Yesterday, I decided to drop by Rei’s place for a quick visit and to check the current tournament scene if most of the players are still in the Magic: the Gathering Standard Showdown. It was past 5 pm already and I assumed it was already Round 3. Indeed it was

and it saw the top players being Tonton and Mark T battling in a Grixis Energy mirror match. I then checked if Rei already had the Masters 25 product and he said that they were already on the second box as the first one was already opened and purchased on Friday’s FNM event. As I have no debt yet on Rei’s list, I decided to buy an M25 booster pack. Here below is a ‘selfie’ pic before I opened the pack.

Thinking I was to be lucky that day, I browsed through the commons and found only Brainstorm as the valuable one. Uncommons were meh and as I slowly peeked at the Rare slot, it showed a five-man costume with two Black mana symbols. It was the sorcery Living Death.

Way back in high school, the card was perceived to be a popular component in reanimator decks at that time, and now, it is just priced at a mere three dollars. That is 500 pesos down to 150 pesos. Oh well.

While we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Magic: the Gathering with the release of Masters 25, the set’s value is focused more on the historical aspect rather than the financial value. You can find various articles that discuss how each significant card reprint would be priced along with the probability of getting cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor in your booster box.

As much as I would like the reprint of cards such as Armageddon and Imperial Recruiter, I personally would love to have Tarmogoyf in the slot of that Green Mythic Tree. I mean that is Tarmogoyf, it is already a well-known icon in the history of Magic. That is even if I was not much convinced of the card’s power in its days in Standard, in particular in the Gruul deck wherein I went with Burning-Tree Shaman instead. It went to the lowest price of 50pesos each before its potential was discovered. Good thing we were able to order two more pieces to complete our set for only 150php each and that the week after, the price spiked up to 1k plus. It then never looked back, with the price jumping to 2k PHP and then 2500. Today, it is now about a hundred dollars or 4000php in our Philippine currency.

Anyhow, Tarmogoyf is given to the whole MTG community as a significant card even with the several reprints in previous Masters set. That would definitely surge the hype of the Master 25 set. Wizards may have their own reasons why it was not included, but I am also entitled to state my opinion.

You can check the Master 25 full card image gallery here.