These cards are pretty cool (even if they aren't Alpha)

Thanks for sticking with me despite my erratic release schedule. More Alpha discussion coming soon, but today I take a random detour from Alpha to look at some graded JP Pre-release Alt Arts, and I ramble about Magic 30 single prices.
#MagicTheGathering #PSA #WarOfTheSpark
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I'm Mike, the Alpha Hoarder, and I'm sharing/documenting my wild collection here on YT. Join me while I ramble about old cards and MTG finance, and look at cool stuff.
[e-mail]
Mike the AlphaHoarder @ 375 Carlls Path #73, Deer Park NY 11729

[@ed-steminator6688]

Love these as well. Art is beautiful and checks the box for rare based on ultra limited pulls on these JPN foil alt arts. I've watched hrs of Jake and Joel's series on the search "foil quest" and feel certain saying these are RARE!

[@sandrostrapazzon1307]

What an awesome return!!! Congrats! Thats a lot of 10s! But the japanese cards do tend to have higher quality and thus return more 10s(I see this in the pokemon world) I hope my next return has half as many 10s as yours.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Good information, thanks!

[@spiritofthenight9067]

Beautiful set! I love the artwork in this style.

[@grailsgg]

These are so sick. Wasn’t playing much paper mtg in 2019 so I never saw any of these jp alt arts in person, only heard about them. Really love when there is actual effort put into foiling though (layering, masking, etc)… makes them look so much better. I’ve been on a journey collecting old border foils… but these are some really nice show pieces as far as modern cards go!

[@AlphaHoarder]

Oh nice, old border foils are sooo rare now. Any particular sets? I agree, it’s refreshing when they actually put in effort now and then…

[@grailsgg]

@@AlphaHoarder I'd love to complete Masques block in foil (would obviously be insanely hard and expensive). Most people think of it as a bad block (weak, underpowered), but the art was incredible and those sets are peak nostalgia for me since I was a little kid who just started playing when Masques came out.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Good luck! Love that set as well

[@NerdAndProudOfIt]

definetely some beautiful cards there! and i leave the answer to how hard it is to get 10’s to gem mint! 😁👊🏻

[@gemmintmtg4267]

Love the cards! Really cool to see you branching out….. to the darkside! From raw alpha to grading new cards. Nice set, I like the Japan art too I picked up some graded jpn alt art too recently

[@AlphaHoarder]

Heh I’m trying not to fall into the event horizon while I park at this side of the hobby. It’s been many years since I did the grading thing, and I can’t believe how fast PSA was! Wish the label was nicer….

[@christhemagnif]

Very interesting! Had heard of these but never seen them. I think you did quite well on the grading front. 👍👍🍀🍀🍀

[@AlphaHoarder]

Cheers!

[@teamcosmicseeds]

I need to grade my good stack of NM-Mint alternative 4th edition! I have some 🔥! Awesome video bro!

[@AlphaHoarder]

Nice! What’s your favorite you have in alt fourth?

[@teamcosmicseeds]

@@AlphaHoarder tie between sorceress queen & lightning bolt. I love the gloss on both but the bolt 💯 shines like it's on 🔥!

[@teamcosmicseeds]

Hopefully you make it to Vegas in September! I'd like to smash a cool video with you if possible! I'll probably ride my 🚲 to magic30 then cuz I'm close to it & parking is always a pain in the arse!

[@honigson8776]

Thanks for sharing!!

[@AlphaHoarder]

Thanks for watching 🙂

[@FaBledHunters]

How did you know I’d be watching 😳😳😳 Mike??? Whelp, your answer is two-fold. Japanese printers (the set was JPN-WAR) are best known for having the best print quality worldwide. Next, PSA is the least picky on centering and surface, but you better believe they’re strict on Corners & Edges, so you have a pretty good recipe for PSA 10’s with the Japanese printed Modern cards!

[@AlphaHoarder]

I was wagering you couldn’t pass by a thumbnail with a fresh slab on it 🤣 Appreciate that info, that makes sense. Yeah one of these 10s has visibly imperfect centering. Thanks 🤜🤛

[@TripsAhoy]

Very cool. I love these arts also. Have the whole set but not foil.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Nice! Yeah, most of them look so cool, with incredible details

[@danielbrisch5029]

Quiet strange on modern cards when the holo stamp is not centered getting a 10 graded.

[@teamcosmicseeds]

Yeah, I don't get that either...just odd!

[@AlphaHoarder]

Yeah I believe half of these 10s would get a bgs 9.5 🤷‍♂️

[@richarddefilippo3076]

Nice collection! Yeah those Japanese fools are beautiful.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Such cool art!

[@mfdoom1898]

That's the best Lilliana in MTG 10s are kinda hard to get in foil, especially with today's print quality.

[@poxpower]

Love the liliana and nissa on this set.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Yeah Nissa is so cool 🔥

[@Pers0n97]

This is why I mainly focus on "non traditional" cards (ie the kind of stuff you won't find in boosters, I'm talking promo and such) when it comes to MTG. While they aren't protected by the reserve list of the prestige of being a very old print, they are rare and unique enough that they are not only valuable, but their value will hold no matter what since they are 100% collectible product with barely any tie to the game itself. They can (and have) reprint Liliana into oblivion, that JP promo price will never be impacted.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Yeah that’s excellent reasoning.

[@hermodnitter3902]

Beautiful set there! Even if it's not my jam, I see this set as really collectible. Regarding the M30, I really struggle to see how anyone even finds them beautiful, or even acceptable looking. There is just something VERY wrong with the (touched up) artwork in the modern printings, and then I don't just mean the modern frame, but the old frame as well. There are just too many things that are slightly off, like font size, placement of text, color of text (typeline), missing squares in duals, copyright line. But whatever, I will never have anything to do with this product, but I find it interesting how someone really wants this. Or is it just speculation trying to sell of higher at a later time?

