The Big Things - Special Guests

MagicCon: Las Vegas has just wrapped up and, like always, previews are the talk of the town. While a few tantalizing new cards were drip-fed our way to hype up Magic’s next Standard installment, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, everyone’s jaws really hit the floor when a fancy reprint hit the big screen: Mana Crypt. That’s right, a card with a price tag (for the cheapest available version) pressing up against $175 is going to be available in Standard release products. Well, as a Special Guest, that is. 

$173.00$179.99

Special Guests - What Are They? 

So, what exactly are Special Guests, and why do they matter? While we don’t have all the details just yet, we do have a lot of the important ones. Special Guests are reprints which are tied thematically to the sets in which they will appear, but are not Standard legal. Think of them sort of like the Bonus Sheets such as Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales, or the March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends, except these cards don’t pop up in Draft booster products. Instead, they’ll appear as occasional replacements for cards from The List in Set booster products, or as special inclusions in Collector Booster products. So, they’re less common than Bonus Sheet cards but more prevalent than Masterpieces or Lord of the Rings Realms and Relics.  

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$39.99$42.99

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We’ve seen an experiment quite like this a few years ago - granted, it was a single card, but a proto-Special Guest printing of Rafiq of the Many was available in The List slot of Streets Of New Capenna Set Booster products. Just like the Special Guest series unveiled recently, that Rafiq donned the set’s signature treatment - in this case, the art deco border - and wasn’t Standard legal.  

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Now that we’ve tackled the “What” of Special Guests, it’s time to get to the “Why.” For this, we’re going to need a deep dive on The List and Set Boosters as a whole. 

Special Guests - Why Are They? 

As a quick refresher, Set Boosters were introduced in 2020 with the set Zendikar Rising. Since then, the structure of these packs (at least, for Standard sets) has been largely the same: twelve cards, of which approximately 1.35 are rare/mythic, plus a 25% chance for the advertisement card to be replaced with a card from The List, with the distribution of List cards following their rarity. Quite the doozy.  

Set Boosters came around as a way to reinvigorate pack-cracking outside of Draft, but below the $20+ mark which barred many players from engaging with Collector Booster packs. The result? A compelling product which had a return-per-card for Wizards of the Coast due to their smaller size, in comparison to Draft Boosters, while also adding drawing from the pool of reprint equity in a more passive manner from set to set. Wizards wasn’t advertising the contents of The List in neon lettering per se, but the whispers of potentially exciting reprints out of a $5-$6 pack were enough to make packs sell. That is, initially. 

$10.25

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$49.00$44.99

Part of the problem with leaning into The List as a core component of the advertising campaign for Set Boosters is that, even when you hit a List card, odds are it will be a random common or uncommon. Beyond that, the majority of the rares were bulk. Sure, there were cards like Cavern of Souls or Mycosynth Golem, but for each heavy hitter like that there were dozens of cards barely worth a penny. After a few sets, the allure began to wear off. But something else began to pick up steam: Bonus Sheets. 

Bonus Sheets have become a near-yearly fixture of Standard Magic sets, doing the job of The List but in a much more successful and appealing manner. Interesting card treatments, exciting Draft formats, and a hit (or at least an introduction to the concept of the Bonus Sheet) in every pack. The problem is, from a commercial standpoint, it further served to dilute the value of buying a Set Booster pack. Sure, there was still the extra 35% chance to hit another rare (or maybe more), but why spend the extra $1 on a Set Booster pack when you’ve already got the Bonus Sheet guaranteed in your regular Draft pack? 

This is the “Why” of Special Guests - new art and themes, just like a Bonus sheet - but setting them aside just for Set Boosters (and, of course, Collector Boosters) should help add sales to lingering Set boxes. That $1 difference might not guarantee me a Special Guest, or even a List card for that matter, in a Set pack, but not spending it guarantees I won’t see one in the Draft pack I’d otherwise pick up. Special Guests look to help solve the lack of appeal currently presented by The List, without spreading around reprints to Draft packs. 

Wrapping Up 

I’m certainly glad to see more copies of Mana Crypt floating around, that’s for sure, but the real interest here is in how this will ultimately affect the demand for Set Boxes. Shifts in the contents of The List haven’t historically changed prices much, whether it’s adding or subtracting a card of note, but Special Guests seem primed to make a splash. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a few more eyes pointed at Set Boosters in my local game store’s card cases, and the broader market might just look the same way, too.

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