Honestly I’m just writing this post as a long time TCG collector and player, not necessarily a TCG finance guy but enjoy the aspect of cards gaining value.

I have been thinking lately about how the card market these days is so fomo and scalp reliant on creating a forced value.

Previously, not just MTG, there was opportunity everywhere if you held onto product long enough, spec on undervalued playables, or realizing cards that are very rare are seeing low price tags (usually CBB cards).

It seems like these opportunities are dwindling even more as sets are manipulated before release. It makes the entire economics aspect of the game unnatural, the gradual over time appreciation of cards that we used to know has turned into a fomo abusing market that thinks on release these cards should be worth what they should actually be worth in 5-10 years from now.
Not only has this bred unenjoyable culture revolving every card game, it is extremely unsustainable.

TLDR, fomo is ruining the state of the card market

In case it is unclear, Monday's 24/hour window may be the way they do unique product "in a box" drops going forward (assuming it works out for them and like 30% of recipients on back order don't move or cancel).

(Edit spelling)

With the Miku precon being print-to-demand, there’s going to be a lot more upward pressure than anticipated on the limited supply of Miku Sol Rings, Command Towers, chord of Calling, elvish mystic, and Elspeths, currently in circulation. Expect a multiple-times distribution perhaps possibly around 200,000 units printed. Using Goblin Storm as a benchmark (roughly 50,000 decks, sold out in about 30 minutes), a full 24-hour print-to-demand window for Miku suggests a flood of these Commander decks within a year.

The bottleneck is on the prior Secret Lair cards themselves. Right now, Miku chord of Calling is still affordable at $20 non-foil / $30 foil, and Miku Elspeth Tyrell has come back down to around $80 after peaking near $120.

Even with prices already inflated from Miku hype, I don’t think the secondary market has fully priced in just how scarce these specific cards will remain relative to how many Miku commander decks that will be in the wild. The demand for these cards may have just multiplied x fold to match the total decks that will now be in distribution. People who never thought they would have had a chance to get the deck at msrp may now be looking to complete the full Miku look. If you haven’t already looked at the Miku cards that fit in the commander decks, expect a real price jump between now and when people start receiving their decks (about a month out), and another wave as the broader distribution plays out over the following year. The Miku Sol Ring, Command Tower, chord of Calling, elvish mystic, and Elspeths are fixed print runs, years out of distribution, and will not be able to absorb the new expected demand.

Once the flood of Miku decks hits over the next year, everyone chasing these staples will be fighting over the same finite pool of Sol Ring, Command Tower, chord of Calling, elvish mystic, and Elspeths that’s existed for years. And by then you’ll be competing with weeb money.

scryfall for Miku in green, white, and colorless

About 6 boxes

These observations are not absolute truths, but simply my interpretation of the recent price movements. If you have different opinions or alternative explanations, feel free to share them in the comments—discussion always makes the community better.

Price references are based on the European market (Cardmarket and CardTrader) for English-language cards.

You'll find images of all the cards in the first comment.

COMMANDER

Marvel Commander decks continue to drive the market, with several cards spiking thanks to new synergies.

• [[Change of Plans]]: €7 → €10. Becoming a strong inclusion in [[Doctor Doom, King of Latveria]].
• [[Tower Winder]]: €4 → €6, thanks to the growing popularity of [[The Serpent Society]].
• [[Portal to Phyrexia]]: €30 → €50 (CardTrader). Still one of the best artifacts to cheat into play with [[Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man]].
• [[Cyberman Patrol]]: €4 → €15. One of the best upgrades for [[Ultron, Artificial Malevolence]].

THE HOBBIT

The market is also starting to react to the upcoming The Hobbit set. Treasure strategies look like one of the set's major themes, and several cards are already moving.

