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I miss the days where i could just buy 2 bundles, a box and be happy till the next set.

The "1/1" Ring is going to be just like the McDonalds Boardwalk Monopoly piece, a friend of the CEO already owns it.

Actually this whole situation with the Lotr set is the biggest flavour win! We have a dark lord (Hasbro) who created a bunch of rings (cards) promising beauty, status and power. “But they were, all of them deceived, for another Ring was made.(…) A master Ring, to control all”. And into this Ring Hasbro poured its greed and its will to dominate all wallets. “One Ring to rule them all.” We are living the Lotr story as the humans. This way, the ring temptation mechanic is actually on point - from our viewpoint, there is no downside to using the ring. The downside of “being tempted by the ring” is not in game but instead in our own behaviour as players/collectors. We are all being tempted by Hasbro and its 1 of 1 Ring card. And yes, in this scenario the Middle-Earth enterprises is our Isildur, they should have known better! Tolkien’s work is as relevant as ever, showing us, now in person, what greed and thirst of power can do to people. 😉

The amount of money you have saved me over the years with your videos is amazing. Thanks for everything you do Prof!

As a yugioh player getting into Magic over the last couple of months, the one thing I’ve noticed is it seems like wizards loves to be really aggressive and predatory with how they package label and deliver the product to the consumers. The fact that we need full on video guides to tell us which product version has which cards in it is horrible way to run a business well unless you’re trying to guarantee profits over everything so I guess hasbro is killing it then 😂

I'm having a hard time thinking MTG isn't gambling when they have lotto cards worth more than most lotto wins.

I like the idea of scene sets. I might pick them up when the actual ring gets found and the prices of the cards drop by 99%

well for those who are here from the future: it was found in Canada and graded as the real deal by PSA grading, it was found in the middle of June in a Collector Booster and not the bundle, and yes the prices of unopened boxes are dropping

More weirdness to note: Any cards in extended art that would potentially come in foil are only available in the collector booster sample packs that come with commander precons. They aren't in collector booster packs. At all. Zero. Nada. None. Because of this, most of the EA foil prices are extravagantly high.

It's the Willy Wonka golden ticket scandal, but IRL. That thing really does need to find a fireplace to be tossed into.

I actually enjoy the Jumpstart packs not for their worth but they are fun to play…it’s like the old Welcome decks you get for free when you get started

I feel like Wizards is potentially going to land itself in legal troubles because of the purposefully convoluted way they are handling this set in order to drive sales.

I'm certain LOTR will be the best selling magic set of all time, which will only change the direction of product design moving forward. Secret Lair had it's own ethical issues, but this is the first time I've felt that Magic isn't a place for me anymore. Not because of expense, I have to money to play... but I feel beyond icky about how the company views and treats their consumers.

I will say that the commander decks have a disclaimer at the bottom of the box saying that this product does not contain the one of one ring. So possibly that same disclaimer is on the bottom of any other bundles, boxes, or the fold on packs.

LTR is a fun set. Prerelease was great, the Commander precons are awesome, one or two cards will see Modern play without breaking the format, some interesting cards for Pauper, and of course plenty of EDH fodder. This lottery is an unwelcome distraction, but for once I'm glad collector boosters exist so they can do stuff like this in a separate product that people like me don't have to care about.

I really love that you are the biggest MTG channel on KZfaq, because that means that this important message is reaching the most people possible

Love the casual DS9 reference, to one of the best episodes ever.

Hit the like button just for Sen Vrenak. Rest in Power, King.

Im actually pretty excited to download whatnot and watch your stream, Professor. You've always provided A++ content and humor. You've always looked out for the average MtG consumer. One of, if not, the best MtG KZfaq channels out there

Thank you for breaking this down, you helped saved me money 😅👍

imagine waking up from a 10 year coma and trying to get back into MTG

The 8 pack bundle actually seems pretty decent because the one ring is really good and getting a free one seems nice

Man, I'm happy I preordered a gift bundle at $80 when they were first announced. I did do a pre-release and picked up a set booster box, and between them I got pretty much everything I wanted. Yeah, not every mythic or rare and missing an uncommon or two, but pretty much all I need to put together some cool LotR-themed decks. As a new-to-MTG player it was ridiculously confusing trying to figure out what to buy though.

i feel like The One Ring isnt even in the wild yet. they might hold it till near the end of the printing, then put it into circulation. keeps hype high so people keep buying packs

The scene cards are basically more widely available secret lairs, that have a bonus.

