anything that is flashy and says mtg on it. I think the problem here is not for mtg players, but for non-mtg players (I could be wrong, but I feel this is the case and makes it even harder to fix).
Yep, it's kind of up to the players to communicate what they want though and not be vague or shy about it when asked. I'm actually really proud of my parents - my birthday was recent, and before that I was talking to them about Magic during a visit. I had accidentally sent a deck list intended for a friend to my mom in a text message, and so they were asking me about it at the time. Come my birthday, they'd apparently gone to the (absolutely fantastic) LGS in my home town and picked out not one, but two Revised duals and a Surgical Extraction (right before the price spiked). tl;dr: share your hobbies with your parents ;)
The ones that I see at my local Target are usually a bit better. I paid $20 for a full EDH deck, 2 packs, a new player deck and 1 full duel deck (aka both halves). They also threw in a pack of lands and the only thing missing was the oversize commander card and the foils from the duel deck. They also didn't add the extra packaging to block out the view so you could look to get an idea of what was in the package. It's not a buy every time item, but I usually take a look at them just to see if there is some value hiding.
So this is 2 years in the future,I have found the cubes being incredibly worthwhile now. My family and I have collected somewhere around 6 or 7 and they all have had commander decks in them. Mine personally was a commander deck worth around $35 so I would say if you find one to pick it up. Everyone really enjoys the container too for holding spare cards.
Thank you for YOUR opinion. Consider that the perceived resell value of the contents of the mystery cubes is not the ONLY factor. A) This is a free-market. Getting any financial recoup from damaged or otherwise unsalable product is a wise business decision. It's likely that the manufacturer of the repacks isn't making much money anyway. They have to sort, group, and package the cubes. The cost to Walmart is probably in the $6 - $8 range. Sam is more than doubling its investment. Yay!! Commerce!! B) These items aren't targeting MtG collector$$$. They're aimed at uninformed (and that's okay) kids and parents that don't have any idea that Magic the Gathering exists outside of the local Walmart. And tell me honestly, isn't $20 a small price to pay for a few moments of peace as a child opens a new toy? (remember, MtG is a toy) C) If Joe Schmoe plops down $20 on a mystery cube as his FIRST MtG purchase and gets hooked, then educated, then spends oodles of time & cash at a local game store, is that "total garbage"? There's more to MtG than money. There's value in playing/replaying this game. If it only cost $20 to get into it, that's a frickin' bargain. Garbage to some. Treasure to others.
I 98% agree. I always look at these boxes, and sometimes you can see what they contain, I’ve purchased several that I could see the commander deck in them. But be warned, the weight is not an accurate indicator that it could be a commander deck as I previously thought. The last cube I purchased on this assumption ended up having a land pack from an Amonket bundle inside of it.
Yeah, but they don't fully hide the contents as well. You know the cards in the set. You know it's likeness to appear based on rarity. And! They gave you a format to play to get instant value from packs through sealed and drafts. If you don't like those odds, wotc fully support the secondary markets for singles.
I have once and only once seen a "damaged goods" repack box with an actual deal in it, exactly as described at 2:45 in the video. It was in the same cheap clear plastic box, but it was not a mystery and the contents could be clearly seen. The clear box contained the Orzhov Power Intro Deck as well as two Dragons of Tarkir boosters. I guess someone saw "Dragons" in the package names and paired them up? For $10.
A duel deck is a duel deck, but the mystery box could be anything! Even half a duel deck.
because thats a mysteries
i took the boat
Mystry box "Pack" could be a stack of plastic wrapped lands. Like the one I bought had. All lands. Was fun.
"half a duel deck", a Duel Deck is a Duel Deck, you can't say it's only a half
It could even be a boat!
*opens Silent Submersible*
It's worth a related note that all the Yugioh versions of this sold in the same places are also complete ripoff trash to be avoided at all costs.
I suspected as much, but since I am not currently a Yugioh player I felt I could not comment with certainty.
@@TolarianCommunityCollege Oh yea absolutely didn't expect you to mention them just thought it would be helpful for anyone in the comments who happens to play both. Great work on the video btw prof!
