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by Bill R. Yu
Small Tidbits Immediately after its release, Fallen Empires were selling at $85 a box. Four months later, it could be found for $20 a box!! We're not joking about the shoe store part. In a Payless Shoe Store in Pittsburgh, PA, they were selling FE for $1.45 a pack. That was in June, 1995. I think they finally ended up giving them away. . . Not everything in FE was bad. There was the infamous Hymn to Tourach. And you'll still find the Storage lands in many decks. And... uhhh... well... I'm sure there's other good stuff in the set. I just can't think of any at the moment...
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Could it be??? Fallen Empires, the set that players look down upon. The set that is the butt of many, many, Magic jokes. The set that, at one time, could be found in shoe stores. Fallen Empires, which can claim the largest print run of any expansion, may actually be accumulating some respect. Fallen Empires was initally released in January, 1995. Due to massive overproduction (it supposedly had a print run larger than all the previous expansion sets combined), FE was, in months, being sold for $20 a box (and in some places, at $15/box). While this was good for newbies ("I could buy two starters, or a whole box of Fallen Empires. Hmmmm..."), it was very, very, bad for distributors and retailers, who took a huge hit in the loss column. And because it was so widely available and cheap, FE soon began to lose respect from veterans of the game.
Recently, however, all this has begun to change. In the Magic world, price/value is proportonal to respectability, and, at the time of this writing, Fallen Empires now sells for $45 per box ($0.75 per box), and most of this increase in price has only been from the last few months. Why?? Could it be because DCI finally announces the retirement of FE from Type II? Or could it be that a Think about it... there's some pretty good stuff in FE. What goblin deck doesn't have a Goblin Grenade? Many decks still use the storage lands or sacrifical lands. And don't forget the very useful Breeding Pit or Combat Medic. The best thing about FE is its concentration on creatures. With one box, its really, really easy to construct a Thrull, Thallid, White Weenie, Goblin, and Merfolk deck (though, admittedly, the Thallids and Thrulls would do a lot better in a pure FE deck). For $45, you can construct three or four excellent decks, perfect to give to a friend to introduce them to Magic. Regardless of the reason, Fallen Empires is continuing to increase in price. You may actually want to get some before it hits it's suggested retail price. . . | |
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