I’ve been making a lot of posts lately, mainly in the ProTrader Discord, that come down to one thing: Final Fantasy was the harbinger of change. There is a before and there is an after, and just as we needed to adapt in COVID times, and adapt post-pandemic, now we need to look at what is happening with an impartial eye.
We’re not here to talk about the morality of the new reign, or the unfairness, or anything else that is as useful as an ‘old man shakes fist at cloud’ meme. We’re being clear and concise about what’s happening now in Magic and what it means going forward.
Before we go too deep, let’s take a beat and review a little history, so we can see where we are at.
We have to start with Universes Beyond: The Lord of the Rings. This set dropped in June of 2023, and was known to have the serialized Rings, a Realms and Relics subset, and also a special Holiday release with its own Showcase art, the 60’s poster treatment, and even more serialized cards.
This was the first true Universes Beyond full set, as before, we’d only gotten little glimpses of this world. A Secret Lair, a subset of cards like Transformers done inside of a regular set, that was as far as we had gone.
LOTR was the first time that Magic players intersected with another big fandom, and since Magic’s appeal has generally been as a game, not as its own lore, the ‘collector’ aspect of the game kicked in hard. We had the 1/1 The One Ring sell for $2 million US, a record which was eclipsed last May by a 10.0 Pristine Alpha Black Lotus that went for $3 million.
Lord of the Rings as a set, was handled almost perfectly. The biggest flaw was that the surge foil Realms and Relics went from super-mega-rare in the original Collector Boosters and then they were close to 10x easier to pull in the Holiday edition. That’s the only blemish here. And ever since those Holiday packs came out in late 2023, they’ve done nothing but go up in price. They were $350/box on release, then by the following July they were pushing $500. At one year old, in late 2024, they’d broken past the $1000 mark, and thanks in part to a lot of sales at Black Friday, it was $1500 at the start of 2025. Currently, the cost for a Holiday edition box is $2400, and the regular LOTR is at a grand.
The next inkling we had of things being different was last November, when the Marvel Secret Lairs dropped, and had mechanically unique cards in them, and good ones at that. The Secret Lair site went down and was back up and then restarted, with some server patches that ravenous fans got through. We’d seen popular things–we’d never crashed the whole damn endeavor.
And that leads us to a team–up that seemed wildly unlikely. Final Fantasy already has a whole card game, with lots of expansions and its own market! The nostalgia was too strong, and the FF collecting whales went for the Surge foils first, new depictions of beloved characters. Those went up in price fast, and the Collector Boosters they came from followed suit, buoyed by the astronomical prices of the Neon Chocobos.
Collector Booster boxes for Final Fantasy had an MSRP of $450, which is the same as a Modern Horizons set. This stayed consistent for a bit but as soon as the collectors kicked in, the prices started going up and they did not stop. When individuals were able to sell their own boxes, the supply dipped a little and then started to climb. We’re at $1400 and past lots of predictions, but here’s the real issue: Anyone who sold a box at close to MSRP was losing out on something like 100% profit, and now anyone who could buy at MSRP would be able to resell for mega profits.
As a result, Magic has attracted the attention of the networks of folks who are trained to buy MSRP on sight and expect immediate profits. Their business model is about speed, exploiting botnets and other programs that find available inventory and buy it instantly. Pokemon and sneakers are the most common uses here, but concerts have this problem too. And let’s face it: We would buy Final Fantasy at MSRP instantly too.
Wizards has noticed the changes in behavior too, and Collector Booster boxes for the next Universes Beyond sets (Spider-Man and Avatar: the Last Airbender) are starting out at much higher prices, to the dismay of folks who want to get those packs for cheaper.
So where are we now?
First of all, the prices of the regular singles are not heavily impacted yet. Nonfoils in the regular frame for FIN and EOE both remain in the range of where other sets were at this point, with perhaps the exception of Starting Town, which spiked a lot earlier than I expected. While the special versions are getting crazy expensive, the regulars are fine.
Please remember that the panic currently overtaking folks is all about special shiny versions. Regulars, and regular foils, are still not difficult to find.
Also, we need to keep in mind that Wizards wants the profit too. Once the distributor gets the product, Wizards doesn’t make any more money. So they are going to set that price higher whenever they think the market will bear it. Up to this point, that’s meant the Horizons sets or reprint sets stuffed with value. Now, though, we’re seeing some reaction from them and they are making more money per box.
The scary thing is, there’s nothing in the future that should slow this down. The ‘regular’ Magic sets might be a blip, but the presence of an Infinity Gauntlet means big-time Marvel crossovers. We’re already seeing Spider-Man variants with classic comic book covers, and those sorts of collectibles have lots of crossover appeal.
Finally, the bots and such should be a fixture of life online for the foreseeable future. As long as there’s profit to be made in being the first to buy out someone who lists an Avatar CBB at $600, there will be scrapers and crawlers flagging and buying faster than humans can click links. This will keep happening until a) technology to block the bots arises or b) there’s no longer profit to be made. I don’t know when (if) either of those things will happen.
The one good thing I can see here is that the folks running bots aren’t looking to do anything but instantly flip. We are seeing some impressive lows for the Final Fantasy SL cards, and I’m looking forward to buying plenty of the recent FIAB promos as well. Even if something sells out online, you’ll usually have chances to get singles at decent prices.
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 a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.