Cheers, friend!
Sam from TSX1 and Simply Unlucky often do YGO mystery box openings and they always get trash boosters and dollar worth "graded cards".
I think you put sacrifice matters on the flicker cards and vice versa.
I bought one the other day just to see and my "deck" was a land pack
Holy shit that's another level
E X T R E M E MyStErY!!!
that is terrible
Same here
So the moral of this vid is: dont buy mstery stuff, they are really bad.
"Wow they sell free stuff for $20 ! They're thieves !
- Not at all. Don't get tricked, they're selling only half of this free stuff for$20."
Hahaha
This video is 100% necessary. These mystery repacks are shameful trash. Don't think for a second that you were too negative, Prof. You maintained a high standard of professionalism throughout. I know I am not classy enough to do that. Your criticisms were harsh, but absolutely true.
He's not wrong, but highly professional is not quite what I'd call this.
Well, you can thank Hasbro, as well as Morons of The Coast (Wizards) for that.
Eh. I agree they are bad but I wish walmart still sold older packs because return to ravnica was boring as hell, I bought these garbage cubes ONLY for the Hope's of older packs. I pulled an emrakul Aeons Torn from one of those
Name Name agree 1000%
I never bought those clear boxed magic "sets" because they looked sketchy and they looked like crap and to me it was obvious that it was not a magic the gathering official box so I never bought them in fear of getting ripped off. I'm glad I never did now that I watched this.
Thank you for addressing this issue. People don’t realize that you lose value when you buy them.
Edit: oh my 200 likes thanks!
These are easily searchable, I've bought two of these cubes. One had an archenemy deck the other was a commander deck..... Take the mystery out of it, just search it and hose them instead.
you lose value when you buy booster packs too. LOL
Yep. Got fooled into buying one just yesterday. 2 crummy foils, Hour of Devastation, M19, Rivals of Ixalan pack and....wait for it.....60 lands.
Same thing happened to me about 9 hours ago. They got me. Well played on my idiocy.
@@Gorfog you're saving wallets by admitting this. Strength and Honor.
WOW! That's terrible.
Yes if you lose the gamble you get shafted not with a intro deck but with a 60 land pack and ixalan boosters.
But... but... 60 lands is a deck, right? - Some Walmart Director somewhere.
“The mystery box could be anything! It could even be packs and singles that are sold elsewhere! You know how much we always wanted one of those!”
“Then let’s just go buy th-“
“We’ll take the box!”
🤦🏻♀️
Peter
It could be a boat.
Buy singles my people
Can it be a Ferrari?😄
“If it says ‘mystery’ on the box, it’s crap. They’re trying to rip you off.”
Wow, I didn’t know the professor had such strong opinions on Mystery Booster.
To be fair, I do believe he said it was a very welcome exception. Unfortunately I just started watching his videos and getting into Magic. The boxes cost double to buy now than they used to
"If it says mystery on the box, they're trying to rip you off". Boy, this aged well xD
in due fairness he had no way of knowing that wizards would start using that after walmart ruined it
Wait what happened?
Wizards released a "Mystery Dungeon" promotional product that has valuable exclusive products, but is controversial because it is not available in all areas and the theming of the cards is liscensed from other franchises such as The Walking Dead.
Addendum: That promotion was actually called "Secret Lair" lol. Mystery Dungeon is a Pokemon game. During my fact check I found what they were probably actually referring to. Wizards is selling Mystery Boosters that are essentially the same marketing philosophy but at least slightly less blatant and heinous. Buy singles.
So what you're saying is, it could even be a boat?!
I was thinking of the same thing ahaha
A boat's a boat, but the mystery cube could be anything!
@@thiefofhyrule8000
Even a boat!
Boat
A boat made out of cards and Flex Tape.
I shamefully bought WAY WAY too many of these. About 30. Yes 30, I don't know why. I did get a Commander deck. Just one Commander deck. What a colossal wast of money.
wich one?
@@capy3218 built from scratch
I'm sorry to say this, but that was so stupid that I can't even feel bad for you
@@matheus_vbs You shouldn't
That's $600 pretax. RIP
"I like that he looks like Bilbo Baggins" - My sister
I like that your name is Sean Bean and your cracking lotr references
I bought one of these boxes.