Other card games: A nice box with neatly arranged cards and booster packs, and perhaps a trinket or two that can be snuck into a D&D game. Magic: Have you watched Willy Wonka?

Very helpful. And as always, presented in a fun and entertaining manner. Thank you for all you do for the Magic community. Big love professor!!

The singles market is going to be amazing for non-collectors and even casual collectors. Can get all the alternate/full art I want because people only care about serialized cards or commander reprints. People are cracking so many collectors that the full art foil lands should be cheap to pick up. Only thing currently crazy is the Nazgul prices but those will come down.

If the ring gets opened up in a supplementary product, seems like a shady setup and, to my understanding, could be a lawsuit along the lines of false advertisement or something. It definitely will feel scummy if they did this.

I had the gift preordered when it was still 80. This is insane

Just started playing this past year with my son who has been playing for about 20 years. I would have purchased the wrong cards if not for your informative videos! Thank you!

That box flop at the start is legitimately the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Smooth as heck, Prof. Good show.

The bundle for 40 bucks would be very nice indeed. The store where I went for pre-release had them for 110€ a piece though…

Great information. I bought a Bundle from my Local Walmart for $62.00 strictly for "the one ring" Bundle print.

Thank you so much for this video! I'm not a MTG player but all this talk of the 1:1 One Ring card really piqued my interest. I dug around the official MTG website and was pretty confused about how to even possibly get a booster pack with a chance of getting that card. Of course, after realizing that the Collector Sets are going for 300-400 I realized that I can't actually afford any of it anyway. But I still appreciate someone taking the time to put out this kind of information regardless! ❤

I just drafted this set tonight, I think I got my value's worth, even if my deck stunk, but I had fun regardless. I pulled a horn of Gondor and a delighted halfling and a Boromir, warden of the tower extended art. just those last 2 cards pay for my draft by themselves

thank you for clarifying this professor, i miss the days where we had just a few different products and didn't need a PowerPoint presentation just to understand what is in what lol

Im such a LOTR simp that I started buying these cards without knowing anything about MTG. That landed me on your videos and now me and my daughter are learning the game with traditional cards and im just buying my favorite singles from the LOTR set. And HELL YES that evens means black Aragorn! Thanks for the upload man! Your videos rule!

thank you for clarifying this. I only recently joined the magic community due to being a die hard fan of tolkien and already interested in magic but this made irresistible lol. that being said it was a tough to learn it all but thanks to all your help i feel like i may actually stand a chance at my local store's tournament that i signed up for on impulse of buying my elven council commander pack. So again thank you very much

I also picked up a draft pack yesterday to play with my friends and when I checked out at Walmart I noticed it was $17.50. that's crazy the "bulk" price being almost $6 just to play the basic game is outrageous... I want to pick up one of each variation of this set from draft packs and boxes to set and collectors in every way they release it to keep in my collection forever but I want to send them a message by not buying anything

At pre-release for my LGS they were just hard pushing people to the 40 dollar box if all you want is a ring. The owner was like "you ain't getting the ring. If you want one save your money and just get one from this box."

Top tier Professor Commentary, thank you for taking the time with this one.

I don’t play or collect Magic, but your videos are so good that I can’t stop watching them.

I live in Sweden and a pre order costs about 850kr-1000kr which is about the same as 85$-100$ and when I saw these really high prices I was really surprised.

I like the game. I REALLY have serious issues with the company.

Thanks for making sense of this, very helpful!

Da missus and I enjoy cracking packs together since '97. With that in mind, the bundles are a neat way to get started on seeing just what is in a set before grabbing a new set/booster box of the set.

