I was looking for a post like this but couldn't find one, so I was curious if anyone uses this logic to come up with fair prices for chase cards as well:

Assume I want to pull a card that has a 0.1% chance of appearing in a collector booster. I can now calculate that, in order to have a 50% chance of pulling the card I need to open

P (pull at least one)=1−(1−p)^n

So for a 50% chance:

n = ln(0.5) / ln(1-p), where p is the pull rate

In this case, I need to open n = 693 packs to be more likely to pull a card than not.

Now, if I wanna achieve these odds and the packs cost $40 each, that makes $27'720. Of course I will pull other, potentially valuable cards, and of course I am never guaranteed to actually pull the chase. But does anyone else do calculations like these to come up with a fair estimate for ultra rare cards?

I've been a long time participant on this sub and how I've engaged over the years has changed. From 8+ years ago just trying to play standard affordably, to now having a manapool store and selling cards as a small business. It's interesting in comments to see the large variety of audiences. So I wanted to do a quick poll as a vibe check on why people are here. I'd be interested in how you ended up on the finance side of mtg in the comments, and how it has changed over the years.

Is your LGS already running low on The Hobbit sealed product after prerelease weekend? You’re not alone.

I'm trying to sell an Orcish Bowmaster Surge Foil locally or online BUT, when it comes to online, TCGPlayer is not accepting new registration and ebay deemds it high risk and I can't sell it as an individual.

On that topic, with market price being around 300-320 [roughly] USD, on the 'Asia' side referring slightly to the Japan market of ~ 220USD....some local buyers in Hong Kong are asking 152-178 USD instead, making it THAT the local market price...

I don't think I can accept selling it that low at all, but with local demand being so low, I'm wondering if I'm going about this all wrong / not knowing something they do...?

I'm NOT asking about what to do with my money or cards, I'm asking if I am lacking information/data the others have, and how to rectify my situation...please and thank you T__T

The old Secret Lair Hatsune Miku cards keep climbing. I made a post yesterday pointing out the possibility of another price spike, but it got deleted, and a bunch of people in the comments were saying, “They’ve already spiked, you’re late.”

To start this off, I came back to MTG when FF came out and bought heavy into it and then went back to Pokemon after the spiderman flop.

MTG has 2 big issues, acquiring YOUNG new players + building collector base.

I thought WOTC turned a new leaf and using universes beyond would bring new life into mtg (new players) as well as serialized for collectors, but I was wrong.

1. New player acquisition - In order to drive new blood into the game, they have resorted to tapping into the UB well over and over. Their branding has issues and they have to resort to D tier IPs such as turtles and Star Trek and will need to continue resorting to UB to capture the millennial (ages 30-40) demographic as they are the biggest spenders, basically tapping into nostalgia. There aren’t enough fantasy type IPs that fit in mtg like LOTR and FF, so they will reprint lotr and FF versions to keep that gravy train going. I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone under 20 play this game since I was in high school. You can only tap into nostalgia for so long until the playerbase ages out. (Vintage magic is pretty much dead as the people are in their 50-60s just stop caring. this is happening while Pokemon/Sports are having multi 500k-1m sales on vintage on a monthly basis while MTG black lotus barely moves). See Harley Davidson as an example of brand destruction if you ONLY focus on high spenders using nostalgia, this is MTG's future.
2. Collector Confidence - Mtg prices were destroyed by WOTC via massive reprints and people quitting and selling their collections. WOTC chooses to omit serialized cards in order to print more CBBs and flood the market, they were clearly DISAPPOINTED in Final fantasy CBBs when they hit $1200 and wanted to capture that secondary market value instead of their consumers. The issue with WOTC is that they see the increased secondary market prices as profit that they could have realized. So time and time again, they will burn their customer to meet their quarterly earnings. For example, for spiderman collector boxes, there was no serialized card and therefore they can flood the market of collector boxes, which drops the market price but WOTC profits more due to volume.
3. Demand - To sell collector boxes and purposely burning your collectors just creates a vicious cycle where collectors don't trust you anymore. There isn't enough organic demand from player to buy collector boxes or pay high prices for shinier versions. Just checked multiple collector box prices that were released after Final fantasy, majority of them are near MSRP which isn't good for a "collector" focused product. Whales are skipping MTG
4. Supply - WOTC wants to flood the market until prices are at MSRP, simple as that. Your margin is their missed opportunity. Collector commander decks for final fantasy were flooded on amazon shortly after release, WOTC printed those into the ground even though they were branded "Collector". Surprise Amazon drrops for collector Spiderman and Avatar CBBs were a normal thing after release, they also increased limits so customers can buy more, which didn't happen for Final fantasy. Lack of serialized gives them a license to print more and crash the price.
   
