There’s a case to be made that in Magic finance, you should never sell. We are entering a new level of collectability, where Lord of the Rings Collector Booster boxes are reaching heights never before thought of, leaving us to wonder ‘why did we sell out and take 200% profits?’ After all, if you bought Bitcoin at a dollar each and sold at $100, you made a ton, but then you feel like an idiot when it hit $100,000 per. Magic isn’t there yet, but with some recent growth, the analogy is apt.

I sympathize with you on feeling like we must hoard everything, a dragon sitting atop a mountain of gold, reluctant to let go of even a coin, for it is ours and it is precious. However, down that path leads not just madness, but missing out on value, and then you get to feel bad in a whole new way.

So today, I want to go over how we differentiate between a spike we sell into and when we resist, how to plan, and a method that both takes your profits and saves some for future value.

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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.

A while back, there was a contest with the Secret Lair website, to give a definitive answer of which is better: dogs or cats. Cats won, and now we get a Secret Lair focused on cats. There were a lot of ways this drop could have gone, with generic cute cats, terrifying jungle predators, or prehistoric sabertooth tigers. Instead, we got a couple of IP from generations ago, and some interesting card choices. Let’s talk about each of the eight drops and what’s worth it.

All of these drops are at $30 for the nonfoils and $40 for the foils. I expect that the shift for all Lairs to start at $40/$50 to happen in the not-too-distant future, but it’s nice that these are relatively cheap for now.

For each drop, I’ve listed the EDHREC number, and the reasonable price for a premium version, discounting stuff like Artist Proofs, 7th edition foils, or serialized cards. Please remember that EDHREC’s inclusion rate is biased towards cards that are in preconstructed decks, from the number of folks who upload a deck with a small handful of changes. It’s good data, but not perfect data, since so many players don’t bother to upload their decks. 

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Rin and Seri, Inseparable	86,000	$50
Orim’s Chant	43,000	$40
Ponder	415,000	$12
Beast Within	388,000	$5
Sol Ring	1,300,000	Too many

I have issues with the choice of Garfield for Magic cards. It’s true he’s a cat, and that’s the theme, but this is a choice that reads old above all else. The list of famous cats is not a huge one, especially when you account for the popularity of the IP and therefore the price. Could this have been a Hello Kitty drop? Sure, but WotC likely wasn’t willing to pony up for that. Same with Lion King/Disney or Puss in Boots/ Dreamworks sort of thing. We could have gotten some Internet meme cats, I suppose.

Garfield is recognizable, and likely wasn’t too pricey to license, so that’s what we’ve got. The Rin and Seri is the best card price-wise, since the double-sided and the Lisa Frank versions are both in the $50 range, and the card is remarkably popular as a Commander, just outside the top 20 of the last two years. The other four cards will all end up in the $5-$10 range, so this Lair is likely a break-even and slow to gain over time. 

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Swords to Plowshares	1,020,000	~$150–300
Counterspell	670,000	~$150–300
Dark Ritual	360,000	~$200–500
Earthquake	52,000	~$150–400
Fog	41,000	~$100–250

Top marks for the Richard Garfield meme crossover here, but this is a thoroughly lame drop. I listed the wide range of prices for versions including Alpha, but the inclusion numbers are not good for Fog and Quake, even if these are the first special frames for either of these cards. We’ve got so so many versions of these OG cards that this version just won’t break through. Pass.

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
It That Betrays	115,000	$60
Maddening Cacophony	77,000	$20
Maddening Hex	49,000	$7
Hunter’s Insight	67,000	$1.50
Molten Collapse	24,000	$1

The value is here. The Eldrazi has never had a special frame, though it’s got a Secret Lair version with the full frame. Cacophony should hold at $10+, and the rest are leftovers. If you want to wait and get only the singles in Dump Week, I understand, and if you want to nab the Lairs and get foil full-art copies at $40, I am with you. I’m leaning towards Dump Week, but both are defensible positions.

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Court of Grace	87,800	$15
Reverent Mantra	3,820	$8
Windborn Muse	71,000	$12
Queen Marchesa	74,000	$25
Ruinous Ultimatum	185,000	$10

I think this is a secretly-strong Lair. The cards are rather mid, but Vanessa Stockard has a big following online and if you like sassy black cats (as a ton of people do), this is your jam. I’m planning on getting a few of these, mainly for the art. I’ve bemoaned before when great art gets mediocre cards, and this is another example of the phenomenon. 