When I opened one of the booster packs it contained a card that didn't even belong in that set.
Video proof?
lol
yeah that one is a little hard to believe but.. I'll take your word for it!
@ I bought one of these that contained an Eldrich moon pack that had 15 Zendikar cards inside. It was reglued. I messaged MJ Holdings and they mailed me a new pack. It does happen
Same. Opened a pack of Dragon's Maze that had a Gatecrash card as the rare in it
I had a buddy buy one of these. The "deck" inside was a land pack.
"If what you are selling isn't worth what you're charging then you hide the contents"
The irony, it sounds exactly an mtg booster pack.
but wizards don`t know what is in the booster, it may be a good card, this are bad decks being sold as random decks
Came here to say this. It's like yeah, totally, I agree, but doesn't this argument also apply to literally every current sealed product as well?
you know the exact cards you can get. you dont know what kind of decks you can get though. but it still kinda applies :D
I got the teferi hero of dominaria card in a booster pack so there.
LOL @ all these MTG collectors in denial that everything they buy is a rip off.
But, Prof, you can't get a boat in regular booster packs.
Ghost Ship and Weatherlight disagree
WalMart: "You can have the lovely Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck the lovely LGS is selling, or you can trade it all for what's in this box..."
Suckers: "The box! THE BOX!"
I only ever bought one of these long ago to see what it was... my "deck" was a pack of 100 lands from a bundlebox : ^)
You are perhaps the luckiest person on earth.
Thanks for the advice, I'll stick to buying repacks on Ebay and hoping to pull those power 9.
I bought one awhile ago. The "deck" was a bundle of basic land. Never again.
$20 dollars for that?! I'd rather spend my $20 on a Guild Kit.
Edit: Oops! The Professor made that point in the video. My apologies, dear Professor. :)
Marcel Edel yeah, I just got three guild kits for cards I needed
My local store never stocked any guild kits. Big oof.
Spin down - $1
Booster Pack - $4
Satin Tower - $13
Beating the rude player’s $2500 EDH deck - priceless
... beating anyone that calls it EDH is priceless.
Pook365 what does Edh stand for?
@@questionyourself718 Elder Dragon Highlander. The Elder Dragons were the first notable Legendary Creatures, and the Highlander movie comes with the quote "There can be only one," which is used because its singleton.
@@WhackedMaki2 ahh okay, thanks for the info!
how about steal their that instead
its seems that is more priceless
Target has a similar product without the outer packaging that hides its contents. You can actually see the size of the decks - sometimes the front card too so you know what the deck is - and the booster pack cycle. I have bought several that had 2 commander decks in them. They are rare, but at $20, 2 CMDR decks return a decent rate.
“If it says mystery on the box, it’s crap”
Welp Mystery booster must be crap...
This literally just saved me “a new player” from potentially buying one of these an hour of now when I was going to go buy some MTG stuff from my local Walmart. Thanks.
at 10:30 you flipped the blink/flicker text and the sacrifice matters text
So are MJ Holdings and EA business partners now?
No but MJ holdings is in business with WotC...
I literally had to stop in the middle of this video to go sign up for the professor's patreon because it dawned on me how much money he saves me on a consistent basis and the fact that I just love his videos.
Man, I remember back when these cubes were first introduced. I bought 4 of the original commander decks for $30 at target.
remember when they were clear and not covered up and you could actually see the boosters inside?
@@zerotheliger That I do.
The ones near me at target went for 20 for 4 random old precons. At the time, that was basically 4 fully fledged decks ready to thrown down with my friends.
The problem is that the people this video is reaching are the ones who already know how bad these products are. It's, like you said, the grandmothers and parents who don't have any better idea who will pick this off the shelf haphazardly for their kids. And with how much children love these "mystery products" parents are likely to choose something with that label rather than a carefully constructed deck like a guild kit. I know it's not likely, but I hope that somehow this reaches at least one person like that. I hope that this can help at least one kid experience Magic in a better way than this when getting a gift.