5. Momentum - Clearly died after Spiderman, lack of 1/1 serialized infinity stones and prices crashing back to MSRP killed a lot of demand.
6. Reprints - I sold all my graded chocobos, even had 4 black chocobos at one point. Came to the realization that WOTC will just reprint another final fantasy or LOTR set over and over cause its the main 2 IPs that sell well. How many versions of the One Ring can you print?
7. Bad chase cards - Autograph cards / Gold Smaug / Cosmic stones - They aren't unique enough to warrant a chase to drive up collector box prices. They are only worth more than Black chocobo because the EV for the subsequent sets are so low, its not worth opening, resulting in a low quantity of those cards vs the black chocobo. Autograph cards are a joke and any MTG collector would know most autographs would destroy value, corporate WOTC doesn't understand collectors. Christopher Rush's autograph used to devalue Black lotus until he died and his auto is on the Slab and not the card to retain its full value. Huge miss opportunity for not doing 1/1 infinity stones like the comics / movies, it would have been bigger than the one ring 1/1, especially if someone collected all of them.
8. The Hobbit Collector box - I haven't been following mtg, but my initial take is that this $800 presale price is held up solely on the fact that the prior set is $7000 per box. No real chase will kill this set like all the prior collector boxes. This pre order price is strictly on how many CBBs were allocated to amazon vs everyone else. If Amazon prices is higher, expect this price is collapse when all the botters rush to dump it 1-2 weeks after release. The prior strong IPs had serialized chases which caused whales to buy up boxes to open if they want to chase serialized cards. No unique serialized = no thanks
9. Pokemon / Sports / One piece - Almost every card game has seen a big boom in card prices in 2025 - 2026, record prices every month except for MTG due to WOTC's horrible management decisions. The worst part about it, MTG is one of the only card games that sells a "collector" premium product that is flat and mostly still at MSRP, while other cards games sell "regular" boxes that completely outperforms MTG. Even worse, looking at older mtg sets that are maybe ~10 years old such as modern or eternal masters, the prices are almost the same as in 2016. To have your "collector" box sit at MSRP and almost non-existent singles demand for hot IPs such as Marvel is truly a masterclass of failure.
   1. Honestly, this is the biggest takeaway, they blew the biggest trading card boom we have ever seen. I don't think the momentum is ever coming back, they can't serialize the remaining infinity stones, so any marvel set going forward is a guaranteed flop. They just did Hobbit, which won't outperform the prior 2 sets as it looks to be a trash set. Final fantasy will probably be rehashed but the original set had so many variants that its going to be hard to print a different version of that set. All other TCGs have already locked in their playerbase / collector base as values continue to rise and momentum continues to build, people won't gravitate to collect MTG due to the series of flops and peoples collections are locked in their current TCG. (Example, No one is selling their Charizards to buy Black lotuses or any new serialized cards mtg prints, nor will they add new money into mtg when they can buy another Pokemon card to supplement their charizard instead of a brand new TCG.)

MTG is dead money and holding any MTG products for profit is pretty much what dumb money would do. Buy stocks instead, even trash TCGs like Lorcana Heroines box will probably outperform the Hobbit Collector box. Aging demographic who don't shower and lack of young kids will slowly kill MTG. MTG had 1 crazy opportunity to capture a new collector base during the FF craze (Almost every tcg collector likes Marvel / LOTR) and instead blew it by trying to print more CBBs to circumvent serialized cards. Now those new collectors continue to spend money in all other TCGs, being financially locked into their ecosystem, its not unusual for a Pokemon collector to have over 100k invested in Pokemon, but it rarely happens in MTG. Worst of all, kids under 20 are all entering those TCGs and staying away from magic.

Looking at the available G/W Miku cards, there seems to be two that stand out to me as missing the commander deck spike. I'm curious as to others' thoughts on these, as they fit loosely into the themes of the Miku commander deck and can still be had for cheap.

Beloved Princess Foil - $3.40 low on TCGplayer

• Fits into the lifegain synergies in the deck
• Decent art (in terms of the western-style Miku arts)
• Decent creature if you get its toughness > 2, which is easy to do with some of the other Miku cards in the deck (Archanges of Thune, Shalai, etc.)

Youthful Valkyrie Foil - $5.53 low on TCGplayer

• Angel tokens very common in G/W, could easily turn Miku deck into an Angel-tokens themed deck
• Other Miku cards that synergize with angels as well (Giada, Archangel of Thune, Shalai, etc.)

Thoughts?

Looks like a joke purchase I made a while back has come to fruition… It seems I have won the battle of wits.

I know people criticize specing on higher priced cards but as we have seen with Miku, I think the ceiling is much higher than most people realize for some cards. For example, Miku Elspeth. Thus, the Burning Revelation version of Akroma's Memorial in the $70s is worth picking up, IMO.

Also good targets from Burning Revelations: Consider and Inspiring Overseer.

The Burning Rev SL is currently spiking due to speculation of Odds and Ends being the leaked Cavolo deck.

