Here they come to save the day, Clash packs!  They’re like duel decks with standard legal reprints, right?  But no sweet alternate art foils or older popular cards…. Wait, you mean they have alternate art foils now?  That’s right folks, the M15 clash pack comes with 1 of each in a new art foil: Prophet of Kruphix, Temple of Mystery, Prognostic Sphinx, Font of Fertility, Fated Intervention, and Hydra Broodmaster.  And to top it all off, that’s not even all of the value in the deck!  It comes with 4 Elvish Mystics, 2 Reclamation Mage (probably going to be one of the premier uncommons in m15), Arbor Colossus, Hypnotic Siren, Curse of the Swine, Aetherspouts, Genesis Hydra, and a Courser of Kruphix.  At the MSRP of $30, this looks like insane value!  If the previous duel decks are any precedent, this clash pack should also be available at big box stores (Walmart, Target, etc) for a reasonable price.

And now, the financial implications!

This is probably one of the best (if not the best) sealed deck product that WotC has released with only standard legal cards in a long time.  The Mono-black Born of the Gods event deck is the most recent deck that comes anywhere close.  But even if you only account for the $20 retail Courser of Kruphix, this is almost as much value as getting Mind Seize decks for MSRP at release.  This deck hits high notes for so many different players I can’t not see it sell well.  It has the ease of play and the fact that it includes 2 decks means the casual duel deck players want them.  The sweet alternate art foils (including the especially popular Commander staple, Prophet of Kruphix) will appeal to collectors and Commander players. The expensive power house from Born of the Gods, Courser of Kruphix will help to ease the price for standard grinders.  This is a perfect recipe for these packs to be flying off the shelf and the majority of the cards becoming in high supply.

What does this mean for the future?  Well I don’t know if every Clash Pack can hit this kind of a home run but it’s important to know now that standard legal rares are likely targets for alternate art foil reprints instead of just commons and uncommons (which are FNM promos).  Many people bought tons of Prophet of Kruphix hoping to capitalize on the long term growth of a powerful casual card but the new printing (especially in foil) really hurts people’s ability to speculate on that kind of card.  Even more odd is the alternate art dual land, which almost never happens.  The already not in high demand temple may drop further due to increased supply.  If it hits $1 or less I may see myself buying some Temple of Mystery and hope a breakout deck needs 4 of them during Khans of Tarkir block.   It wouldn’t be hard to see it rebound to $5-8 with heavier demand.

I personally have already pre-ordered one box in order to get the Prophet of Kruphix and Hydra Broodmaster for my Commander deck but it will be interesting to see if all of these cards have the M15 card frames.  It’s not clear from the article on the mothership if they will or will not but if the new frame takes off it could keep some of these reprints higher in value than their older frame cousins.