You might be right that some of these are probably bought by people who don't know any better (parents, grandparents, kids). But given that these cubes are actually kind of hard to find (meaning they disappear quickly from the shelves), and from the many posts here from Magic players (including myself) who have bought these cubes, I expect these are largely being bought by Magic players who do know better. There was a lot of early hype when these cubes actually did (occasionally) contain a Commander deck and I'm sure many people snatch these up hoping to score something sweet. I fell for it but that won't happen again.
You are exactly right. My girlfriend randomly bought me on of these a while back while she was at Target. She spent 30 dollars on this particular one and I felt so bad because I knew how crappy these are but I didn’t let her know. I was very grateful that she thought of me, and even bought me mtg. But I opened the box and there was a welcome deck or two, a land pack, two packs of dominaria and amonkhet or something and the black deck from nissa vs ob nix duel deck with the crap rares left in it. She later asked me if I got anything good and I said yeah! I felt bad lying about it but couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth at that time.
Later on though, I mentioned that a lot of those mystery packs have bad cards in them and that they can be a rip off.
I saw your Twitter post yesterday about how you hoped the negativity in this video wouldn't be too off putting, but I'd say it was the exact right amount of negativity for such a garbage product
My family used to buy these for me when I was younger, and one time we did get lucky and the deck was the dragon arch enemy deck. But in the next one (they had bought two) the deck was a pack of 30 basic land, I reported it to Walmart and got a full refund because that's not even part of a deck
Smart
at my school we did a tournament with Card Kingdom's battle decks and it was a lot of fun and totally worth the $10 to buy the deck and even after we were done we still play with them. A fantastic product for sure.
walmart sells a lot of sub quality stuff. some manufacturers make a cheaper version of their product for wal mart specs
Thanks for fighting this blatantly scummy practice.
I remember seeing people take these boxes over to the produce section and put them on the weights to see which ones weighed the most to buy 20 dollar commander decks.
I like their style.
Except wotc knows this now, so they weigh all the cubes to make sure they're at an even weight. Damn them!!! I blame bad boy gaming for putting all over YT. Now the chances of getting a commander deck is basically nil
@@UnifiedMinds11 the company might, but WOTC has nothing to do with it
MJ Holding doing those repack, not WoTC
Smart...well except for the buying it part.
I bought one of these. My mystery item was a basic land pack. YAY
somehow there's a bigger whammy than the half intro deck. yuck.
Ouch...
You might be able to write to the company that does the repacks and explain your disappointment in order to get a replacement product. Granted you might get more BS but at least you will get something more than lands. Its worth a try!
I also got one with a basic land pack. Returned it instantly. At least Wal-Mart has a good return policy. Complete trash.
Thanks for the info Prof! I had no idea and i've been playing magic for almost two decades.
I was just about to get one of these at walmart today, then my little brother told me to watch your video first and instead I got a recent booster pack... I have a Hydroid Krasis L0L
Wow. have fun, and stay safe!
Well these boxes can actually be great value. U just gotta feel the weight difference 100card decks weigh noticeable more then the bad decks.
@@captianbacon excuse me while i get my scales out in walmart
@@UochRS you just have to hold 2 of them and you can feel it
Nice anime profile pic weeb
I have bought those a couple times when you could see inside. Back then they were putting entire pre-con commander decks.
You can weigh them in the Produce section at Walmart to see which ones have alot of Foils.
Not worth it. If they make a buck, it's justification that they should keep making this scam of a product. Just don't.
They caught onto this, and have been putting extra basic lands to up the weight to match the commander decks.
@@m4l4kan I like how much this sensibly supports the Tutor's point: they CAUGHT...on...CAUGHT us. Dude, we were "CAUGHT" when we were 5. This is abusive if we have a long term relationship.
@@m4l4kan I was going to say this. I've bought one of these things because it weighed more. Then I opened it and found a basic land pack and half a duel deck. They bamboozled me once, but never again.
I bought a heavier one and got the entire duel deck nissa verses ob nix
A Jace is a Jace, but the mystery deck could be anything including a Jace. You know how much I have wanted one of those.
