MTG Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters Unboxing – So Many Valuable Cards!

The new Outlaws of Thunder Junction set for Magic: The Gathering has a pool of many, many valuable cards. This is thanks to the fact that it has quite a number of bonus sheets, including Big Score and Breaking News cards, not to mention other powerful cards introduced in the set itself.

Ahead of the set’s release on 19 April this coming Friday, Wizards of the Coast sent us a box of Play Boosters and a Desert Bloom Commander deck to unbox. We got some exciting cards from the Play Boosters we cracked, so without further ado, let’s get to it!

But before we get to the Play Boosters, let’s unbox the Desert Bloom Commander deck first, which is one of four pre-constructed decks from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set. This Red-Green-White Commander deck is headlined by Yuma, Proud Protector, and it focuses on discarding lands to trigger some interesting effects.

Also included in every Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander deck is a Collector Booster Sample Pack, which contains two cards. One of them is a rare or mythic rare wanted poster variant, Breaking News card, extended-art variant, or borderless variant (non-foil or traditional foil), while the other one is a traditional foil uncommon Breaking News card.

For our particular sample pack, we got a borderless The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride and Skewer the Critics.

The Mythic rare cards in the Desert Bloom Commander deck

Now let’s get to the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters. Featuring 14 playable cards (two more from Set Boosters), each pack features six commons – one of them has a chance to be replaced with a card from The List or Special Guests – three uncommons, a guaranteed rare or mythic rare, a Wildcard (any rarity), a Breaking News card (any rarity), a traditional foil card (any rarity), and a land card.

Compared to Set Boosters, which are now replaced by Play Boosters, the latter have one less non-foil Wildcard slot, but Wizards said that the overall pull value remains the same. As mentioned, Outlaws of Thunder Junction features many high value reprints, and we got quite a number of them, especially from the Big Score list.

There are a total of 30 Big Score cards, which are all mythic rare cards that are also Standard-legal. These cards occupy The List slot (alongside 10 Special Guests) in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters, and in our box of Play Boosters, we got as many as eight different Big Score cards.

Sword of Wealth and Power is the most valuable card we pulled, which is currently going for $32.99 (about RM150) on Card Kingdom. Lost Jitte is also quite valuable ($17.99, around RM85), followed by Lotus Ring ($15.99, approximately RM75).

Unfortunately, we didn’t get quite as lucky with our Breaking News cards, pulling only a total of two mythic rare cards and 10 other rare cards. On the bright side, at least we can add Force of Vigor and a beautiful Path to Exile variant – a staple removal for many decks – to our Commander decks.

Ah, but we’re not quite done yet; we haven’t talked about the mythic rare cards that we got from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set itself. We really got quite lucky with our pulls here, as we basically got the three most expensive cards in the main set right now: Jace Reawakened; Terror of the Peaks; and Tinybones, the Pickpocket.

These cards are currently going for $27.99 (~RM135), $19.99 (~RM95), and $17.99 (~RM85) respectively on Card Kingdom. Together with the Big Score and Breaking News cards we pulled, we’re pleasantly surprised by the value we got out of this Play Boosters box. Granted, card prices do fluctuate before a set is officially released – 19 April this Friday for Thunder Junction – but they can still give us a good idea of the cards’ value and the set as a whole.

Beyond the mythic rares that we pulled, we also got some interesting rare cards. These include Satoru, the Infiltrator – this will go great in my Jodah, the Unifier Commander deck – and Aven Interrupter.

All in all, Magic: The Gathering’s Outlaws of Thunder Junction set is filled to the brim with exciting new cards and reprints, and it’s personally one of the most fun sets we’ve unboxed lately. The expansion will be released for tabletop on 19 April this Friday, and it’s offered in Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, Commander Decks, Prerelease Packs, and Bundles.

Do note that Thunder Junction’s prerelease events will also be held at WPN stores until 18 April, so drop by your favourite game store if you want to try out the new set before its official release!