Historic Anthologies 1: Is it worth it?

Note: All paper values noted in this article as of 11/14/19, and are mid-trading prices.

The Historic format is finally getting some love from Wizards of the Coast in November's MTG Arena Historic Rollout article. The Internets are abuzz with questions regarding the cost of the 20 new curated cards that were introduced to the Historic format.

While you may craft each card individually using wild cards, you also have the option to purchase the entire play set of these cards, totaling 80, for 3400 gems. This new package is being called Historic Anthologies 1.

Let us take a look and see what we are getting in this collection. Values are mid-trading prices for the paper versions of these cards. Paper prices are only being listed for reference and fun, and have no correlation to Arena.

Historic Anthologies 1 contains 4 copies of each of the following cards:

• Common
  1. Soul Warden (M10) - $0.44
  2. Treasure Hunt (Worldwake) - $0.32
  3. Distant Melody (Morningtide) - $1.50
  4. Tendrils of Corruption (M10) - $0.25
  5. Kiln Fiend (Rise of the Eldrazi) - $0.27
  6. Elvish Visionary (Magic Origins) - $0.19
• Uncommon
  1. Goblin Matron (Mondern Horizons) - $0.35
  2. Imperious Perfect (Lorwyn) - $1.82
  3. Burning-Tree Emissary (Gatecrash) - $0.40
  4. Ornithopter (M10) - $0.30
  5. Mindstone (Weatherlite) - $1.13
• Rare
  1. Serra Ascendant (M11) - $8.55
  2. Kinsbaile Cavalier (Morningtide) - $10.68
  3. Cryptbreaker (Eldritch Moon) - $4.00
  4. Hypnotic Spector (M10) - $1.69
  5. Phyrexian Arena (Eighth Edition) - $10.86
  6. Hidetsugu's Second Rite (Saviors of Kamigawa) - $0.91
  7. Fauna Shaman (M11) - $5.00
  8. Captain Sisay (Invasion) - $16.00
  9. Darksteel Reactor (Darksteel) - $5.98

In paper, a full set is $70.64, with a full play set totaling $282.56.

There are 6 common, 5 uncommon and 9 rare cards in this collection.
Note: I'm counting Captain Sisay as a rare because it is using the Invasion set symbol as a Rare and not the From the Vault Mythic symbol.

Using the Wild Card values, we can figure out how much this would cost you if you used all wild cards to craft the entire set of 80 cards.

Wild Card Values:

• (6 Commons x $5.56)  x  4 = $133.44
  
• (5 Uncommons x $3.03)  x  4 = $60.60
  
• (9 Rares x $4.77)  x  4 = $171.72
  

From this, we can see that we would be using $365.76 worth of wild cards if you were to craft this entire play set. The inverse is that that $375.04 is worth roughly 63,062 Gems.

If you want to just buy the entire Historic Anthologies 1 directly from the Arena Store, you would need to spend 3400 gems. Using the average gem price of $.0058/gem, this comes out to $19.72. The Regular price for 3400 gems from the first package in the store is $19.99.

It is therefore cheaper to spend gems for the entire 80 card playset than it is to use your wild cards.

If you have a metric ton of un-used and un-needed wild cards, by all means use these. It's free after all... or is it? It just depends what you are going to do with them. This will be up to you. But you can add the dollar value to them to figure this out if you're looking for value.

If you happen to have a ton of extra gems with nothing to spend them on, this is an obvious choice for a good buy and you shouldn't hesitate to snap this up if you plan to use the majority of these cards.

Most of us won't need many of these cards, so I would just suggest crafting only what you need, when you actually need it. Otherwise, if you must have them all, it's better to use gems than to spend all of your wild cards on them.

I hope you found this article helpful in figuring out what the value of this new collection is worth and the best way to go about acquiring it.