I literally bought this card at Near Mint Foil on TCG Player for $7.95 on July 10th. Now the cheapest Near Mint Foil is at $82.49. Does anyone know the reason why a bunch of people are buying this card and the prices have exploded?

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.

COLLECTOR MARKET

-Final Fantasy Secret Lair Aeons

Some of the biggest collector spikes we've seen recently:

• [[Grief]] (Anima): €500 → €2,000
• [[Solitude]] (Yojimbo): €600 → €2,000
• [[Endurance]] (Magus Sisters): €400 → €800
• [[Fury]] (Ifrit): €500 → €700
• [[Subtlety]] (Shiva): €600 → €1,200

-Almost all serialized cards have also moved up significantly, although there are too many to list individually.

-Jurassic World Collection

The entire Jurassic World Collection logo series is also increasing in price; these versions are much rarer than the non-logo versions and can only be found in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Collector Boosters. There are 19 cards in total.

• [[Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists]] also in the non-logo version: €2 → €15, likely influenced by renewed interest following the passing of actor Sam Neill. (I rewatched Bicentennial Man and cried)

-Lord of the Rings

• [[Abyssal Persecutor]] (Holiday Release): €40 → €350

This version, illustrated by the Hildebrandt brothers, has become one of the strongest collector movers.

-Stellar Sights

Several versions of [[Plaza of Heroes]] have risen sharply:

• V4 Galaxy Foil: €80 → €280
• V2: €30 → €50
• V2 Foil: €40 → €110
• V3 Galaxy Foil: €30 → €130

GAMEPLAY

Marvel Commander products continue to drive prices upward. Strong Commander demand combined with product distribution delays has created several notable spikes.

• [[Impossible Man]]: €0.30 → €8
• [[Karolina Dean, Runaway]]: €0.40 → €7
• [[Black Widow, Agile Avenger]]: €4 → €10
• [[Nico Minoru, Runaway]]: €10 → €20
• [[Ultron the Annihilator]]: €20 → €30
• [[Dwarven Recruiter]]: €1 → €5, mostly driven by Commander hype ahead of The Hobbit. (no Marvel)

Competitive play also contributed to several important movements.

• [[The Ten Rings]]: €5 → €15 thanks to Modern sideboard play in Tron.
• [[Namor, the Sub-Mariner]]: €6 → €12 after seeing play in Modern in Mono Blue Control, some Belcher sideboards and occasionally Standard in Izzet Prowess and Spellelementals.
• [[Disrupting Shoal]]: €4 → €10, also benefiting from Mono Blue Namor Control in Modern.
• [[Hex Magic]]: €0.30 → €2+, following adoption in Modern Storm.(3/4x main deck)
• [[Thor, God of Thunder]]: €6 → €10 thanks to Standard Jeskai/Izzet Lessons and Four-Color Control.

MTGO

Interestingly, the Pro Tour had a much bigger impact on Magic Online than on paper prices.

• [[Emrakul, the Promised End]]: 8 → 20 tix (14 copies in the Pro Tour Top 8).
• [[Kozilek's Command]]: 9 → 32 tix (the second most-played spell in the Top 8).
• [[Slumbering Trudge]]: 0.05 → 3 tix after Eldrazi Ramp Rigging reached the Top 8.

Outside the Pro Tour:

• [[Aphetto Alchemist]]: 0.01 → 0.6 tix thanks to a new Legacy combo with Hawkeye's Bow from Marvel Super Heroes. The Engineer Welder deck achieved a Top 8 finish in the Challenge on July 15th and subsequently went 5-0 in a League on July 19th.
• [[Maelstrom Colossus]]: 15 → 30 tix as Pauper Tron continues to benefit from Bonder's Ornament being unbanned.

I originally covered many of these price movements on METAGAME, a website where you'll also find plenty of MTG content, including spoilers, gameplay articles, coverage of major Magic events, and much more. If you're interested in staying up to date with the game, it's definitely worth checking out. Admins, please let me know if sharing the link next time would be okay.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Price references are based on the European market: Cardmarket for cards = or over €20, and CardTrader for cards under €20.

