It’s the new year, and while I haven’t written down resolutions in the same way every single year, I’ve certainly gained a lot of insights this year into what is and isn’t a good strategy for profiting on Magic cards.
Some lessons have taken me longer than others to grasp, but I would like to think I’m always capable of learning. It’s the only way to grow, to get better, to make more money. So allow me to present my lessons as resolutions, as the things I want to make sure I’m doing in 2026.
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Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
I do plenty of speculating on Magic. Mostly I stick to cards, and I do well on figuring out themes ahead of time too. But today, I want to get more and more out there with some things that could happen with Magic, and I’ll rank them in order from least likely to most likely.
Please feel free to chime in with your takes, in the comments, on social media, or in the ProTrader Discord server.
For each of these scorchingly hot takes, I’ll add a percent that’s pure guesswork. Note that if they announce these things during 2025, I’m gonna call that a win.
Wizards overhauls the Standard format – With seven sets coming in 2026, even with not all of them being Standard-legal, the amount of cards in the pool has never been higher, and Wizards will have to do another round of bans to address a Vivi-like takeover of the format. (Should be a 100% chance of a Standard ban in 2026!) It’s a damn near impossible balance that they have to strike, and because Hasbro needs every bit of profit, and the stock market is set to pursue *only* growth, they cannot hire the testing staff needed to maintain that balance. If Wizards was its own company they could reinvest into themselves (more on this later) but all of the Magic profit goes into propping up niche Monopoly sets and whatever else Hasbro messes about with.
So I think in 2026, there’s a tiny chance that Wizards does something extreme to Standard. Could be killing it outright, or saying ‘last three sets only’ or some such change. Something has to give. You cannot do all three of these things: underfund your testing staff, design cards powerful enough to move the needle for Constructed and Commander, and avoid ban-level mistakes. The cheapest thing to do is change the context, and I think they might just give that a try. Just a 10% chance though.
Secret Lair Masters – A favorite topic of James on MTG Fast Finance, he’s right that Wizards won’t be able to resist the lure of Secret Lair reprints. There’s currently more than 2300 cards, including all the basics, and that’s enough cards for a Mystery Booster level of set that uses some ungodly number of cards and keeps everything relatively rare. It would sell like mad, and could be priced super high. I didn’t think they would ever actually do this, but I’ve come around. It’s too easy and too profitable not to get done eventually, and I’d put this at around 20% to occur.
Commander Unbannings – I think that they put two big things into an announcement in 2026: First, Commander Masters 3 will be put on the schedule for 2027. And to goose the prices of the packs, they announce that some cards will be unbanned in Commander and put into that set. Jeweled Lotus is the prime contender here, as it was the headliner for the first two CMM sets, but it could be several of the currently banned cards. (I own four borderless foils, just for the record, and I might be talking myself into more as we speak.) It’s been a while since our last Commander-focused set, so I put this announcement at 40% for 2026.
We will get less Secret Lairs in 2026 than we did in 2025, and they will cost more. – Our wallets took a beating this year, as 2025 had a record number of individual Lairs: 81 offered up by my count. (If I’m wrong, do let me know.) I count 60 or less for every other year we’ve been doing this, and I think the only reason they do less lairs in 2026 is they goose the price up to $40/$50 and also offer more of the raised/confetti/surge foiling that they have given us. Seven main sets is just incredible, but SLs are pure money for Wizards, even if it doesn’t sell out immediately. They might not slow down the spigot, but this would be a profitable thing for them to do. I put this at 60% chance of happening.
No set pulls a Final Fantasy on us – Now I’m not saying that UB sets don’t get expensive. I’m saying that no set takes off like a rocketship within weeks of its release. Final Fantasy is a triumph of a set on just about every axis. It also pulled in collectors from across the globe and offers nostalgia and crossover appeal. Unfortunately, it also brought in people who were just looking to buy at MSRP and resell immediately for triple the price, something no other Magic set has ever done. Plenty of sets will get you a big return, but you have to be willing to hold for a while, and know which things are worth holding. We saw what the market and what the public did when Spider-Man was instantly overpriced and then cheapened as time went on. Even the presence of two hyper-rare variant Soul Stones can’t keep the Collector Booster boxes high in price (yet). Avatar is behaving like most Magic sets, with the price being steady while it’s being opened and ought to start rising in price once we’re into Lorwyn 2. My estimate is that this is 75% likely to happen.