[@AlphaHoarder]

I know what you mean, but I can also feel the other side. You’re completely right that it’s just not the same as the old stuff, but what is? Each printing has its own flavor… Alpha and beta are different in interesting ways, unlimited has the great saturation, revised has its own quirks, summer, etc. This is just another interesting variation, and I get the appeal. I’m not participating for personal/ reasons, but purely speaking as a collector I do get it. Regarding the sealed stuff, I have to think that is just speculation and bag holders pushing fomo… but who knows.

[@ArmandoAffonso]

How much they cost usually, non-graded and graded? Looks pretty cool

[@AlphaHoarder]

I haven’t checked… When I bought them, most were under 50usd, but a couple were a few hundred dollars. I don’t know what they go for graded 🤷‍♂️

[@jimmiploug2333]

Knew you would get into grading cards. Haha, welcome to the dark side. You gonna put them on a shelf and look stunning, or what's the plan with them?

[@AlphaHoarder]

Haha ya. I was into it years ago, but not since moving into Alpha, and then the pandemic and backlog came around and turned me off to the whole thing. But I had the one already slabbed, felt the itch, gave it a shot! As for the display, def need to come up with something 🤔

[@gemmintmtg4267]

With PSA I have seen a lot of modern 10’s. Since they don’t weight the centering like BGS it’s a lot easier to get gem mint with PSA. Overall I find them to be slightly more lax, but more consistent, than bgs. With bgs I would be surprised if half of these came back 8.5/9. Not deservingly mind you, just because they are inconsistent

[@AlphaHoarder]

Great info, thanks 🙏

[@alexandremassa4974]

Well now you can't keep your AlphaHoarder pseudo 😅 Really nice cards indeed, I'd guess for modern card its easier to get 10 as they are just less damaged overall and the NM you buy is closer to PSA 10 than the pseudo NM of older cards.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Yeah good point, less time for damage and attention to do their thing.

[@IROCTV1]

Most don’t have a clue how much those are worth as singles let alone all of them or the complete set! How did you even get all those as most of them are huge money even not graded.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Many of these are indeed difficult to find, especially in prerelease. Fortunately people were treated them carefully, so I didn’t have to sift through that many to get nice copies.

[@adrianemerson2295]

Everything I've tried to type so far has sounded super creepy. "I've seen your house" was my first choice. I got nothing. Tapped out. What do we call your gofundme?

[@AlphaHoarder]

🤣🤣 We can call it, building the house of cards

[@penguinlust6749]

"Maybe a bunch of those 30th boxes are going to end up in a dumpster somewhere" -- apparently you haven't seen the news this morning.... The bigger question is why one of those was an 8? 🤔

[@AlphaHoarder]

I’ve heard about the modern horizons 2 dump, but no, I had not seen that new picture with the 30th card when I recorded 🧐 maybe that means the supply will remain extremely low

[@lechasseurdemothman]

Slabs everywhere. I don't collect this cards but it's beautiful.

[@AlphaHoarder]

The art style isn’t for everyone, but I love it!

[@hangryherbivore]

Why PSA?

[@AlphaHoarder]

Only because I bought the Liliana PSA slab a little while back, so when I decided to complete the set I wanted the matching slabs. I admit, I was impressed. Their tracking process is really great, they have you verify the cards as they’ve identified them before they start grading, and the whole process was very fast. Too bad the label isn’t nicer and their aren’t subs…

[@hermodnitter3902]

@@AlphaHoarder agreed, it's kind of unsatisfying to not be able to see what makes the card have the grade it has. Like, where is the fault on a 9 ? But still, you got some really top grades there!

[@MrEdcast1]

I hope they didn't give you more 10's because you are a new customer and they want you to pay to have more cards slabbed. Just a thought but I doubt a large company would put their reputation at risk in such a way. 9s and 10s can look so similar that sometimes I wonder. I hear about people getting a 9 and then cracking it and sending it again until they receive a 10. Obviously the system is not perfect. When will we start getting an AI program to grade cards, and then provide the customer with magnified video explaining each grading? That will give some consistency.

[@AlphaHoarder]

I’ve heard people speculate about that “first-time” grade inflation. I hope it’s not real, but who knows. 100% agree about the AI grading with documentation of why the final was assigned.

[@TheTugenukem]

Cards are cool, but psa look so trashy for me :P

[@AlphaHoarder]

The label definitely needs some work

[@lanmarknetworking3034]

Sry but foils are never cool 😂

[@AlphaHoarder]

🤣 yeah maybe not

[@lanmarknetworking3034]

@AlphaHoarder Ignore me... I still hate silver artifacts, and think Commander is NOT magic the gathering 😂

[@ericn4449]

ugh no. compare that stuff to an alpha or beta dual land, sol ring, mox, or just some of the commons. or arabian nights, antiquities. those are the cards that are "magic". sorry but these cards cant even come close in appeal.

[@AlphaHoarder]

Yeah, pretty different weight class I suppose 😂

[@ericn4449]

@@AlphaHoarder Well at some point you do need some variety, so I can understand it, just not for me. I am curious why you chose to get modern cards graded as opposed to some of your alpha cards. I would assume the value increase of a graded alpha card would far surpass that of a graded modern card. Also a video on where you think best value currently is in ABU4H cards, including mention of specific cards would be very interesting. something along the lines of what you would purchase if you had $100, $1000, etc?