Magic’s going through an expansion period, and the dovetailing of multiple factors all at once has led to a development that is exemplified by Collector Boosters: Magic has become both relatively cheap to play AND has never had more expensive cards.
I want to take a look at where prices are in general, where they could go, and what that means for how we get cards: Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, and Secret Lairs.
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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.
Next week, we get the double whammy: eight Secret Lair drops on Monday, and 48 hours later, the Chaos Vault gives us a new booster pack product. That’s a lot of money to be spent, in the middle of Hobbit-mania and between a LOT of other drops.
So let’s talk about what goes on sale and what’s worth buying next week!
For each drop, I’ve listed the EDHREC numbers and tried to list what the other premium versions of a card go for. I like art, and I LOVE small print runs, but the popularity of a card and what its other versions go for tell me what I’m buying.
MAR Borderless ~$2.47; MAR Borderless Foil ~$4.62; SLD Borderless ~$5.73; SLD Borderless Foil ~$6; STA Etched ~$1
I am a big fan of two things in this drop. One, the romance-cover look of these is top-notch, and for my money, what SLD should be about. Two, Grave Pact is a great anchor here. It’s had plenty of printings, and held up very well.
MAT Extended Art ~$5 / Foil ~$13; TLA Eternal Borderless ~$5
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
47.6k
CMM Foil Etched ~$12
Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
149k
OTJ Extended Art ~$64 / Foil ~$89
Same notes here. Love the treatment, and the biggest thing is the fantastic anchor of Bristly Bill. This is also the first special for him. All of these are solid picks, but Bill really shines here. I like the comparison to Toby’s Journey, with the Prismatic Vista, and if Bill ends up with $20 or even $15 copies I’ll grab more at Dump Week.
Anger and Violence are not enough to save this drop for me. I’ve been diligently buying every Marvel Lair in anticipation of selling mega-Marvel sets and now I’m drawing the line. This is mediocre at best and even GV’s pack foil from Onslaught is only $25.
Card Name
EDHREC Count
Special Printings
Ephemerate
273k
MAR Borderless ~$4.50 / Foil ~$8.85; STA Showcase ~$6.90 / Foil ~$17.70; H1R Alt-Art Etched ~$9.40 / Foil ~$10.60; SLD Borderless ~$8 / Foil ~$7.50; STA Mystical Archive ~$28.55 / Foil ~$52; STA Etched ~$16 / $32
Shark Typhoon
73.1k
IKO Extended Art ~$4.45 / Foil ~$5.45; SCH Inverted Foil ~$5.10; SLC Borderless ~$5.95 / Foil ~$6.90
Lightning Bolt
547k
M25 Borderless ~$4.20 / Foil ~$6.10; STA Mystical Archive ~$13.75 / Foil ~$12.35; Japanese STA ~$20 / Foil ~$40+; SLD Borderless versions ~$3–8 / Foil ~$3–14; SLD Street Fighter Foil ~$11; Secret Lair Showdown versions ~$55+
Searing Blaze
3.30k
No non-regular frame printing
Commune with Dinosaurs
11.7k
No non-regular frame printing
Titanic Ultimatum
20.4k
No non-regular frame printing
Another big yawn from me. Bolt and Ephemerate have tons of special versions and this doesn’t even have cute cats/dogs to save it. (sorry, Lockjaw) I don’t plan to buy this one either.
Card Name
EDHREC Count
Special Printings
Felidar Guardian
93.2k
No non-regular frame printing
Starfield of Nyx
71.1k
No non-regular frame printing
Careful Study
58.2k
SLD nonfoil $8/foil $7
Merchant Scroll
61.7k
Judge Gift Foil ~$60
Paradise Mantle
85.8k
Mystery Booster 2 Retro ~$9
I really want to like this, as I’m a big lo-fi beats listener, but as a spec this leaves a lot to be desired. Nothing over 100k decks, which is amazing to me, as I thought Starfield was a MUCH more popular card in decks. I’m going to buy a couple of these for my ‘pretty things’ binder but I know this will linger and not gain quickly.
The star here is kind of hidden in Sage of Hours. There’s combos with this card every couple years, and it’s got the regulars at $10 and the foils pushing $50. Sway is straight-up banned in Commander, so there’s some value that will never materialize. I’m impressed at the 3,000 uploaders who put the deck in there, though. I dig the art, and I’ll grab a copy for personal, but the value is sorta lacking here otherwise.