Sure... you can buy six of these garbage packs and have a one in a few thousand chance of getting Jace. OR you could just buy the single from Card Kingdom, and be guaranteed the exact card you want. Yeah it costs way more than one mystery box. But you won't end up with a stack of jank cards, lands, and dollar (or less) rares.
@@HumbleWooper Speaking seriously for a moment, I always buy singles.
Buying singles is way better unless you get really lucky in packs
@@luispolanco5966 I have made about 8 fully custom decks costing between $30-200 a piece. The good thing is I have exactly what I always wanted.
Then let's just buy a ja.... We'll take the mystery box!
4:24 “If it says Mystery it’s crap”....... Mystery Booster Boxes for $100...
This is a problem for all Major TCGs
Pokemon
MAGIC
Yu-gi-oh
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE OR MEASELS OR ANY OTHER SUPER INFECTIVE DECEASE.
And any sports version aswell for the most part atleast modern ones though (these do vary)
I'd like to add: I saw a Dragon Ball Super Starter Box from MJ Holding Company at Walmart
But how is MTGUnsealed gonna gat the worlds supply of Curator, Bristling Hydra, Etali and Thalias Lancers promos then?
I'd take a playset of each. Hell, they should just sell that.
Mtgunsealed is the worst. I watched 3 of his vids by mistake. Then I decided to watch rudy, professor and badboy.
Hey Etali is a $7 card!! And mtgunsealed usually opens CHAOS packs
James Blunt Walmart sells them on the face of a blister of 3 booster packs. You can see the boosters and know what ones you are getting but the price is the same as buying the 3 packs alone. At least the ones I see.
Thank you for pointing out this nonsense, a friend constantly buys these and complains about the contents.
Your friend seems to be suffering from insanity.
@@HTYM nope, he's just dense
But the mystery box is perfect for:
Step 1, cut a hole in the box.
Step 2,.....
Oof
It's my deck in a box
WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK
LOL. I was just watching that episode of SNL the other day.
Prof went so far in not supporting these cubes, all examples used in the videos were stolen.
This is how we protest capitalism: steal from mega corporations, selling the singles, and using the money to go to FNM at your LGS. Spread the wealth around! Socialism for your local game store!
xDDDD
@@Kaanfight nah I'd like my local game store to stay open
He just wants to buy all the cubes for himself!!
When you take them off the shelf, instead of your cart, try putting them directly into a nearby trash can.
My favorite vids are when the Prof. gets passionate.
instructions not clear enough brought every single repackaged product by mistake
Guilty of loving a mystery but I've never been suckered by those!
Except it is no mystery when buying those lol
Back after the first commander decks came out, they had these but you could see what was in them and a good bit of them had three commander decks in them for $20. I bought so many of those and ended up with great value.
The local game store where I lived as a kid had a mystery thing that actually wasn't crap. Every now and then, the owner would open displays (or booster boxes as they seem to be called now) to fill out his binders for single card sales. When he did, any rares he got that he already had four or more of in those binders would go into a Mystery Rares Box. The box contained reverse-sleeved cards (so you couldn't see what card was in the sleeve) and it cost $1 to get a card at random from the box. Most of the times, you'd pull low-cost cards, of course, but every now and then someone would pull something properly cool and/or actually expensive. It was a good, fun and cheap gamble. Everyone at the store loved it.
Thank God that product like this doesn't appear on the shelves in the UK...yet!
The Walmart closest to me closed. Thank god. My mom hates Walmart, so I've gotten very little from them.
Here is a comment to help the professor in the youtube's algorithms.
question, what about booster packs? they are some sort of mini mistery bags.
In the good old days damaged boxes of coldsnap were sold on Yahoo Japan. Looked like the boxes had been dropped in the warehouse or something. About half the cards were not hashed, but when you're paying $20 per box you still get value.
"Extreeeeme Mysteryyyyyy!" I love you, prof.
I appreciate this video and how simplified it is presented. If you didn't understand then prof uses a Family Guy clip and says don't be like Peter... I laughed so hard
I got a few commander decks. Just take the boxes to the produce section and weigh them.
