If you’ve been enjoying the Wilds of Eldraine release, especially in paper, it’s no secret that the MTG anime borderless treatments are incredibly popular right now. These appear to be a booster fun treatment that is both very interesting for the player base and surprisingly difficult to find. There’s only a 2.8% chance (combined across rarities) that you will open an anime borderless MTG card in your Set or Draft Booster slots where the anime borderless card can appear.
Since you can find these cards in every booster for Wilds of Eldraine, it’s tough to know whether the insane premiums for the MTG anime borderless cards will stick around. For reference, Smothering Tithe in its normal variant currently costs $16/$20 for its non-foil and foil versions respectively. The anime borderless art costs $72/$141 respectively. There are a multitude of other cards that have similar relationships, and we outline them in another article.
We already know that with further scarcity, the opportunity for prices to rise further is there. This is the case for Confetti Foils, which have a 2.8% chance to only appear in Collector Booster packs. That Smothering Tithe, for reference, is valued at over $200, and it’s not the only thing that Smothering Tithe may be making more expensive.
MTG Judge Anime Deck Box
MTG guru Fireshoes over on X, formerly Twitter, recently showed off some new exclusive Ultra Pro deck boxes being handed out to MTG judges. Judges getting exclusive material is absolutely nothing new and they absolutely deserve these materials thanks to all the hard work they do keeping players honest at competitive levels.
These new anime deck box will be made available to Judges as kits containing deck boxes with the various Enchanting Tales anime art, Judge Academy branded playmats, sleeves, and another mystery item at random. Finally, Judge promo Smothering Tithes and Parallel Lives will be up for grabs for Judges interested in this bundle.
To be clear, the new Judge Academy anime Enchanted Tales deck boxes are not limited to just Smothering Tithe and Parallel Lives. According to Fireshoes, eight of the 15 borderless anime arts are featured in this drop. These include Rhystic Study, Doubling Season, Omniscience, Parallel Lives, Greater Auramancy and Land Tax. According to Fireshoes, the eight deck boxes will also be available as their own bundle.
Judge-exclusive products, particularly Judge foil promotional cards, tend to have a significant premium over other copies of the cards thanks to the scarcity factor. These generally aren’t available for all players to obtain from the primary source. Subsequently, they often require finding them from secondary sources – the Judges that obtain these products. This is likely to be the case for these Enchanted Tales deck boxes as well, as only 500 copies of each artwork are available.
Fortunately, unlike most Judge offerings, non-judge MTG players may have a slim chance of obtaining this anime deck box line from the primary source.
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May be Available for Everyone
While Judges get first grabs at the new MTG anime Enchanted Tales deck boxes, if there are some remaining after a certain date, anyone can buy these deck boxes. That date happens to be today!
Notably, the bundles for non-Judge players buying these deck boxes will be different than Judges. No Judge Promo Smothering Tithe or Parallel Lives will be offered. Judge Academy will be making an announcement in regards to what the products available to the general public will be but, at the time of writing, we do not know what that currently looks like. Be sure to keep an eye on the Judge Academy Twitter page for any further announcements.
What we do know is that the kits containing all eight of these anime Enchanted Tales deck boxes have been sold out before sales were made public. That said, at the time of writing, it still appears that there’s a good chance that some product will be made available.
A Step in the Right Direction?
Considering how poorly received the recent Basic Land Judge promos were by the general community, these exclusive anime Enchanted Tales deck boxes do appear to be a strong step in a better direction. Considering that some kits have sold out before these sales were made available publicly, the draw for this anime deck box line does seem somewhat alluring. If you’re as in love with the new Enchanted Tales anime artwork as the rest of the community, these deck boxes may be of interest to you. Even if not, I still would not be surprised if these go for a premium considering their Limited nature. Heck, some of the more expensive playmats out there can go for thousands of dollars!
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