Well it’s official, it has been found. Confirmed by wizards and even graded by PSA at a 9

Thank you for opening the bundle!!!! Thank you!! i thought i would have the nice basic lands from lord of the ring that look like map pieces :( but is is just normal basic lands. What a shame i think the map pieces look really nice.

You are totally correct my friend. Found too early = lack of sales. Confusing aspects = more sales. There will be one lucky person to find it in the proper bundle, especially if they release later. It's "smart" marketing on their part.

Thanks Prof. was genuinely looking for these answers online about everything. Saved me and my bank account.

At 1:27, the gilding looks surprisingly real to the WOTC reveal video. No weird rainbow foil all over and raised gold edges. Are we sure that sketchy email is all hot air?

The more I see Hasbro be sketchy AF like this the more I want to buy more wish proxies lol

Senator Vreenak! Prof you are just a delight to listen to! Never stop being you! :)

Thank you so much for making this video. I saw this on the shelf the other day and my little monkey brain was like "my precious!" I'm glad I held out

I really wanted to buy a bundle, but where I live the prices have been ticking up to €100 for 1 bundle 😮 so i just bought everything I wanted for my commander decks and only spent about €35

Imagine buying your friend a gift bundle and they pull The One Ring. 💀

I’m a Pokémon collector/player at heart, but this 1/1 situation is awesome to see unfold, thanks for the info! Also just for the record, I would love to see Maxmoefoe open the 1/1 ring just for the slight chance that he would actually throw it in a fire.

Thank you so much for making this video! Well done!🎉🎉

Normally draft packs are just $12.50 a little over $4 each. A 50% increase is a smack in the face.

This level of confusing competing products is absolutely not by coincidence.

I had the whole fake jumpstart thing happen and I also definitely thought the commander deck I bought had a collector pack and was like “oh cool what’s a sample pack?” . Definitely some predatory stuff.

Just want to say as someone coming back to mtg after a couple of years I love the lotr cards and artwork. I only started buying the cards two weeks ago but already my kids and I have played over 30 times. I bought a normal bundle and gift bundle for the cool boxes and countdown dies. Maybe I am in the minority but it is cool to mix two of my favorite nerdy things mtg and lotr.

I have had such a great time incorporating so many LotR card in my existing commander decks as well as playing with the pre-con decks from the set. It's sad that the 1 ring is still going to dampen so much of the conversation for so long because there's so much cool stuff to love from this set and I'm not even focusing on the ring tempting you bit even that is cool imo.

I love magic, love my LGS, love my fellow players. I HATE WOTC and Hasbro for what they’ve done to this beautiful game. I hope there is a huge change soon.

Thanks for looking out for us, Prof

I’d love to see more budget commander precon videos, especially on Shelob or other LotR commanders

I'd just like to say I have no idea where you're finding the standard Bundle for $40 but neither my LGS nor big box stores like Target & Walmart are selling it below $64.99-$69.99. Makes me so sad cause I really want a Bundle for my collection but I REFUSE to pay an extra $20 for literally no reason. 😢

I'm new and your tutorials are really helping! Love it guys!

Thank you much for sharing this video. I needed this rational thought processing information

40 dollars for the regular bundle is unheard of in Canada right now. Your looking at $100+ 😅

At this point I’ve accepted they’ll get away with pretty much whatever they want. You’d think by now the FTC would’ve stepped in regarding misleading and predatory tactics. Much like they have with loot boxes in video games. But if they haven’t done anything about it yet: I doubt they will.

Worst part about the plethora of confusing products available is that this set definitely brings in more casual or totally new players. You can even see it by the number of reddit posts that read basically "New player here, confused about the LotR set, don't know what to buy"

Love how you break this down it helps know the difference

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

If it turns out they deliberately seeded it into the gift bundles, they'd be liable for false advertising on the collector boxes that say "may include serialized ring card". Just a thought

as always thanks for the video professor

The regular bundle sounds nice since it already has the Panorama Ring, at a $40-$45 range. Unfortunately I've seen the regular bundle and the Commander Decks at Walmart for almost $70.