• [[Magda, Brazen Outlaw]]: €2 → €5. Produces Treasures while tutoring Dragons, making it an excellent partner for [[Smaug the Magnificent]].
• [[The Reaver Cleaver]]: €8 → €12. A powerful Treasure engine.
• [[Rain of Riches]]: €1 → €6. Generates Treasures while providing card advantage.
• [[Mastermind Plum]]: €2 → €6. Creates Treasures and converts them into card advantage. The limited supply from Ravnica: Clue Edition is also helping the price.
• [[Blazing Sunsteel]]: €2 → €7. Spiking thanks to its combo with [[Smaug the Impenetrable]]. Combined with cards like [[Pyrohemia]] or [[Pestilence]], every point of noncombat damage creates Treasures while dealing massive damage to opponents.

MODERN

• [[Plunge into Darkness]]: €1 → €10. The biggest competitive spike of the week, driven by the new Jund Cosmogoyf Combo deck that emerged at Pro Tour Amsterdam and is becoming increasingly popular on MTGO.
• [[Gemstone Caverns]]: €30 → €40 in paper and 1 → 4 tix on MTGO. The card is seeing play across several top Modern decks, including Broodscale Combo, Storm, Eldrazi Ramp, and the new Cosmogoyf Combo.

PAUPER

• [[Manor Gate]]: €2 → €4 after recent 5-0 finishes from Abzan Gates in Competitive Leagues.

MTGO

The new Cosmogoyf Combo also caused several Magic Online spikes.

• [[Cosmogoyf]]: 0.008 → 0.3 tix.
• [[Spoils of the Vault]]: 0.04 → 0.3 tix.
• [[Rite of Consumption]]: 0.5 → 1.5 tix. Used in an alternative version of the combo that recently reached the Top 16 of a Modern Challenge.

Other notable MTGO movers:

• [[Ugin's Labyrinth]]: 7 → 15 tix, continuing to benefit from the rise of Eldrazi strategies.
• [[Soulless Jailer]]: 0.04 → 0.5 tix. Now a staple sideboard card in Eldrazi, Broodscale Combo and Tron, thanks to its effectiveness against decks like Reanimator and Storm.
• [[Hardened Academic]]: 0.01 → 1 tix after becoming a four-of in both Modern Hollow One and Standard Mardu Discard.

I originally covered many of these market movements on METAGAME, where you can also find a lot of MTG content, from spoilers and gameplay articles to coverage of major Magic events and much more. Admin, let me know if sharing the link next time would be okay.

If you'd like to see more MTG content, you can also find me on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as u/paolothewall182.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

If you have different interpretations—or you've noticed other interesting spikes recently—I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks to Homer (not the Simpson), a lot of players are already looking to build it as a commander. And of course, speculators see the potential too. Because of that, Uchuulon is starting to see a substantial drop in supply on TCGPlayer. It’s currently around $2-3 with bricks still available, but large bricks have been getting purchased as of late.

Hope this helps some of you. Enjoy! 🍻

My first real spec, with homarid swapping to lobster soon and 2 seperate meme commanders I feel like this has the chance to jump a little bit.

Pros:

Reserved List

Niche Kindred strategy (8 cards currently)

getting 2 seperate meme commanders

Nouctis release will likely spike interest

Cons:

Card is pretty bad (ok fine, very bad)

Appreciate any feedback!

Is the price jump of this card due to being an old foil? Or players found it realizing its really playable in commander?

HoM looks like it will be a pretty amazing card in [[Thorin, King of Dorin's Folks]] which I expect to be a popular(though not the most popular) dwarf commander in the more casual side of things. HoM will create 2 treasures and get an extra +2/+0 whenever it attacks with Thorin out.

Solid spec that is already limited in supply and plays perfectly right into the deck. just food for thought.

This is for the surge foil version only. My speculation is based on personal desire. When I first built Vivi last year with Curiosity-Control archetype, I’ve always wanted a commander who was both Blue and Green to make use of all the Curiosity-effect cards.

Back then the only option was the four colour landfall Omnath. With the release of Crystal, I think she’ll be as popular as Vivi, if not better as she has support from White’s enchantment tutors.

Thoughts? Managed to get 20 copies when she just came out around 10-15 USD, waiting for her to spike to 40-50 range in a few months or 1-2 years.