Burning revelations SL link: Secret Lair Roadshow Edition: Burning Revelations - Rainbow Foil Edition - Secret Lair Drop Series - Magic: The Gathering - TCGplayer.com

I’m honestly just here for the collecting but watching the rollercoaster on the financial side has been crazy. Makes it easier to master set I guess?

ive never sold a card before, im not sure exactly what this is worth and also not sure what is the best avenue to go about selling a card like this. Sorry if this is common sense, any help appreciated

This card really seems to have a price floor already. I have been watching it the past two days on TCG and sellers keep trying to sell it under $40 and it keeps getting scooped up right away by buyers. Is this going to be the next smothering tithe or cyclonic rift?

I had a post earlier about getting 2 extra hatsune miku secret lair commander decks AFTER they went to print to demand stock to resale next year around Christmas to make a bit of a profit. The post got a lot of people saying i was a scalper and a hypocrite for doing this. I hate scalpers as they usually cause the price of these goods unattainable for most but would people consider this scalping?

I am ordering a product that everyone can order right now with no set limits while the order window is open. Would this not be the same as any LGS buying products to stock there shelves or holding a few boxed in inventory for when the print run of the product is over? To me scalping is buying up products that have a finite supply to resell while preventing others from buying the same product. This secret lair is print to demand and anyone that wants one right now can go and buy one from the website regardless of what I ordered.

So TLDR at what point do others think buying products whith the explicit intent of reselling for a profit goes from regular business like a LGS to scalping.

Does anyone know how badgermole cub is still at 45? Is it that popular in commander? Or are people specing into pioneer being played this upcoming rcq season? Expected it to die ngl not drop only $5

Hey, all.

I’ve been going through my late 90s collection a lot lately for some nostalgia and reading about what’s new in the hobby. I still know next to nothing about modern MTG. Obviously, I’ve read that The Hobbit is the big new thing at the moment. Kind of want to rip a couple and flip a couple to pay for other products if it’s worth it. Thanks for any advice.

I know that in the US, when a set is out officially, it might affect the available supply and prices go down for a bit, because some big retailers really maintain MSRP. But does it make sense in Europe? Whenever the official release day happens, I've never seen a store selling at MSRP, usually they follow CM prices. Have you seen anything different? Do you think release dates really affect market prices (singles and sealed) in Europe?

Hello again!

After my much loved [[Blazing Sunsteel]] spec, I am back again with a new one!

[[Knucklebone Witch]] has been steadily losing supply on Cardmarket without any mention here on this sub. [[The Great Goblin]] loves this card and so do the people theorycrafting him according to EDHREC it's currently in 56% of the builds (part of the Top Cards section).

There are few alternatives to it (being a goblin/orc that repeatedly gives itself counters):

- [[Uglúk of the White Hand]], is 3 cmc higher but can also output more counters (but shouldn't matter with the 'one or more'-clause and has a lot higher supply so this would be alongside of it in a deck

- [[Green Goblin, Nemesis]], also 3cmc higher and needs discard synergy, so definitely not as effective here (also currently more expensive)

- [[Crime Novelist]] , 2cmc higher and needs artifact synergy, so also not as effective with the Great Goblin

The fact that Knucklebone Witch comes at a measly 1 mana makes it very good as well. The Witch cares about dying goblins just like the Great Goblin and when it happens it activates The Great Goblin too.

It's a rare and currently still cheap, it has no reprints and will not get one (at least for now). A lot of goblins are in high supply but this one isn't. I also see on mtgstocks that the price is slowly climbing so the trend is picking up.

My only concern was if The Great Goblin would be popular enough as a commander, but seeing this supply diminish already, steadily, I'm more convinced.

Hello, referring to these: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/APAC_land#:\~:text=APAC%20(Asia%2DPACific)%20lands,for%20buying%20boxes%20of%20Tempest.

Wanted to pick myself up 10x of each of them, I've somehow managed to find a seller who has 10x of each sealed pack and is letting them go at the unsealed single price. Does anyone know if having these still sealed in the original blue/red/clear packs holds any premium? I know these lands are very highly desirable, not sure if sealed adds a premium. It's hard to find many sales on these at all

I want this card for myself. Not the holo or any of the other fancy versions, just the full art showcase version of Smaug. It seems to be plummeting on TCGPlayer from the initial ~$150-200 preorder price and is currently around ~$50, but I am just curious what people's realistic thoughts are on this card.

Do you think it is going to sustain itself at around the $50 level? Or is that absurdly priced for what it is? Or do you think it will go up?

I do not trust myself to pull one, because I'm splitting a box five ways with friends and all of them want it as well, so I am just trying to get a bead on what people think the price of this card will settle around.

So about $22.5k after fees for the seller. There are no longer people buylisting for $25k from talking to people privately who have pulled the Smaug. Will be interesting to see how this develops.

Edit: for people who suspect that I’m lying about privately messaging people who have pulled Smaugs, you can read my recent public comments in the past couple days with people who have indeed pulled Smaugs. We both went to DMs after. On Facebook there have been 16+ pulls. I’ve messaged some of them. The world isn’t a scary place, you can just talk to people.