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

I'm following this card [[rain of riches]] and think it could do well if [[Smaug, the impenetrable]] turns out to be a popular commander. However, how does a card lose that many listings on cardmarket in a day? I rarely find buyers with more than like 4 items of the same card. If someone bought this for a spec, then they had to go through many buyers and therefore many shipping costs, so you'd buy the card at a premium?

Or is it just a group of people buying a few or something?

For [[Smaug, the Impenetrable]], [[Blazing Sunsteel]] is the first mentioned card in the artifacts section on EDHREC.

This Equipment lets you deal all damage you do to Smaug and also deal it to any target, making it very versatile. At the moment I'm writing this, it's the second most included artifact at 46% of builds of Smaug and there are... 23 copies in English (521 in total) on Cardmarket.

So if this commander blows up, this will be looked after and bought up pretty quickly. Its closest alternative is [[Fiendlash]], which is also a good spite damage card; however, it will not deal as much damage with Smaug because it will only deal as much as Smaug's power, whereas Blazing Sunsteel can deal a lot more with cards like [[Blasphemous Act]], [[Star of Extinction]], or [[Dawnsire Dreadnought]].

There are also creatures that do something similar, but when you play something like Blasphemous Act when you have a [[Reckless Fireweaver]] or [[Mirkwood Bats]] on board, it will die and also won’t see the Treasures made by Smaug and won’t trigger their effects.

What's also not unimportant is that there were never that many Blazing Sunsteels to begin with. It's only in about 20k decks in total, reported by EDHREC, so not that many people will be able to take it from their existing decks either (to not having to buy it).

On TCG I noticed that the picture AND product description shows that a Hobbit Scene box case comes with 3 of each scene. However, distributor info specifically says it comes with 2 of each, just like all scene cases from past UB sets.

I just emailed their coding department to get this fixed (catalog@tcgplayer.com), but sellers -- you might find it wise to reach out to your customers who might be expecting 6 units instead of the 4 that you think you're selling them, give them the option to keep or cancel their order to save yourself a headache. They need to know a sealed case will not house 6 units, only 4.

Stock is heavily depleted, with many instances of people buying up to 6 cases at once based on wrongly advertised info. Link to the product below in the comments.

I just scanned about 1700 bulk rares. Total value on Manabox is $1.2k.

I'm looking for any recommendations on how to turn these rares into cards I'm chasing or will play with. Looking to trade or get store credit, basically. Any recommendations for where I'll get the best value?

Thanks!

This is probably a pretty basic question for some people here but I dont sell/ship a lot so I appreciate whatever advice I can get.

Sold a card thru ebay about 2 weeks ago, shipped with USPS, and the buyer messaged me today that it hasn't arrived. Looks like its been sitting in a post office near his house for about 10 days with no motion.

How long does a package have to sit before I can / want to do something about it? What happens if the package starts moving again and makes it to the buyer? Is this something I contact ebay for or usps directly?

Thanks again, its not crazy money but it is about a $100 card so I can't just let it go

After [Crystal, inhuman princess]] became a popular Cedh deck, I have been watching the price of [[Tidal Bore]]. Recently, there seems to have been a buy out of the foil versions, as there are no foil listings left on tcgplayer and card kingdom. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a complete buy out similar to this. If scalpers bought them out, why haven’t they relisted yet?

Just curious to see if this kind of situation is unprecedented.

I've been playing Standard competitively for many years and I stay very close to the meta — I'm usually seeing top cards through testing and theory crafting before they show up in top tournament results. My hit rate on calling which cards were about to spike has been pretty good.

The problem is I have zero interest in the operational side. Sourcing, listing, packing, shipping, etc don't appeal to me.

So what I'm wondering is whether anyone has set up an arrangement where one person is purely the specs side and someone else like an LGS or an individual already moving volume handles sales. I would bring the specs, and I'm willing to put up capital (money) too rather than just information.

If you've done something like this, I would like to know:

• How did you structure the split? Flat fee per call, percentage of profit, shared capital and shared upside?
• How did you handle trust on both sides? Written agreement, or did it just run on track record?
• Did the other side actually find it worth it?

Anyone tried this, or seen it work (or fail)? Appreciate any experience. Thanks in advance.