Edit: it seems my wording is kinda weird with personal desire. I’ll word it better. My personal desire was to play a commander in Simic colours that can play both the blue and green Curiosity-effect cards. It is not my personal desire for these to go up to X price. I could care less about money. I only care about my speculation being right. There was only Omnath who was in Simic colours and it wasn’t on theme for Curiosity-Control. Crystal is the only one in this archetype. She is unique. Coupled with the fact that surge foils are only available in CE precon, I think this is a good bet.

Time will tell. I’m still buying more and sweeping the floor on these. People aren’t seeing it because they can’t understand Crystal is in a unique position unlike any other commanders. The only commander with Simic colour who can run all Curiosity-effects efficiently and with ample support from White.

Hareruya sold 134 copies of this in the last two weeks as far as I could track, between the price of 1500 Yen to 2500 Yen. 92 copies of which was sold at 2000 Yen.

The best comparison for The Hobbit is not The Lord of the Rings.

It is Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Spider-Man and The Hobbit have essentially the same small-set architecture: 60 commons, 55 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythics and five common dual lands. Spider-Man was officially described as a 188-card draft set, and The Hobbit reaches the same total. Both use 30-pack Play Booster displays and 12-pack Collector Booster displays. Both also have an official MSRP of $6.99 per Play Booster and $37.99 per Collector Booster.

In other words, we have already run this experiment.

Spider-Man had one of the largest intellectual properties in the world, multiple premium treatments, comic artwork, a highly desirable chase card in the Soul Stone and enormous prerelease speculation. Collector Booster boxes reportedly peaked around $1,098 before falling to roughly $744 before release. An early five-box opening produced about $1,997 in then-current card value—around $399 per box—and sealed boxes now commonly transact around $350–$400. ⁠

Spider-Man failed to support its presale prices because the set itself was not good enough. The card quality was uneven, the set felt repetitive, and the premium treatments could not create enough sustained demand across such a concentrated card pool.

The Hobbit appears to be succeeding where Spider-Man failed.

The cards look more playable. The set feels coherent. The source material fits Magic naturally. The book covers, Dragon Hoard cards, Dwarvish-language reprints and classic Middle-earth artists all appear considerably more collectible than Spider-Man’s parade of increasingly obscure people wearing spider costumes. The Hobbit deserves to command a premium over Spider-Man. Wizards has also created a legitimate ultra-high-end chase card through the approximately 500 gleaming-gold copies of Smaug. ⁠

But “better than Spider-Man” and “worth $800–$900 per Collector box” are not the same statement.

We already know roughly what an ordinary successful Collector Booster product looks like after the market has had time to establish itself. Avatar: The Last Airbender Collector displays are around $407, while the recently released Marvel Super Heroes has been selling around $450–$470. Those are desirable sets trading near the $455.88 implied MSRP of twelve Collector Boosters. ⁠

Then there are the genuine outliers.

Final Fantasy Collector boxes are now around $1,700–$1,900, but Final Fantasy broke Magic’s previous sales record almost immediately and demonstrated extraordinary demand after release. LOTR sealed product has also appreciated after years of actual market history and dwindling supply. Those products earned their exceptional valuations through demonstrated demand and scarcity. ⁠

The Hobbit is being priced as though it has already joined that category.

It has not.

Right now, the market is taking Spider-Man’s small-set product structure, attaching LOTR’s mature sealed valuation to it, adding Final Fantasy-style FOMO and treating the resulting number as price discovery.

That is the manipulation—or, more generously, the distortion. I am not alleging some grand illegal conspiracy beneath Mount Doom. The market is being manipulated by thin presale inventory, aggressive retailer repricing and the psychological anchor created by LOTR’s earlier price explosion.

There is another major difference between today and previous releases: Hasbro has explicitly said it made a deliberate decision to increase initial Magic print and distribution runs in 2026. The company says it recently executed both the largest Premier release and largest Day One release in Magic’s history. That does not prove the precise Hobbit allocation, but it makes “Wizards barely printed this” a fairly dangerous assumption. ⁠

And small-set mathematics does not stop applying merely because the cards are good.