Doesnt work anymore,they add extra lands to make it weight more
Yeah, they caught on that people were doing this, so they dump trash in there to increase the weight.
Right now in Gorham New Hampshire's Walmart the booster pack boxes are $26 instead of 20
I've noticed that they started repacking precons and packs in these mystery cubes and I stopped buying them when I couldn't see what was inside. However, in the past when I could see inside the acrylic cases, I did pick up some old event decks at a discount. Those were the only times I bought these repackaged Magic boxes.
"They sssicken me..." 😂😂😂
My buddy got all lands in the deck part
WeBeCookin 😂😂😂
Wow, I almost bought one the other day... I am so glad I didn't!!! What a fun video to watch Professor.
What a nice informative video addressing an actual issue in the community. I love how Tolarian always takes the players int-
Oh, it's a card kingdom advert.
Way back in the day, on occasion they actually would put in commander decks. You could use the scales in the produce section to weigh them, and if they were a certain weight they were a commander deck. I got my first commander deck from one of these trash fire cubes. That is the only nice thing I can say about this. It introduced me to my favorite format, even then the deck was bad.
Literally bought one last night by weighing them first to see if I could try for a commander deck by going for the heaviest one. Turns out Wal-Mart has also heard of people weighing them and I ended up with half of a Duel-deck and a pack of Kaladesh basic lands. Not entirely worth the price at all tbh. I'd go with the Prof on this one, don't keep trying for "Mystery". Save your money and buy exactly the cards you want for a price you agree with at Local game stores or online sellers like TCGPlayer or CardKingdom.
It's not Walmart it's the company that the prof is talking about who stocks the cards in Walmart's and targets
thanks for sacrificing your money so we don't buy it.
I’ve been teaching a lot of my friends MtG and getting them into the game, so imagine my disgust when I heard one of them say he bought a mystery cube... already shared all of this with them and it helped show them the light. As always, thank you Professor!
I buy the 6 booster pack chaos packs. For 16.99 under $3 a pack is definitely a buy! Last week I got 2 Kahn's packs pulled a poluted Delta.
The booster packs aren’t sealed to the side of the package, and with a little tap you can shake the pack to the side and see the deck inside.
Sometimes you’ll pick one up and a pack will already be dislodged because I don’t think the person who stocks the trading card section at Walmart cares how damaged the cards are when they put them on the shelf.
This is the only channel i always give a like. I always come for gold and find gold.
Buy from your local game/card shop
Maybe when they stop charging stupid prices I will
No mystery cubes were hurt in the making of this video.
too bad. They deserve to be hurt.
Go to the produce section and weigh the boxes. buy the ones that are just over a pound, those are the commander decks
Great seeing you at the MagicFest LA Professor! Even if only for a quick picture. Anyway I got one of these power cubes once after seeing the same one sit by itself at my local walmart for 2-3 months thinking I'd get one of the commander decks (I even weighed it). The cube itself turned out to be crap of course, but one of the boosters I got extremely lucky and pulled a masterpiece mana crypt! Tried my luck again a month later with a new set of cubes they got and got the worst ripoff ever, not even a deck, I got a pack of just basic lands. Many others have reported getting just packs of basic lands too!
*teleports behind you*
-Oh, hey, you don’t look like a sucker…
I got one of those once because it was so heavy I figured it was a commander deck. I got a Japanese atraxa commander deck
They are loot boxes in real life for MtG
MTG is loot boxes in real life for MTG...
These are loot boxes that contain loot boxes :P
"Oh hello, funny, you don't look like a sucker"
He obviously wasn't talking to me :D
Back about 6 years ago before these wee mysterys, we hit gold and got a Kaalia, Ghave, and Zedruu commander deck for 20 bucks. But we could see them from the outside. Never seen one that wasnt hot garbage since.
I feel like this is a situation where the person in charge of these mystery boxes is actually knowledgeable about MTG. They are guiding the re-boxing process for maximum profit. Makes sense from a business perspective, just kind of scummy.