I'm sad as we probably won't have service on Friday. Western Alaska problems. Love catching your streams 0:46

Always on point and guiding in a neutral way, truly a prof.!

It's interesting that with The One Ring costing about $30 now, the rest of the bundle (8 set boosters, 3 other promos, lands and die) all cost together about $10 :D

great video thanks. was at target today and didnt know what to buy glad i walked away

Great video, very informative and sincere. Keep it up!

I used to absolutely love MTG. I was so enamored by it, and would never miss a chance to play (FNM, casual, or otherwise) but ever since Throne of Eldraine it all just got zapped away. Occasionally I look back and watch a video on new MTG stuff but then I see stuff like this ring or the 30th fiasco and it just drives me further away. I went to Yu-Gi-Oh and while not perfect by any stretch, Konami are slam dunking on Wizards right now. The game is really fun for me, and between their reprints and what they are giving us for their 25th anniversary this year, like their '25th anniversary pack it's a great time to play and their bigger tournaments like their "YCS"'s are breaking all time attendance records lately. It's a shame but I just don't think my love will be the same for MTG, the bridge is all but nearly burnt.

I still think the sample pack gimmick in precons is silly. The old intro decks used to have actual packs of their set included. Personally I’d rather prefer they replace the sample packs with like a set booster or something actually substantial. The “collector” sample has always been a bit misleading since they started doing it last year

Thank you for the clarification… 🤗

Thank you Prof for taking the time to explain to me which products have a chance at getting the 1/1 ring but I'm sorry because I still don't get it 😂

When pre-orders first became available, I decided to buy the gift bundles because at first, they were a good value at $85. I was not prepared to pay over $350 for a collector box.

I feel bad already for the dude that opens the actual One Ring and has to prove that it's real.

Thanks for the vid prof! I appreciate the headsup!

I am a first time consumer of MTG because of LotR. And I am not confused by any of it or the "6" bundles. And that's because I knew a lot of things would be confusing. So I went to their website where they plainly state EXACTLY where the one ring would be. I didn't even know commander decks had sample packs and wasn't confused by the wording at all. Slightly confusing, yes. But that's for someone who has literally done no research and walks into a LCS and buys a draft pack and expects to get serialized cards

Honestly states should start treating Magic like a lottery. It's clearly addictive like playing the lottery and that could be problematic for some people.

Trading card games are not a hobby anymore. They’re another hustle, destroyed by greed.

In case anyone cares, target is selling pre orders for this particular gift bundle at 85$

Keep it up I'm glad I watched this. Ty so much.

I've always loved your content, but I gotta say that after trying Whatnot myself I've found it to be very predatory. I've kinda been taken off guard by all the Whatnot promotions on the channel lately. It seems even more strange on a video like this where you are warning people about being taken advantage of.

I miss when MTG was focused primarily on making a great game with a great story rather than shoving as many products at us as possible. Opening packs used to feel like I was slowly discovering a new story, and that I was in some way a part of that story, but now they really just don't put much effort at all into the story or worldbuilding, and this set is by far the worst example of this. They haven't even put in the effort to make any story, they just bought the rights to one they knew people bould pay for.

incredible video, looking forward to more

I agree that some aspects of WotC's product marketing are confusing, and I'm glad you shined a light on it. My (maybe not so) hot take on the 1/1 Ring location, though: By making the choice to put it in a Gift Bundle rather than a standard Collector Booster box, WotC is playing with fire. I think they're a lot smarter than that. They've publicly stated it can be found in a CB box or a gift bundle. If it in fact cannot be found in a CB box, some number of WotC employees know this. And if a single one of them leaks - accidentally or on purpose - WotC could be staring down the barrel of a $100M+ class action lawsuit (just based on the rough number of CB boxes printed). They are already getting a crap-ton of publicity from this. LOTR boxes are selling like mad. Why shoot themselves in the foot with a dumb scandal when they can be honest and still make loads of money?