As any MTGO player should know at this point, WoTC offers set redemption for players who collect an entire set, allowing you to turn your digital cards into freshly printed physical cards. The caveats are that you can only do this with a full set collection (if you want playsets, you need to redeem four full collections) and there is a $25 fee per redemption.
The $25 redemption fee is a double edged sword. By increasing the barrier to converting digital product into tangible physical product, the artifically depressed the price of digital product, making it much more affordable to play online. The fact that you can draft with prize support for an average of about $10, even if you lose evey time, opposed to $15 and that standard and modern dekcs usually cost half the price as their physical counterparts allow much more people to be involved on the competitive level. The issue is, it makes the entire redemption process less attractive when you critically think about it.
Let’s take a look at Khans of Tarkir. A set with very attractive Mythics and Rares who’s redemption price is probably at the lowest we’ll see.
KTK as a digital set costs around $65. Factor the redemption cost and tax that comes with that and we’re looking at around $95 spent to get a full physical set of KTK.
A physical set of KTK has a retail price of $190. That looks good, about $100 profit, but this isn’t factoring shipping, tracking and supplies to ship costs. Furthermore, this is the retail price, this doesn’t factor the fact that a lot of these 30-50 cent rares aren’t going to move or wont be cost effective to ship to buyers who only want 1 Master of Pearls. This also doesn’t afactor the fact that the retail price includes all the commons and rares worth about 15-30 cents that rarely get bought. All in all , the retail price for every card worth over 50 cents (a total of 41 cards) in KTK nets a total of $151.16. Once again, that is not including shipping, associated costs and assumes that you actually sell every card over 50 cents. The average sale will be $3.69 but this is skewed due to the fetchlands. The mode average sale is $1.50. Worst case scenerio, you have to send every card in a pennysleeve and toploader, in a stamped enveolpe. Every stamp is 49 cents (God, I remember when it was 36 cents…) and in the worst case you’ll eat into your profits $20.09 in just stamps. You can get 50 top loades for about $5 and assorted sleeves you probably have lying around. Subtract this from your profits and subtract the redemption cost itself and we’re netting a profit of $29.07.
That is a $0.71 profit on each card.
For the average Magic: The Gathering financier, redemption sets are NOT worth it. Having a profitable card is nothing if you can’t liquidate for as close to retail price as possible. The time and effort to make those $30 isn’t worth it, not to mention the fact that you’re probably not going to have an issue moving the fetchlands, but who’s really looking to buy Ugin’s Nexus? I’m sure somebody is, but are you going to be lucky enough to grab their sale?
Verdict: Unfortunately, pass. I like redeeming a collection of each set and keep it wrapped and displayed because I play a lot of limited and finishing off a set usually only runs me an extra $10 or $20 to fill any holes and then the redemption fee. Otherwise, other than pet projects or if you’re convinced the set price is going to jump next year and you have the means to sell it as a set, I say nay.
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