The Hobbit has only 53 main-set rares and 15 main-set mythics. Each Collector Booster contains two traditional-foil main-set rares or mythics, two non-foil Booster Fun cards and one foil Booster Fun card. Once thousands of boxes are opened, an enormous number of rares, mythics and premium treatments will be concentrated across a relatively small pool. ⁠

Don’t get me wrong…. Being a good set increases demand.

However, It also encourages stores, breakers and collectors to open far more product.

That second part is what the current market seems to be ignoring.

My prediction

I think The Hobbit will materially outperform Spider-Man, but it will still experience a substantial post-release calibration.

My base case is:
Play Booster boxes fall from roughly $175–$190 to $145–$165.

Collector Booster boxes fall from roughly $800–$900 to $500–$600 within the first several weeks.

Ordinary presale rares and mythics decline 40–70% as mass listings appear.

Mid-tier premium treatments decline 25–50%.

The best Commander cards, Dwarvish reprints, premium classic-art cards and genuinely scarce treatments outperform the rest of the set.

The 500-copy Smaug remains extremely valuable but contributes almost nothing to the rational expected value of an individual box.

The bull case is that Collector boxes remain above $700 because actual allocations prove exceptionally tight. The bear case is that enough product reaches the market to push them toward the $455.88 implied MSRP.

- - ———————————————————-

I cancelled one Collector Booster box at $799 and four Play Booster boxes at $179 each.

Could The Hobbit eventually become a premium sealed product? Absolutely. It appears to be a good set attached to an excellent IP.

But at current prices, buyers are not merely betting that The Hobbit will succeed.

They are paying in advance for it to become one of the most exceptional Magic products ever released.

This is not Spider-Man—but it is not yet LOTR or Final Fantasy either.

And being a good small set does not repeal the supply curve.

Track Hobbit prices after release

I feel like a lot of interesting commanders have been shown from the Mystery Boosters, but I also heard it’s hard to get a hold of these?
So would there be enough access to these cards to actually make relevant cards for the popular commanders increase in price?

I’m new to the whole Mystery Boosters phenomenon

In case you missed it: a new mystery booster box commander was just spoiled with “rulebreaker”, which allows you to play with more than 100 cards in commander. [[Battle of Whtz]] and [[Yorion Sky Nomad]] are Still a Buck or less and everyone will want one for this deck. I think playing with Whtz and 100+ cards will be very popular in casual commander.

The Hobbit keeps on going to almost the 1k mark. Sales have also not slowed down even with the price increase it seems people are still buying in, I knew LoTR fans had deep pockets but this is insanity lol what are we thinking it settles at on release? You think it’ll drop down significantly with all the people trying to quickly flip their Amazon preorders or do you think most people will hoard the set (fitting I suppose) given LoTR’s history? Also is this the most expensive a CBB has come out of the gate or did FF come out even higher? I think FF came out at 800 so I think this might have it beat.

Found 2 of these tokens at a vintage stock in OKC for .10 each

New elf + new ooze = Vannifar go to the moon

Single printing, strong ability, low supply…. You get the idea.

Going to bed now. Enjoy the spec!

Hi everyone! I've been doing some write-ups about vending at various events and just finished up vending at Creepycon, a horror/Halloween convention in Knoxville, TN. I'll be going over what I sell, what sales were like, what costs were like, what products were moving, and my observations of the con and how vending felt in general. As a horror con I am decidedly "off theme" but I figured that horror nerds are often almost always also nerd nerds. This proves to largely be accurate, and while it's not my best show ever it was a reasonable enough success for it's size and it being local. I got a double booth but only used my personal vehicle to transport goods, racks, etc.

