[DynaEtch]

The biggest thing that Im not a fan of are some trends Im seeing with this set though. I consider this the next major 'paradigm shifter' in MM. What I mean by this, there have been certain years that MM jumped the brand into higher levels of limitedness/exclusivity.

1995: Transition from the massive print runs of 1992-1994 to more limited sets in 95-96.

2016: First truly limited MM with numbered cards etc, setting the standard for new MM model.

2022: Boxes $900...whole 'nother level of exclusivity.

Now the boxes being so expensive is just the market and demand establishing prices....not like UD controls that aspect. But this is not a great trend imo...the product seems geared towards the influencer crowd, which seems to be opening most of it, as well as the small amount of people who are putting $10k+ into their nonsports card budgets (i.e. not average collectors whatsoever). Ok it's a high end set, I get that. But at the end you have a small group of maybe like 20-50 people who are doing most of the transactions related to this set, in buying/selling cards to each other. How is this going to play out for longer range interest in MM and the hobby.

Looking at the box break section here on BO....basically no 2022MM posted, since most typical nonsports collectors arent opening it. There wasnt even an article on it in the NSU magazines. MM has now gone essentially the opposite direction of being mainstream.

Not sure how to go about solving this...I just wonder about long-term prospects. Once some of the narrow group buying moves on to different things, who will be left to pay $1500-$3000 for some of these parallels. To make it more accessible, UD could jack up the print run, but some wont like that. It'll be interesting to see the epack price and if it's any cheaper, but it'll still be way outside the budget of regular collectors Im sure.