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Sheltered by Ghosts	28,000	$8
Spirit of the Hearth	9,500	$6
Witch Enchanter	42,000	$5
Wayfarer’s Bauble	485,000	$20
Boseiju, Who Shelters All	63,000	$20

Boseiju looks like it should anchor this drop, but the best comparison is the neon Secret Lair version from 2022, still all over the place under $20. Bauble just got a full-art version at MagicCon Vegas,, and the rest of these are not popular at all. Neat art, but not really cat-focused and so I feel confident this is a pass. 

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Future Sight	76,000	$25
Time Stretch	73,000	$25
Barrowgoyf	12,000	$15
Throes of Chaos	18,000	$3
Mind’s Eye	132,000	$20

Speaking of properties that read as old, Felix got famous in the pre-sound era of films, then big again in 1958-1961, two seasons on CBS in 1995-1997 and was last seen in a pair of direct-to-video (yes, that’s VHS, that’s how old this character is!) releases, one in 1989 and one in 2004. Suffice to say, if I have issues with the choice of Garfield, then I have a lifetime subscription on order when it comes to using this character on Magic cards.

We just got Time Stretch in a Lair not two months ago, and that nonfoil is still on the SL website. The Mind’s Eye is reprinted in the Marvel Commander decks, and so this Lair has the awful combo of forgotten IP and mediocre cards. I will be buying none of this.

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Sovereign Okinec Ahau	29,000	$10
Trailblazer’s Boots	220,000	$8
Long Goodbye	8,500	$3
Farseek	1,010,000	$12
Prismatic Vista	355,000	$65

Vista is the clear winner here, and I think the Sovereign is going to be surprising. The rest of these are filler, but this is a surefire way to get a foil borderless Prismatic Vista for less than it would cost to get a pack foil from MH3. I like the art, it’s nicely whimsical and visually unique enough, but if Vista were swapped with just about any other land I would care a whole lot less. I’ll try to get some of these.

Card	EDHREC Decks	Premium Version Price
Fell the Mighty	56,000	$4
Aggravated Assault	186,000	$35
Chaos Warp	730,000	$20
Utopia Sprawl	214,000	$12
Aura Shards	177,000	$25

This drop is pretty much what I’d have expected when you tell me ‘Secret Lair of Cats.’ Art showing cats doing cat things, chaotic and playful. The Aura Shards where it’s stealing the Sol Ring is top notch. Assault is a solid anchor for the Lair, plus the good Shards, and this Lair should do well. I’ll add a few of these to my cart too.

We’ve been given the bundle prices too. The All-Foil is $20 off the regular prices, the All Non-Foil is $15 off, and a one of everything saves you a total of $40. Your percentage of discounts runs about 6%-8%, depending on the bundle, but given the quality of the drops, I’m very leery of the bundles as specs.

I think this drop could have been more successful if they had skipped the Garfield and Felix IP completely, and run with housecats as a theme. Cats of Chaos shows what the theme is capable of, and the card quality is good there too. It’s so frustrating when a Superdrop shows both what was possible and also screws that up badly.

We’ve got one drop that shows a black cat. Give me an orange cat themed lair. Give me some internet memes. Show cats being afraid of pickles, of tinfoil, or of them chasing a laser pointer. The Internet is 28% funny cat videos, and we get Felix the Cat!

I get that Wizards doesn’t want to over-juice Lairs these days, letting art and FOMO do a lot of the heavy lifting, but they have gone distinctly mid in the card choices here, since only two of the cards in the whole Drop (Prismatic Vista and Aggravated Assault) is $20+ in the base version.

Overall, this is a drop with some stuff worth getting and some worth skipping. I want to get the Toby drop, mainly for the Vistas, and I like the art of Purr Majesty a whole lot, plus the Cats of Chaos is super solid, so those are on my agenda. I’m leaning towards going for the It That Betrays as a single during Dump Week, as I feel confident I’ll be able to get some of those near $40, preferably less. I might look for the new Rin and Seri that week too, but otherwise, I don’t feel like I have to hurry and get this drop. Three I want to buy, one more target for Dump Week sounds good.

There is a counter-case to be made here, sometimes a Lair doesn’t sell well, they yank it off the site, and then the ones that got picked up resell for a surprising amount. There’s been less of that lately, so I’m less and less worried about that happening. Especially for a drop like this, which uses Garfield and Felix the Cat! I got suckered into buying Ghostbusters Lairs on personal nostalgia, but that’s not here and I’m not buying in this time.

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.

You may or may not have noticed, but the collectibles market has never been more expensive, at least for the high-end stuff. I’m not a professional at anything but Magic, but I have the opportunity to talk to a lot of folks, and the consensus is that we’re in a time period where Magic and other collectibles are definitely riding high.

There’s a lot of reasons for this, and some immediate effects that we need to be aware of, plus some trends we can get on now. 

