Potential allocation concerns have arisen over Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who collector booster box and Commander Precon availability, which could possibly cause huge price spikes on the secondary market.
Concerns over allocation shortages of MTG products have happened before, and for the most part, initial order shortages don’t significantly impact the secondary market for too long. But in the case of Disney Lorcana, product shortages have caused huge price increases on the secondary market, and Magic players are hoping this isn’t the case with the Universes Beyond Doctor Who Eternal legal Commander set.
Players began paying attention to possible allocation shortages after Rudy from Alpha Investments dropped a video that allegedly confirmed collector booster box allocations have been significantly reduced. There are also allegations on Reddit over pre-orders of Commander Precon decks getting canceled and local game store owners complaining about allocation shortages for all MTG Doctor Who products.
“My local store said their distributor came back and said they won’t be able to fulfill their allocation, so my preorder of the Commander Deck was canceled and they have no word on ever getting more,” a Reddit user said.
To confirm shortages, I called my favorite local game stores in the Central Florida area, and the owners I was able to talk to at the time of writing on Oct. 11 were shorted both Commander Precon cases and collector booster boxes from their distributors. But this happens often and is typically rectified within a few weeks. If the allocation issues are because of a smaller print run, what’s a small concern now could grow into a much bigger problem, though.
Preorder singles prices for the MTG Doctor Who Commander set aren’t any higher than normal at time of writing, which is a good sign, since the Universes Beyond Commander set drops on Oct. 13.
Dot Esports has reached out to WotC for comment.