Starting this past Monday, May 23, spoiler previews of cards from Wizards of the Coast's limited-print run Eternal Masters have made their way into the hands of excited players. Eternal Masters is a Magic: The Gathering set in the same vein as earlier Modern Masters sets, and the Magic: The Gathering Online-exclusive Vintage Masters - designed to put more staple cards from Magic: The Gathering's "Eternal" formats (Legacy, Vintage, Cube, and Commander/EDH) into circulation. Doing so introduces new players to the Eternal formats, and also increases the supply of cards in the secondary market (which in theory should reduce the price of those cards, making them more accessible to players). Today, May 27, Wizards of the Coast released a full spoiler of Eternal Masters on their website, making every card in the set accessible to view. Interestingly enough, the Card Image Gallery for Eternal Masters is dated May 30, 2016, meaning that today's full spoilers may have been an accident.
Unfortunately not every Eternal staple can make it into Eternal Masters, due to having limited set space. In addition, Eternal Masters is printed with respect to the Reserved List - any card found on this list can never see a tournament legal printing again. This does limit the effectiveness of Eternal Masters, as staples like the original dual-colored lands won't be featured in this set, and prices for those cards will likely see an increase as new players construct decks and need to purchase those cards.
With Wizards of the Coast publishing their full Eternal Masters spoiler today, players now have information on everything in the set and can judge accordingly the risks of buying booster packs, boxes, or participating in Drafts. There are definitely some interesting cards in Eternal Masters, all of which can be viewed in the full spoiler.
Notable Eternal format staples in this set include: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, Force of Will, Sensei's Divining Top, Mystical Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, and others. Future editorials will look at the effectiveness of Eternal Masters as a whole once it releases, and see if it meets it's goals of putting more Eternal cards into circulation, and interesting more players in the Eternal formats.
While Eternal Masters has an MSRP of $9.99 per physical pack (and $6.99 per digital pack on Magic: The Gathering Online), players can be expected to pay much more per pack at their local game stores; similarly, booster boxes are already being sold for much higher than their MSRP of $239.76 on ebay and TCGPlayer. In addition, every pack will contain a "premium" foil card, similar to Modern Masters 2015. The high MSRP of Eternal Masters products compared to the usual MSRP for booster packs and booster boxes is due to the set being a limited run, much like Modern Masters and Modern Masters 2015 which had similar MSRP.
Eternal Masters is released for sale in physical form on June 10, 2016, and will be available for purchase on Magic: The Gathering Online June 17, 2016 through July 7, 2016.
The next set to be spoiled will be Eldritch Moon, the second half of the Shadows Over Innistrad block, set for release July 22, 2016. As spoiler season typically start three weeks before a new set's pre-release events, expect to see new set information starting the week of June 27, 2016.
(What are your thoughts on the fully spoiled Eternal Masters? How do you think the set compares to Modern Masters, Modern Masters 2015 and Magic: The Gathering Online's Vintage Masters? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.)