Modern gets all the attention, Pioneer stays unloved – Wizards doesn’t have enough big paper events. They need to fund it themselves, or at least give some real support in the form of expensive promos. The reinvestment should be happening, Secret Lairs ought to be funding a new GP series, and we know Wizards is capable of producing high-end streaming content for the Pro Tours. Imagine that, but done once a month, or every two weeks! We could have all sorts of new decks and new attention, but the profit has to go to shareholders, not expansion. As a result, Wizards is going to go with the events that already attract a lot of attention, and that’s been Modern for them lately. The lack of high-level Pioneer means people don’t play it as prep for big events, and that continues the circle. 90% chance this continues.
Wizards continues to underfund judges and the paper infrastructure – They know what they could do, but don’t do it. Wizards, almost from the beginning, recognized that they didn’t want to pay judges and that if they did pay judges, then Wizards was responsible for rulings (and potential lawsuits) as well as every right that an employee has. It’s expensive. So Wizards did the cheap thing, and made judge foils, allowing judges to sell those cards and at least pay for the travel expenses. Mostly. Then came a couple years of nebulousness, followed by the Judge Academy, and now the Judge Foundry. Big Magic events require personnel that are grown over time, that need oversight and careful training in the rules, logistics, and pitfalls that can come from large-scale or high-level events.
Why on earth is a billion-dollar brand relying on an outside, community-driven organization to provide the key personnel needed for in-person play? Money. Wizards doesn’t want to spend it, or Hasbro won’t let them, and it doesn’t matter. There is so much profit that could be used to grow the game even further, but it is 100% that Wizards will keep relying on people who love the game to be the linchpin of in-person play. It is a travesty that Wizards cheaps out on this. They will keep hoping that Star City, NRG, Laughing Dragon and other outside companies will do just enough to let people play in person, when we know what Wizards could be doing.
I hope your holidays are all you want them to be, and thanks for reading in 2025!
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
I don’t buy a lot of singles during most years, and 2025 was no exception. Today, I want to go over the singles I did buy for spec purposes, the price I got in at, my thought process, and what they’ve done so far.
If you’d like a comprehensive review of all my picks from MTG Fast Finance, tune in for that podcast episode, coming after the first of the year. This list of purchases is just me, though I know I’ve mentioned these cards in articles, or Discord posts, or in other areas. Generally speaking, I don’t like to do a lot of buying of the things I suggest as specs, because in a lot of cases, it’s going to directly result in me selling my early buys to people who listen to my advice, and the self-dealing would be rampant.
So let’s go over the singles I thought were worth the investment.
I do want to note that I’m only focusing on singles here. I’m skipping where the majority of my money went this year: sealed product via MTGPrice Group Buys and Secret Lairs on release day. If you’re a ProTrader, you get access to some fantastic group buy pricing, and I’d strongly suggest you sign up. I’ve also been able to do well with getting SL drops early and reselling them for good profits, but those aren’t what I want to focus on today.
So here’s my picks, in order. I’ve included the tax I paid (10%, ouch) and the shipping in my per-card cost.
February 2: 29x Foil Borderless Rooftop Storm, $3.50 each
This was allllllll the way back at the start of the year, when the Innistrad Remastered set came out and we also got a fresh batch of Zombie goodness, mostly focused on Hashaton. Rooftop Storm is one of the most busted Kindred cards around, and this was available at a surprisingly low price. That price went up while Zombies were getting all the attention, but even though INR had a sort of truncated print run, there’s still a whole lot of copies out there and the price has trailed downwards, with NM foils being at about the same price as when I bought in.
February 11: 3x Borderless Foil Jeweled Lotus, $80 each
Not long after the Wizards takeover of the Commander format, there was a stream with one of the designers and they said they’d be revisiting the Banned List. This triggered a frenzy of buying, and I wasn’t immune. I actually managed to resell one of the four I bought for $160, but I haven’t factored that into the costs/card. The graph tells a lovely story:
I’m still a believer in the card getting unbanned eventually, because it’s got such powerful applications in a format that wants access to those sorts of cards. If there’s ever an official split between ‘regular’ EDH and cEDH, this would be one of the main benefactors. The price is about $20 higher than my buy-in, but when it’s unbanned, this could easily hit $200. Biggest question would be if the card gets a reprint around the time of the announcement. You can make the case that Dockside has Cube and Legacy/Vintage applications (plus sweet Avatar association) but reprinting Jeweled Lotus would be a declaration that it’s coming back.
