Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne looks at Wizards of the Coast's handling of the "god packs" in the latest Magic: The Gathering release.

I'm rather bemused with Wizards of the Coast's decision to seed its new Magic:  The Gathering release, Journey into Nyx, with packs consisting of god themed cards from the Theros block.  Needless to say, these quickly earned the sobriquet "god packs," a term first used in the 1990s.  Back then, the collation process for Magic packs had not reached the level of quality it has today.  Every once in a very great while, WotC's  printer, Carta Mundi, would get the collation on a pack wrong, filling it with rares, rather than the standard allocation of commons, uncommons and rares.  Magic players referred to these mis-collated packs as "god packs."  I think the last set I heard it happening in accidentally was Nemesis.  We had a box that had rares replacing the commons in the collation.  A very happy customer walked away with about five "Saproling Burst" from half a dozen packs, but, again, not deliberately done as WotC did with the Zendikar "treasures" of a couple of years ago.
 
From a marketing standpoint, I found it interesting how WotC handled the public relations for the "god packs" compared to the way they have done so in the past and I rather think they did a better job of it with the Zendikar "treasure" packs.  For the Zendikar event, WotC teased ahead of time that there would be "treasures" in the packs, ginning up tons of interest before the release of the first print run of the cards, to the point where now, if you can find a sealed box of the first print run of Zendikar, it can easily command $600 or more, given the chance of pulling a "Black Lotus," "Lich," or other Power 9 card.  Players and customers knew about this, anticipated it and went crazy finding boxes.  The key was, they knew something was coming, just not what.
 
Conversely, with Journey into Nyx, WotC forfeited all of that early anticipation by not leaking any info.  Players had no idea they had the opportunity to pull packs full of "god cards" until people started to pull packs full of god cards and post pictures of them doing so on the internet.  Once word of this got out, excitement over cracking packs built, but imagine the interest generated if WotC had let players know that Journey into Nyx ended with something pretty cool.
 
Compare this with how WotC has handled the build-up to the release of D&D 5th Edition.  Players have play-tested numerous versions of the new rules, given feedback on various aspects of the game and seen changes made to the new rules incorporated based on input from players.  WotC has worked over years to create anticipation for the release of the new set of rules.  I expect July's Starter Set and August's release of the new edition of the Player's Handbook to blow away the release of any other roleplaying product, and most new other releases, this summer.
 
I think the "god packs" were a good idea and a nice "thank you" from WotC to its players but a little advance PR from WotC would have paid off in interest and excitement from their players.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.