The big indicator that started all of this for me was the growth in graded, or ‘slabbed’, Magic cards. This is something Magic players have been resistant to for a while, because we want to play with the cards, not just own them. There’s a large contingent of players who want to put their sweet card in a deck, and aren’t scared of shuffling a deck with cards that are each $500 or more. 

Cube enthusiasts are probably the worst about this, and their only rivals are the Legacy/Vintage players who live for the chance to have a paper tournament and use their all-original decks. 

However, the collectors are starting to take over, or at least spend like it. All sorts of stuff is getting rarer, or more ornate, from Lego sets that need a pallet rack to carry or sports cards with signed jersey pieces. There’s people using small-scale CT scanners to see what’s inside of packs, a giant technological leap over scooting the cards in a Revised pack up to the top and holding down the see-through portion.

Ebay’s sold listings for higher-end cards, especially ones that have been graded, have been ticking up higher and higher too. Ben Bateman recently documented his trade at MagicCon Vegas of more than $100,000 worth of cards for a slabbed, serialized copy of The One Ring’s poster foil. This is an outlier, but one worth looking at because it shows the overall trend. Rare cards in Magic, especially if they are rare AND powerful, can be incredibly expensive. 

Let’s do a thought experiment. You have $40,000 and have to spend it on cards. Do you go for a Mint set of the Power 9 from Unlimited, plus some dual lands, or do you snag Golden Chocobo #41 off of eBay? I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather have the Chocobo. The Power 9 are iconic for a section of Magic players, and the rarest of the rare still fetch a lot of money, but the collectors are branching into Magic and there’s more growth that could still come. 

Magic collectibles, at least the ones that come in packs and are still game pieces, are either the Headliner sort, where they are mega-rare but we don’t know precisely how rare, or the serialized, where we’re told that it’s a xxx/500, as in the case of Bitterbloom Bearer or Emeritus of Ideation. Serialized is generally going to mean more expensive, when we look at the recent cards, as the xxx/500 cards are three to four times the price of the non-serialized Sothera, the Supervoid or even the Thanos art of The Soul Stone.

Serialized cards in Magic are trending up over the last couple of years, too. A lot of the Multiverse Legends serialized have more than doubled in the past 18-24 months, depending on the popularity of the card as a Commander. Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice was a $600 card when the set came out, and now there’s two copies on TCGPlayer, both at $2000+. I got in on some of the Dragons that are serialized a couple years ago, and they are up 50-500%. 

Not all serialized have grown, though. A whole lot of the lesser-played Multiverse Legends haven’t grown, and there’s a lot of relatively cheap Brothers’ War Retro artifacts you could get. 

The big question, though: What should we buy now, to cash in on this trend? 

I think the best target at the moment is the Thanos Soul Stone. We’re about to get The Mind Stone copies in Marvel Super Heroes, and presumably, four more sets as Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet, which thanks to the movies, has been in the zeitgeist since it came out eight years ago. We’ve seen the earlier Mystical Archives go up to match the new ones, we’re neck-deep in assorted Wizard of Barge spikes thanks to the Goblinstorm deck, and I see no reason why the Infinity Stones wouldn’t follow suit.

I know that recommending a card going for $1,000-$1,500 is a big thing, and I haven’t put this pick on the cast. I just think that the completionists among Magic players (of which there are MANY) will want the full set and since the Cosmic foils are six-figure cards, the Thanos versions are the next best thing. You just know that there will be a big bonus for having all six when they print the Gauntlet.

I don’t think we’ll see huge spikes in the regular/regular foil versions of The Soul Stone this summer, but if we’re still doing this in three and a half years, I’ll want to stock up on those.

The other area that holds good growth potential is in the lesser-played serialized from Ravnica Remastered, Brothers’ War Retro, and the Multiverse Legends. More than sixty serialized cards, 500 each, and that meant a lot of serialized entering the market. The issue here is that the serialized cards are visually the same as the non-serialized, which is so lame compared to the Bitterbloom Bearer or the Emeritus. Hopefully Wizards keeps making the serialized cards a special art, too.

My favorite right now is Crypt Ghast serialized, as it’s in a ton of Commander decks but still not way up there, copies available online around $400. If that’s too much, there’s some barrel-scraping you can do, like a Tolsimir Wolfblood under $300, Radha, Coalition Warlord at $250 or a Seal of the Guildpact under $200. We’ve seen other instances where people just want anything from a group of cards but can’t get the best ones and start settling for their price range, and can cause a rising tide to lift all boats. 

Finally, if there’s something you want for personal use, I’d tell you to go ahead and get it. The market is pretty unlikely to get softer for these, so if you can afford it, get it and enjoy it. I can tell you from experience that you’ll look at it with glee and joy. 

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.