I also want to note that there’s no Commander-themed set currently on the agenda for 2026. If there was a Commander Legends 3 coming up, that would be a different case entirely.
April 15: 2x Marsh Flats, 2x Scalding Tarn, all Dragonscale Foil Borderless, $250 each
Now I do want to note that I got these as trade-ins at a local event, so I didn’t lay down a grand in cash for them. I did give up a lot to get them, and I could have put those trades towards any number of other things, and goodness do I wish I had. (I also sent in a lot of trade-ins for a set of Dragonscale lands for my Dragon deck, argh!) I justified these purchases by thinking that a) Dragons are eternally popular, b) they will complete the set, and when they do, the first batch will get pricey and c) it took 500 Collector Boosters to get one specific Dragonscale fetchland. Sadly, none of this has panned out yet. Tarns are down more than $50 from my price, and Marsh Flats can be had for nearly $100 less. This might be one of my worst specs (and MTG Fast Finance picks) ever. It also didn’t help that right after Tarkir:Dragonstorm we went into Final Fantasy hype, and that sucked up ALL the money.
April 25: Rainbow Foil Blasphemous Act (Deadpool) x22, $5.50 each
A Dump Week special, this was the perfect call at the perfect time, but there’s an anvil coming in to smash it like it’s a cartoon coyote. Blasphemous Act is a great card, gets a lot of precon printings and at the time, only the second special frame version of the card. The price stayed consistent in this range until October, when the Spider-Man SL added a newspaper version and right after that, the Avatar bonus sheet added another. Currently this can be had for about $4 shipped, but with the glut available, I’m just going to have to be very very patient. Or hope that the Deadpool version takes off with the new Marvel cards this summer.
July 23: LP Foil Turntimber Ranger x23, $1.50 each
When the promo Katara was previewed, and we saw that Allies were back on the menu, I didn’t follow the hype of the obvious stuff like Sea Gate Loremaster, I went for two vendors who had big stacks of this LP foil and figured all the rare Zendikar Allies would see a bump. I was sort of right, as LP foils are up to $4 with shipping, but I’m selling them woefully slowly and I would love to buylist these out at $3, but I’d settle for $2 and move on.
August 5: Rainbow Foil JPN Heroic Intervention (Aerith’s Curaga Magic) x14, $8 each
This is a case where it looks like I should be despondent, but really, the plan is working. This was a Dump Week call, and live on cast James and I were talking about the FIN SLs in Dump Week, Heroic came up as a $20 foil but the JPN copies were less than half that. So I bought more than a few and brought them to eBay, where non-English sells much easier than on TCGPlayer, and I’m moving copies comfortably at $16 with free shipping, making a tidy profit every couple weeks. Considering the mega-whammy that Heroic has gotten recently, with SPM and TLA bonus sheet copies arriving, and the news that there will be three more with Marvel Super Heroes this summer, getting in cheap with iconic characters/art and going to the other site to sell is working out nicely.
August 8: Double Rainbow Foil Tendershoot Dryad x8, $12 each
Another Dump Week spec, with this being a super sweet version of a card in a ton of Commander decks and only gettable if you bought the sealed SL deck for $200. I thought the timing was right, but it turned out to be early, as Black Friday this was bought up for under $10 and now it’s at $11. I don’t feel bad, this will get there, it’s too pretty and too rare not to.
September 28: Foil Corruption of Towashi x106, $0.14 each
This is a play I made to clean out one vendor of a foil uncommon that could jump to $1 or $2 with the sheer number of transforming creatures getting made, but especially the Lorwyn Eclipsed cards that are flipping back and forth. This might not work out, but I spent just under $15 total, so it’s a fun little gamble.
December 4: The Stars Gaze Back nonfoil SL x2, $40 each and Rainbow Foil Flamekin Harbinger x6, $8 each
Pretty straightforward here: This was a convention SLD, so there’s not a lot, and we’re about to get a 5-color Elemental Commander deck. I’m debating on reselling the Harbingers now, as there’s only 10 foil copies available under $20 on TCG, but with the holiday I tend to turn off my inventory while I visit family, so logistics are going to have me wait a couple weeks before I move what I’ve got.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
Secret Lairs have been one of the most profitable parts of Magic finance this year. The combination of certain reprints and unique cards, plus the system for giving them out, has been ripe for big markups and fast gains.