No non-regular frame printing; regular is $27 and foil $115
Quest for Renewal
46.9k
No non-regular frame printing; regular is $5 and foil $30
Ilharg is one of the cheapest serialized you can buy right now, if you’re in the market for anything with a number on it. This drop has Kibo, who bounced a lot of Monkey/Ape priced at his first printing, but now the hype is gone and this drop has such a mirage covering it. Three cards getting their first special printing, and Dosan has gone 22 years without a reprint at all! Reprint Equity is the phrase, and here it’s being mined to give the illusion of being expensive but none of these cards are going to be expensive. Pass.
Korvold and Animar are two of the top 100 commanders of the last two years, and each have had special versions that have held up over time. Tsabo Tavoc has an Invasion foil over $40 but again, the lack of reprints and the old age are why it’s expensive, not demand.
This drop should be decent but there’s no star here. It’s solid, and should grow slowly over time, but I’m a skip.
For each $199 you spend, you get a copy of this:
The Earth’s Mightiest Signet from the first Marvel drop has held an impressive $30+ price tag, but there’s so so many Command Towers out there that I’m not convinced on this one. It’s really rare for the ‘spend X dollars’ promos to be big scores.
As for the Bundles, Marvel is $20 off, as is the all-foil bundle. The nonfoil Bundle is $15 off, and the mega-bundle is a total of $40 off. A free Lair isn’t terrible, especially when there’s no lands Lair, but there’s so much mediocrity in this Lair I’m okay sans bundles.
I also strongly suspect that there’s a lot of these Lairs printed. We see that with The Hobbit lairs, except for Second Breakfast which sold out in something like 30 minutes. The rest took a lot longer or still didn’t sell out. If they short-printed one of these Lairs, that’s what I need to know above all else and unfortunately, that’s information we just don’t have. Knowing there’s a ton printed, I’m not going to go wild on the drops, as I expect none to sell out super-fast.
So personally, I’m focused on Hipp and True Believers, with a little of Cosmic Chill and Lo-Fi Girl for personal enjoyment.
And if your wallet isn’t exhausted yet, there’s more madness the next goddamn day. Amazingly, there’s no official Magic News post, just a series of stuff released on social media and interviews done.
Secret Lair will be selling booster packs out of the Chaos Vault 24 hours after the Perfectly Normal drop. 121 cards, with common/uncommon/rare/mythic drops, with three versions of each. Regular, dark mode, and color bands. Notably, these are never shiny.
The booster packs are $20, and again, the main thing is how fast they sell out when limited to 12 per account. I strongly suspect there’s a boatload of these printed, and when they don’t instantly sell out, the cards will be available for cheaper than you think.
Magic players have shown us that they don’t like ugly cards. Yes, these are made to look like the Gamma cards from when Richard Garfield was playtesting Magic in 1992, but compared to the modern aesthetic these are pretty ugly. The comparison to Magic’s frenzy for old-border foils comes to mind, and players have demonstrated that ugly cards don’t get nearly the love. Invocation frames, Breaking news, if it’s ugly, it’s literally worth less money.
These are some incredibly swingy packs, and Wizards is selling them for $20 a pop. This isn’t far off what they make selling CBBs to distributors if the MSRP is $38 for a Collector Booster, so I expect they printed a lot for this direct sale.
Again, everything depends on the volume here. If it turns out to be a super-short run, then these could go wild. I’m staying far away, I’m willing to take the risk of missing out and letting my wallet recover. Keep in mind, we’ve got the Masters of the Universe in two weeks, and the Odds and Ends Commander deck coming too. Lots of great places to make money, I’m just not interested in these at all.
As ever, if you want to talk about these ideas or correct some of my points, reach out on social media or the ProTrader Discord, and may your queue times be short!
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.
We’re in a lovely place now with The Hobbit soaking up attention, and we’re about to start getting Reality Fracture promos, plus Secret Lair drops every other week (or more if they wanna get spicy!) taking our money.
But we never want to lose sight of where we’ve been. I’ve established before that generally speaking, 4-6 months is the time you want to wait on a set before buying specs, and handily, we’ve reached that timeframe for both Secrets of Strixhaven and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
So let’s talk about a few of the cards that have gotten to a lovely price, especially compared to their drop rate or usage numbers, and decide what’s worth speculating on.