I'm sad I'm only allowed to like this once. I think the reason why a lot of people keep buying them is because they no nothing about magic. I'm not saying this in a mean way, these people are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so on. They don't know the difference and just buy anything that is flashy and says mtg on it. I think the problem here is not for mtg players, but for non-mtg players (I could be wrong, but I feel this is the case and makes it even harder to fix).
Yep, it's kind of up to the players to communicate what they want though and not be vague or shy about it when asked.
I'm actually really proud of my parents - my birthday was recent, and before that I was talking to them about Magic during a visit. I had accidentally sent a deck list intended for a friend to my mom in a text message, and so they were asking me about it at the time. Come my birthday, they'd apparently gone to the (absolutely fantastic) LGS in my home town and picked out not one, but two Revised duals and a Surgical Extraction (right before the price spiked).
tl;dr: share your hobbies with your parents ;)
My walmart had some mystery boxes that had 6 packs and a promo card for $20. Those things were fuckin sweet. These things really do suck in comparison
I believe you're talking about the Chaos 6 packs?
The ones that I see at my local Target are usually a bit better. I paid $20 for a full EDH deck, 2 packs, a new player deck and 1 full duel deck (aka both halves). They also threw in a pack of lands and the only thing missing was the oversize commander card and the foils from the duel deck. They also didn't add the extra packaging to block out the view so you could look to get an idea of what was in the package. It's not a buy every time item, but I usually take a look at them just to see if there is some value hiding.
So this is 2 years in the future,I have found the cubes being incredibly worthwhile now. My family and I have collected somewhere around 6 or 7 and they all have had commander decks in them. Mine personally was a commander deck worth around $35 so I would say if you find one to pick it up. Everyone really enjoys the container too for holding spare cards.
But how do you really feel?
"if the contents were worth the value, wouldn't they tell you what the contents are?"
*glances at MTG's entire business model*
final grade: *garbage out of ripoff*
Thank you for YOUR opinion. Consider that the perceived resell value of the contents of the mystery cubes is not the ONLY factor. A) This is a free-market. Getting any financial recoup from damaged or otherwise unsalable product is a wise business decision. It's likely that the manufacturer of the repacks isn't making much money anyway. They have to sort, group, and package the cubes. The cost to Walmart is probably in the $6 - $8 range. Sam is more than doubling its investment. Yay!! Commerce!! B) These items aren't targeting MtG collector$$$. They're aimed at uninformed (and that's okay) kids and parents that don't have any idea that Magic the Gathering exists outside of the local Walmart. And tell me honestly, isn't $20 a small price to pay for a few moments of peace as a child opens a new toy? (remember, MtG is a toy) C) If Joe Schmoe plops down $20 on a mystery cube as his FIRST MtG purchase and gets hooked, then educated, then spends oodles of time & cash at a local game store, is that "total garbage"? There's more to MtG than money. There's value in playing/replaying this game. If it only cost $20 to get into it, that's a frickin' bargain. Garbage to some. Treasure to others.
I 98% agree. I always look at these boxes, and sometimes you can see what they contain, I’ve purchased several that I could see the commander deck in them. But be warned, the weight is not an accurate indicator that it could be a commander deck as I previously thought. The last cube I purchased on this assumption ended up having a land pack from an Amonket bundle inside of it.
Wow way to explain how buying any sealed random MTG product is a bad idea
Yeah, but they don't fully hide the contents as well. You know the cards in the set. You know it's likeness to appear based on rarity. And! They gave you a format to play to get instant value from packs through sealed and drafts. If you don't like those odds, wotc fully support the secondary markets for singles.
When i saw the thumbnail and title, i thought he would talk about every standard set since 2 years and probably going forward...
"People need to stop buying this."
..."now lets open this cube."
Lmao
I have once and only once seen a "damaged goods" repack box with an actual deal in it, exactly as described at 2:45 in the video. It was in the same cheap clear plastic box, but it was not a mystery and the contents could be clearly seen. The clear box contained the Orzhov Power Intro Deck as well as two Dragons of Tarkir boosters. I guess someone saw "Dragons" in the package names and paired them up? For $10.
I Subscribe! Your unselfishness to help out the MTG comunity makes it great!