However, not everything Secret Lair has been equally profitable, and there are also examples where the psychology (or foolishness) really come into play. For more than a few Lairs, it’s not about the cards, but the item itself, the collectability. So let’s get into some examples, and see where we can gain some insights for future drops.
I’ve written before about what we want from a Secret Lair, but there have proven to be some additional layers. The biggest one, and the one that we can’t effectively plan for, is the quantity printed/does the Lair sell out. There’s some folks who can extract a number from the Secret Lair site and figure out when the Low Stock notice goes up, but that’s not always reliable info and even knowing the number doesn’t guarantee that a lower number sells out.
The recent Playstation drop has some great examples of the two ways a Lair can go. Of the seven drops, three of them have sold out. Two sold out the first morning, and Horizon took a couple weeks to drain out completely. The ones that sold out, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima and God of War: Greek, all have impressive jumps in the sealed prices and for the singles, but a lot of the attention on the singles has gone to the mechanically unique cards. The other four drops, though, are languishing on the site, and will likely be available for some time to come.
Interestingly, during Dump Week for this drop, you could get some deals. The cheapest copy of God of War: Norse, which didn’t sell out and is still on the site for $50, sold a lot of copies for under $45 and some even just above $40. Now there could have been high shipping costs added on, that’s a game people like to play, but it also reflects that folks likely bought bundles and were dumping the ones that had the lowest prices.
For these more recent Lairs, the singles are keeping up with the sealed prices, but there’s more than a few Lairs where the prices just do not add up, and you should always take a beat and check on that when you want a whole Lair. Case in point is Stranger Things, which thanks to Netflix is having a bump in the number of Lairs sold, but let’s look at what is going on. The individual foil cards add up to $85, and that includes a $10 foil Clue token. The sealed package is going for $150 right now, and there’s no mystery bonus card goosing the value of sealed Lairs too.
My guess is that it’s collectors at work, people who want to have the entire set and don’t care about paying extra. It’s anyone’s guess if the sealed set will be opened, but as long as folks are buying, does it matter? I sold my last sealed for $120 last month, and with the series finale coming on New Year’s Eve, I’d recommend selling any lingering copies before then. Interest is back up, but this is it. The kids originally put on the cards are now college students!
Mainly, though, we want to pay attention to the Lairs that sell out. That leads to instant profits, and in this era where Heroic Intervention is going to get four printings in a year (Final Fantasy SLD, Spider-Man Bonus, Avatar Bonus, and Marvel Super Heroes x3!) I’m less and less interested in holding special printings for a long time. There’s too much churn, and money to be made, in fast flips, but again, only if you’re accurately picking Secret Lairs. If you buy everything then you’re going to have a lot of product that takes a long time to sell.
One thing that I’m not seeing when it comes to sealed vs. singles is bonus cards making a big difference. The Final Fantasy Lairs have wonderful bonuses in the pitch Elementals, and those Lairs aren’t super juiced. Same thing for Sonic, Spongebob, and others. Heck, even the original serialized, the reverse Viscera Seer, isn’t enough to keep the price of the Phyrexian Praetors drop high.
Another non-factor (and likely a future article) is language. We’ve seen this trend over time, where the Japan Showcase cards in foil and fracture foil command much lower prices than the English versions, but non-English versions of cards are almost all worth less in the modern day, or at least for modern cards. Lairs with two languages, such as Final Fantasy or Hatsune Miku, demonstrate a big gap in what people will pay for the same art but a different language. Final Fantasy Game Over, as an example, has ENG foil sealed at $90 and sealed JPN for $40 on TCGPlayer. That doesn’t include the problem James and I have talked about, where for singles in Japanese you have to choose that filter. These are different listings, and similar prices can be found on eBay as well.
Final Fantasy Lairs have access to the five elementals in both languages, and even those bonus drops have a big price gap too. Bonuses are a nice thing to have, but clearly, people aren’t interested in digging for lottery tickets.
So to wrap it up: Pay attention to the gap between single and sealed Lairs, resell the ones that sold out as fast as you can, and don’t expect bonuses to carry the weight for you.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
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