I’m using EDHREC data, but there’s other databases and they are useful, but not perfect. They all have a preference for preconstructed decks, and they only take into account the most fervent users. Tons and tons of players don’t bother to upload their decks.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Waste Not Bundle Foil ($5, 121k decks on EDHREC) – As someone who loves the Turtles, I really dig this art, but more importantly, this special foil can be had at a fraction of other special foil prices. It’s about half the price of the Enchanted Tales version, and about eight times cheaper than the foil Secret Lair version. If you want those other arts, more power to you, but most folks want a fun foil for cheap and this is all of that at once.
Ninja Pizza regular frame ($4/$18 surge foil, 33k decks) – There’s a pixel art Surge Foil, but that’s more than $70 and not a good spec. Ninja Pizza is just bonkers in the Food decks, and Wizards keeps giving us more and more of those. There’s a whole lot you can do with being able to sac Food instantly for mana, plus getting a free Food each turn. I expect to see these bump up when the next big Food commander shows up. I’d prefer to have the Surge Foil regular frame, but either version should pay off nicely.
Arcade Cabinet ($1/$13 surge foil, 18k decks) – The +1/+1 counter theme is often green, or blue, or white, or Atraxa, but really, this card goes in all of them and is a great deal. A little flicker action really ups your payoffs, and for the price of a Food or a Treasure you can turn one threat into a god. Again, I like the Surge Foil to have a wonderful bump, but at $1, I can see this as a buylist play, sending in a brick when they hit $5.
Trouble in Pairs ($13/$18, 206k decks) – This is your first chance to get a foil version, and as a happy coincidence, it’s several bucks cheaper than the nonfoils. There’s a case to be made for either version, but Trouble in Pairs is just amazing and you should play it in just about every deck you can. Get either version, get a few spares for your future self, and thank me later.
All will be One ($12/$15, 109k decks) – This version isn’t quite half the price of the regular frame from ONE but it’s a good deal cheaper and a card that combos off if you just look at it funny. It’s also a really cool piece of comic art that fits what happens, and that always helps the long-term prospects.
Fracture Foils – The prices on these have come down to their lowest points, and while they might go a little lower, if you’ve been thinking about getting one, now is the time. I like Krang, Utrom Warlord a lot, as a wonderful artifact creature deck topper, but all of them have gotten to reasonable levels after starting out absurdly high.
Secrets of Strixhaven
Silver Scroll Reprieve ($25, 210k decks) – Reprieve has had more than one printing since its original, and this is an awesome version available at $10 less than when it started. I’m big on the Silver Scroll foils long term, as these are super-gorgeous to hold and importantly, they look just as good in a sleeve. I really like the number of decks that want this card, and there’s no question this is the best version to be had.
Silver Scroll Crop Rotation ($128, 440k decks) – Tons of Commander appeal, anime art, low drop rate, great spec. James picked it on cast as a buy when it gets down to $100, but I don’t think it’ll go much lower than it has gotten to now. If you want it, get it, and these will pay you off nicely in a while.
All three of these are the best at what they do. The blue and black ones are good too, but these three have much better inclusion rates. We wouldn’t pay seven mana to get one thing back, but we might for two permanents, and at three the deal is really getting good. These effects stack nicely over time, and require repeated counterspells from your opponents if they want to stop you from getting free stuff. I like the Showcase versions best by far, and the free repeats will feel great.
Bonus:
MSC Surge Foil double-check lands (Scorched Geyser and friends) in Surge Foil for under a dollar: This was a land in SOS precons first, and now we’ve gotten a foil version in the MSH Collector decks. Amazingly, these can be had for under a dollar all over TCGPlayer, and as a fetchable dual land that has a pretty basic requirement, these should go up, at least the premium version. There’s oodles of good duals out these, but getting a very good one, and the only foil version comes from highly expensive decks. Winner all around!
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.
On Monday, a Secret Lair Commander deck drops. Normally, this doesn’t merit a whole article, as the decks have all generally been winners if you’re able to buy them in the less-than-60 minutes they are available. They have a great theme, gorgeous foils, and represent a big win if you get it and seething hatred if you’re not able to.
Because, of course, most of the folks who do get one decide to resell it for a substantial profit. You can argue about bots and ethics all you like, but I’m here to talk about the way Wizards has decided to tackle this beast: by making people wait nearly a year.
Let’s talk about why this is happening now, what it signifies, and what sorts of profits we might expect.
