Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

...is the most popular (or at least the currently highest priced) card from the new Conflux set which was just released. Let's take a look, shall we?

Rather a nasty looking character, isn't he? He's the big bad evil genius behind the problems facing the Alara planes in the back-story to this set.

The card is a Mythic Rare, and if you remember your lesson from before, that makes it 8x more rare than a Rare.

And somehow I managed to pull 4 copies of it in less than 5 boxes that I opened. What are the odds? Let's see...I opened 177 packs - that's 177 Rares/Mythic Rares. If 1/8 are Mythic Rares, then I should have pulled ~22 of them. There are 10 possible Mythic Rares, so theoretically I should have averaged just over 2 copies per by random distribution. I did, indeed, pull 22 Mythic Rares (that much worked) and I got 2 copies of most of them. However two of them I only got 1 copy each of, and two I got 4 copies each of (Child of Alara being the other one besides Nicol himself).

Nicol Bolas actually has a bit of history in Magic: the Gathering. He first appeared as an "Elder Dragon Legend" (later renamed "Legendary Elder Dragon") in the Legends expansion. That card was reprinted in the Chronicles expansion, and again as a Timeshifted card in Time Spiral. The original Nicol Bolas looked like this:

He doesn't look quite so menacing in this one, does he? In the back-story for Time Spiral, Nicol Bolas gained the "Planeswalker spark" and left Dominaria to find some other plane to take over - and he has set his sights on the Shards of Alara.

In other Conflux news, I also got 4 copies of the second-most pricey card in the set, a regular Rare called Noble Hierarch (and got 2 additional copies of the Foil version). This just amazes me. I think I got VERY lucky with the case that I ordered. And there are (at the moment) still 39 booster packs left of that case available for sale at my eBay store! So you, too, could partake of the lucky case!

I opened enough packs to make 21 complete common sets and 8 complete uncommon sets and still have cards left over to stock the singles section in the "branch store" (which is fast becoming the main store, actually, so maybe I should stop calling it that?). And I have at least 2 of every Rare available (and more than that for most of them).

Conflux is the first set that I have put ALL of my singles for up in the regular store. The last couple of sets I put Rares, Mythic Rares and most Foil cards up on the eBay store initially. But in keeping with my new policy (and the Great Shift project), I am no longer listing singles on eBay unless to put them up for auction or Buy It Now. No more Store items for single cards.