MTG Kaldheim Post-Mortem, Remastered!
Throwback Thursday presents compiled notes from January 2021
Today we continue our look back at the Magic: the Gathering release post-mortem articles from The Backstage Pass! In some cases the hindsight on this stuff is fairly significant. In other cases, not so much. In other cases, it’s a howl of laughter. Please feel free to amuse yourself at my expense as you read this.
On the Backstage Pass, I stopped writing the rigidly formatted post-mortem articles around the time of the store move to Chandler in 2017. But for many sets, I still wrote debriefing articles on their prerelease/release and market outlook and so forth in much the same way the post-mortems had been set up. I decided here on LGSNI to repurpose those articles as post-mortem Remasters as well, so that I can extend the series all the way to the end of the Pass to where LGSNI took over.
Toward the very end of the Pass, I didn’t even have time to write debriefs about every new set! For articles like this one, I’m compiling notes from my store results, social media, impressions at the time, and the benefit of hindsight. So this is actually kind of a brand new article, disguised as a remaster for consistency’s sake. LGSNI started when Phyrexia All Will Be One was current, so that projects to be the final bridge point.
Normally, we do the original in normal text and my new annotations in italics. Since this article is entirely newly written, we’ll stick to normal text.
Here we go!
The winter of 2021 kicked off with a return to a very Ice-Age-esque setting, except this time not on Terisaire in Dominaria, but instead on a new plane that’s all Vikings and death metal and Celtic knotwork and I guess Vorinclex for some reason, and that plane’s name: Kaldheim!
There were, as it turns out, not much in the way of special things happening with Kaldheim, or KLD for short. The showcase frame was the cool Celtic knotwork mentioned above. Several of the rare and mythic Gods have held decent value. For a minute or two, Goldspan Dragon was a “toughest mythic to get in Standard” and has settled down somewhat since, but Standard didn’t matter that much because WPN play was still off-limits and Arena had killed paper Standard in any event. The four Pathways not included in Zendikar Rising all appeared here. Vorinclex, available in normal frame, showcase, and a spiffy Phyrexian frame, remains a Commander get, and is the most valuable card in the set as of this writing.
There were no etched foils, with the upcoming Strixhaven being their first appearance in a Standard booster set, and barely that. Serialized cards were over a year away. There was not a sub-sheet. Considering all that, the set has held up reasonably, with only gameplay demand supporting its various card values, and little of consequence happening at the lower rarities.
Kaldheim landed close to the peak of the Pokemon craze of 2020-2021. The following month’s Shining Fates, followed by March’s Battle Styles, were behemoth sellers. One would expect a Magic product to get overshadowed, especially without any in-store gameplay, but that’s not really what ended up happening. Sales were decent. Not Double-Masters great or anything, but better than Strixhaven and the Innistrad Twins from later that year.
In the marketing for this set, Wizards reached out to European gothic metal, prog-metal, and death metal bands to promote the set, including perennial LGS Net Income favorite Lacuna Coil of Italy. This was an awesome idea that I wish Wizards had pushed a little harder with. Complete flavor home run.
Much like Zendikar Rising and Commander Legends, there were two KLD Commander decks in the same horizontal packaging at the same low price point, indicating Wizards was experimenting with pricing and formatting with their decision that every Standard set (and eventually almost every booster set) would include some number of Commander decks. This ended the Planeswalker Deck era that had run until Core Set 2021. Unfortunately, Kaldheim’s Commander decks would be the last of the low-price-point horizontal-box type. Strixhaven had five decks, each aligned with one of the five opposed-color schools, and which used new smaller packaging compared to the larger bubble boxes from Commander 2020 (the one released with Ikoria). Forgotten Realms would have four, and then we’d see three sets in a row with two different Commander decks. From the two KLD decks, the Elf Empire deck using Lathril was by far the more popular, to where the other deck, blue-white Spirits, was bargain-bin fodder despite being reasonably strong by precon standards, because of the overwhelm of players wanting Elf tribal and Lathril’s card list specifically.
Elsewhere in the set were a few noteworthy cards for various formats, a chance for stores to get those last few profit dollars here and there. Snow spells and permanents, as well as a resource base to support them, incremented the rules one step further on normalizing the snow mechanic. Sagas returned after a break since Dominaria. Maskwood Nexus is a Commander get for sure. In addition to Snow-Covered basics, Kaldheim provided Snow-Covered common dual lands that enter tapped and have the two basic types for fetching purposes, which is great and is relevant in a bunch of places. Inconsequential uncommon land Surtland Frostpyre will never get used in a deck that counts, but is practically a straight lift of the Sunstone room from Ori and the Blind Forest.
So one final interesting market outcome from Kaldheim was this. The set largely wasn’t drafted because WPN stores could not hold sanctioned drafts until the next set was already out. Draft booster boxes languished in stock everywhere and their market value plummeted, and they were part of Amazon dumps in the $80, $70, and finally $60 range that I know of. However, with the move toward play boosters, the market is a bit warmer to draft booster boxes from that era as one of the best remaining chances to buy an experience and hold it for later. They are holding in the $100 range now, which isn’t great, but is a huge improvement over their all-time floor. Play booster boxes are a nudge higher, which is fine. The disappointing market outcome is the collector boxes, which to this day sell under original wholesale. For whatever combination of reasons, they are not seen as a good-EV purchase.
Next up on Throwback Thursday, we’ll take a look at Magic’s own Great Value Harry Potter expansion, Strixhaven - School of Mages! Now collaterally hated by half the public due to J.K. Rowling’s political advocacy.