Packs of Prestige

Greetings, everyone!

Back in early December, we had our first look at Jump to Lightspeed, in which we talked about a brand-new product type: Carbonite Edition booster packs! These premium packs are perfect for collectors, as they are stuffed to the seams with variant cards. Today, we’re finally going to provide a more in-depth preview of what these packs entail, so, without further ado, let’s take a look at Carbonite Edition!

First, a quick recap on what we’ve covered already: In Carbonite Edition booster packs, all 16 cards have some form of aesthetic treatment, whether it’s foil, Hyperspace, Showcase, etc., as opposed to normal booster packs, which only have a chance of those treatments appearing. The cards in Carbonite packs are all variants of existing cards from the set, which means no mechanically unique cards will ever be exclusive to Carbonite Edition packs. This means that, if your focus is entirely on gameplay, you don’t need to worry about snagging one of these packs; as we’ve said before, these packs are geared toward collectors, since they can help someone chase down variants for a bunch of cards at once. Also, as a reminder, these packs are limited. There will only be one wave of Carbonite Edition booster packs printed for each set, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. They won’t be reprinted, so if you fancy grabbing ahold of a pack or two, you’ll want to make sure you do so right when the set launches!

Okay, now that we’ve refreshed everyone’s memory, let’s get to the fun stuff: What exactly can you expect to find in a Carbonite Edition booster pack? For starters, just like normal booster packs, you can expect to find 1 leader card. However, that leader card is guaranteed to be either Hyperspace or Showcase, with Showcase variants showing up significantly more frequently than they do in normal boosters (about once in every 2 or 3 Carbonite Edition display boxes). The next 7 cards in the Carbonite pack are all foil cards, similar to what you would find at the end of a normal booster. Follow those with 5 Hyperspace cards, and after them, 2 Hyperspace foil cards. Scattered throughout all of them are more cards of Uncommon or higher rarity than normal booster packs, with at least 1 Rare or Legendary among the foil cards and a higher-than-normal likelihood of Rares and Legendaries showing up as Hyperspace. 

That brings us to 15 out of the 16 cards in the pack. The last card is special. We hinted at these in the first look article, a brand-new type of variant: Prestige cards. 

These immaculate alternate-art cards are entirely exclusive to Carbonite Edition booster packs. In addition to their unique art and framing compared to the normal versions, Prestige variants also come in three different “tiers.” The first is the “normal” tier, which features the amazing alternate art and graphic design. The second tier also features Prestige-exclusive foiling, making them pop even more on your table. Finally, the third tier has the same foiling as the second while also being serialized. There will only be 250 serialized versions of each Prestige card for the entire print run, making them the ultimate rarity for hard-core collectors!

And that’s the Carbonite Edition booster packs in a nutshell! To summarize, this is a premium, limited-time product that won’t be reprinted. All 16 cards in a Carbonite Edition booster pack are variants of existing cards in the set, with no mechanically unique cards appearing. One of the variants in each Carbonite pack is a Carbonite-exclusive Prestige variant, which feature their own unique alternate art and graphic design elements. 

These packs will go for $24.99 each, and a Carbonite Edition display has twelve packs. Be on the lookout for the Jump to Lightspeed Carbonite Edition booster packs when they arrive alongside the rest of the set in March!

Written by Peter Schumacher