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The year was 2009. Original Zendikar had the MTG nation digging an adventure based plane, and also digging for buried treasure. Worldwake had not yet been released, and Standard players went about their lives, unaware of the horrors about to unfold.
And a brand new product from Wizards of the coast was released, a 60 card preconstructed theme deck of Legacy-legal cards, all foils or as Wizards of the Coast calls them, premium cards. It was the first of the very short lived Premium Deck Series, a product that lasted only three decks before going out with a whimper, discontinued due to a lack of interest and profitability. Head Magic Designer Mark Rosewater closing words on the series, which have become like words on the Premium Deck Series Tombstone were simply, “not enough of you loved it.”
But I want to take a detailed look at the product, and see what it was all about. First and foremost, these decks had value. The sets retailed for $34.99, and for that price, provided players with quite a lot of value.
Not just because they contained all foil cards, but because they actually printed a very large selection of cards that saw play in Legacy, Modern, and Commander formats. In fact, each of the premium decks had a strong selection of cards for each of those formats.
I’m going to start at the end, with the last and, some say, the best of the premium deck series: Graveborn. Graveborn was released shortly after Innistrad, and out of the 60 foil cards, a whopping 7 of them were rares, and one was a mythic rare. Not just rares, but many cards that saw play and were in need of reprints, even at the common and uncommon level.
Two of the gems in Graveborn were actually uncommons, the cards Entomb and Cabal Therapy. At the time, these two cards alone were worth the MSRP of 34.99, and continue to be so even today, although Graveborn now goes for more than double its initial price tag.
All the cards were foil, printed in the modern card frame. Animate dead, Crosis the purger, and most excitingly Cabal Therapy each featured new artwork.
Many of the cards of Graveborn are played in Legacy Reanimator, Entomb being the biggest, but also Reanimate, Exhume, Polluted Delta, Inkwell Leviathan, while of course the coveted Cabal Therapy is played in Legacy dredge and quite a few vintage decks as well.
A small added bonus is that the Premium Decks each had very special set symbols, instead of an abstract design like most sets, they had more recognizable symbols, graveborn for example have a distinct skull which not only appears on each card but is also on the included spindown. The Fire & Lightning and Slivers Premium Deck, which I’ll talk more about in a moment, had designs of a classic Sliver and Ball of Flames.
Music Courtesy Of:
“Pinball Spring” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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“The Other Side of the Door” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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“Darkest Child” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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“Air Prelude” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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“The Builder” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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