So back in May, the Goblin Storm deck, with lots of Wizard of Barge art, went on sale and was gone in something like 30 minutes. There was an outcry from folks who didn’t want to pay to buy the deck from resellers, and most especially, the artist behind the cards was upset, with this post on social media:
This is understandable. A lot of work and care went into this, and they’ve put a lot into a sweet brand with Goblins, and want the maximum number of people to enjoy the deck.
But it sold out super fast, it’s now going for about three times the list price of $150, and Wizards made their money.
We need to acknowledge that Wizards of the Coast has one of the greatest profit margins ever. They pay their staff to design cards, and they pay (grudgingly and with not enough money) artists for art to go on the cards, but their product costs are literally paper and packaging. Secret Lairs especially are incredible generators of profit for the company, with the cost to make a single $30 nonfoil drop likely in the $2-$5 range.
The decks are more expensive and time-consuming to make, and thus cost more. I fully expect the decks to move up to $200 soon, along with an increase to $40/$50 as the base price for new Secret Lair drops. The profits are too tempting, and Magic needs to keep being the only profitable part of Hasbro.
As a result, the forthcoming Hatsune Miku deck has a new twist, something to help ease the pain. I want to let Matthew Hodgins, the director of Secret Lair, say it directly:
“For this release, Secret Lair is introducing a 24-hour order window to help more fans get the deck. Orders placed between Monday, August 10, 2026, 9 a.m. PT and Tuesday, August 11, 2026, 8:59 a.m. PT will be fulfilled. A limited quantity will be available to ship right away, while additional orders placed during the window are expected to ship in May 2027 in North America and June 2027 in the EU and the UK.”
“Secret Lair has a tradition of experimentation, so we’re trying something kind of new here that harkens back to the early, early days of Secret Lair to meet demand where we think it will be highest—on fully playable products. This sale is an experiment (and, yes, a direct response to Goblin Storm) with introducing a 24-hour limited order window on products meant to be playable out of the box. So, this could include things like Commander decks, specialty products like the Secret Lair Dandân Deck, or anything else wild we think of down the line that may have the unique combination of high demand and out-of-the-box playability. If it goes well, we may create a new storefront (kind of like the Chaos Vault) for these types of sales. If we see issues, we may go back to the drawing board. We’ll see how it goes and check in soon.”
We have a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with the second paragraph. They want to give people a chance to buy the deck at MSRP who miss out on the initial window. By this point, there’s optimized processes for getting stuff via the Secret Lair site (if you want to know how ProTraders do it, come join up!) so there’s not a lot of technical ways to help people get copies. The printers are also incredibly booked up, as we know from the Their Magic Is Limitless sale, where people could buy the Lairs for delivery in April 2027. I’m certain Wizards would love to print twice as many Miku decks ahead of time, but there just isn’t time to do that.
So now Wizards is going to delay your purchase for nearly a year, pushing everything back to May 2027. It seems like they won’t charge you, as ProTrader experiences reported that for Their Magic Is Limitless, only orders totaling over $2,000 were immediately charged. That might differ with Miku, just as a disclaimer. This is how it happened for some folks, and Wizards might fiddle with some settings.
We’ll get to profits in a moment, but it needs to be said that Wizards is already feeling the effects of overbooking their printers’ capabilities. My Little Pony Lairs were delayed this summer by three months, and they are promising different arrival dates for the US and EU customers. I fully expect the second wave of Miku decks to be delayed as well, not out of malice, but just the chaos of existence stepping in and stuff happening. A lot can happen between now and May, so that’s why I think the gratification will end up further delayed.
The hilarious part is, my plan and recommendation for the Miku deck remains the same: buy all that you can. If you get some of the early copies, those will profit nicely. If you have to wait, then wait. By the time the second wave arrives, it’ll feel like a new experience all over again. I’m convinced that Wizards is doing this more for the optics than for the actual amount, but perhaps I’m wrong and their profit margins soar. After all, if they charge us now, they are getting an interest-free loan for the better part of a year.
I’m going to be watching the prices of the deck and the singles as time passes, to see what the awareness of a second wave will do to prices. Logically, it would make sense if things stayed cheap in anticipation of that second wave, but Magic players are not the patient type. They want what they want, and the collector urges are incredibly strong. The really hilarious thing to watch will be what the prices are after the second wave hits, and we know no more is coming. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the decks hit their highest price right after those are in hand.
So good luck on Monday, and know that your profits will be strong now and also strong when the encore arrives.
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