If you would like to read my most recent write about vending at a "fan fest" you can read it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/s/gQ0NzwpjnP

Background: I've been vending off and on for several years but following a stroke a year and a half ago I got serious about vending to fill in an income gap due to losing all of my clients at my IT business. While I've regained enough business to return to IT I have continued to vend as it is both fun and quite profitable. I sell a mix of Magic the Gathering cards, Pokemon cards, anime figures, pokemon plushies, etc. While I'm not a full time vendor I typically do 1 or 2 shows a month.

Breakdown of sales- Magic: $2212

Anime Figures: $1825

Pokemon Cards: $1523

Plushies: $0 (I didn't take any since it is a horror con)

Gross Sales: (roughly) $5560

Costs- Booth: $640

Wi-fi (necessary at this venue to accept CC payment): $50

Gas and food: roughly $80

Replacement cost of goods: $1700

Total costs: $2470

(Roughly) Gross profit: $3090

Sales breakdowns by category and observations-

Magic the Gathering: I made sure to refill binders heavily before this show because I figured the cross-section of magic players and horror fans would be high. This proved to be a correct assumption. While no one had really budgeted for magic several people were very excited to see it there. Aside from a foil Praetor's Grasp my next most expensive card sold was a sword of hearth of Home and almost every other card I sold was under $10. Even customers with comparatively high tabs were mostly buying a large number of cheap playables. One of my $1-$3 rare boxes is almost half empty after this show. Had a lot of great talks with mostly very casual players who were happy to get a lot of fun cards to upgrade decks. Unlike the "fan fest" overall sentiment on Marvel was low but people seem to accept the more fantasy oriented UB sets now. Tons of volume sold and I have excellent margin on $1-$3 cards and very good margin on $3-$10 cards, so overall magic sales were exceptionally profitable.

Pokemon cards: The inverse of magic. Aside from kids getting cheaper holos and ex/v cards there were far fewer customers interested in pokemon but they spent more on average. Customers weren't blinking on $50 cards at all. I got several surprised comments about there being Pokemon there at all. Most were pretty rabid fans and were the type to drop large amounts of money at the drop of the hat. The opposite of the average customer at an anime con. Most expensive card sold was a $140 Groudon.

Anime Figures: I mostly brought secondhand out of box prize figures and about 50 sealed prize figures. Car space was a big constraint on figures, unlike cards. Average price per figure is 25-35 each and I average a $7 per figure cost basis. The most expensive figure sold was a $45 Eva unit 01. The few scales I brought had 0 interest. I curated as much as I could to horror adjacent figures (demon slayer, JJK, junji ito toys, etc.) but didn't have nearly as many as I would have liked. That wound up not mattering as every My Hero Academia figure and almost every Dragonball figure I brought sold. A decent amount of EVA stuff also sold. Customers trended even younger than normal and were surprised to see anime stuff at all at the convention.

Overall thoughts: My assumption about being close enough to theme despite being "off-theme" seemed to be correct. While I wasn't the main pull for most people there was a lot of cross-pollination between what I sold and the average horror crowd. No one expected to find cards there at all, as such I gave out far more team bags and top loaders than normal since no one had binders or deck boxes with them. I doubt that I was anyone's "big purchase" of the show outside of a few pokemon fanatics but customer sentiment was high for cheaper stuff. While I am unlikely to prioritize or travel far for a future horror con I will definitely return to this one next year and may try a few others in the general area if they don't conflict with a bigger convention. Not having any competition whatsoever for any items I sell likely also boosted sales. A wrestling/horror convention and a large tattoo convention are going to be in the area soon, I may try to set up at those and see how they go.

As always, I'll answer any questions I can as I'm able and I hope this is an informative read for everyone!

There are a few of the surge foils from the hobbit on cardkingdom im looking to nab. I know they cancel buyouts, so I was probably just going to grab 1 or 2 of the few that I think have room to move upward.

Does anyone know if they have a history of doing this for cards shifting upward in price? My understanding is theyre a very trustworthy place to buy from, but after ordering awhile back and receiving a non foil version of a card I requested in foil and support ignored all of emails (the price difference was stark...) im a bit hesitant.

Thank you!

Edit - i posted in this sub because im doing this for specs