There has been a lot of discussion recently on MTG Card prices. Partly because of the recent news released about the changes to Shards of Alara & the addition of the Mythic Rare. Some say this will create $150 “must have” tournament cards while others contend that the Mythic Rares will have no effect on the price of cards and may lower the price of other rares. Who is right?
Establishing Credibility: I graduated with a degree in Business from the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. At the time, we were ranked in the top 25 business schools of the country. I had an incredible econ professor who I thank today for my understanding of market forces & it changed how I look at the world. With that said, I wanted to take a look at the Prices of MTG Cards through the eyes of the market.
Here are a couple of facts that we need to assume before the discussion can happen.
- Price is effected by Supply & Demand. As Demand Increases, Price Increases, As Supply decreases, Price Increases. If Demand Increases & Supply Increases, you have to do math
- The Market is perfectly knowledgeable
- No one person has perfect knowledge of MTG
- While MTG players are limited to 4 copies of 1 card in standard, it is assumed that they will be trading for other cards they need, so it is not uncommon for a player to buy more than one of a “good card”
- We are going to focus on the Standard T2 formats (we aren’t going to talk about Lotus Blossoms or Alpha/Beta Rares whose values are currently derived similar to a Mickey Mantle Rookie – “collectible” & “historically significant”)
Ok, I believe that sets up a few ground rules for us in the discussion. Lets first look at how market forces have affected current card values.
Mutavault: ~ $38
Mutavault is a great card. A land that can become a 2/2 creature that is still a land so it can’t easily be destroyed. In January of 2008, this card was priced at $15! That was a good rare price, so why the jump?
Mutavault is Rare (low supply) & versatile (high demand). The versatility of Mutavualt makes it unique. You can play it in almost ANY deck with any color or any theme! When supply is down and demand is up, price is high. When demand is WAY high, the price is directly related. So, I present to you one of the most expensive cards in the standard format: Mutavault.
Bitterblossom: ~ $27
Bitterblossom is a Rare (low supply) & an incredible card to play. It is an enchantment (harder to remove), it makes 1/1 fliers (evasive) & it is cheap to play (2 mana). It is less versatile than Mutavault (slightly less demand). But those things are enought to take the cards value from $7 in January to $27 today, is it? No. A unique factor in this card’s value (compared to Mutavault) is a popular deck that plays it: Rogues. Faeries. The Faeries deck is one of the hardest to play against and was expected to preform much better than it did at the Pro Tour Hollywood & at all the regionals tournaments. So how does being in a popular deck affect the card value? Obviously, it increases Demand, thereby Increasing Price. Due to the poor performance of these Faeries decks, you would think that the price to stabilize or go down, but I don’t believe that this is the case. Even though the pro tour and recent regionals have proved that a good sideboard can beat a good Faeries deck, Faeries is just too powerful and the card is just too good. Even now, players have started to find other ways to utilize this power packed rare. So I expect to see Bitterblossom continue to rise as the Block format grows.
Tarmogoyf: ~ $42+
THE most expensive card currently in the standard format: Tarmogoyf. This card has appeared in numerous Top 8s, numerous winning decks (Charles Gindy winner of Pro Tour Holloywood to name one), can be played on turn 2, has a great ability, & is RARE! But that is only a portion of this card’s value! The other portion is a topic that we will get into more later: Tarmogoyf is commonly referred to as “BROKEN”. Essentially, it is too powerful & too quick in this format. This is tirelessly argued in online forums, but if there were other more powerful cards in existence, the value of this card would go down as the playing field would level. So, to summarize, the demand for this card is nuts because of the various winning decks that have included it, it’s POWER vs the Casting Cost, & the supply (RARE). This is a mixture between the Bitterblossom’s factors mixed with the Mutavault’s factors = TARMOGOYF. However, in October, this card will no longer be allowed in Standard, so I expect the value to start going down soon unless those in the Extended format figure out how to abuse this card’s power.
OK, so that is a rundown on the market forces of cards that are currently in play int he standard format. What about the Mythic Rares coming up in Shards of Alara? How will these values be determined and will it change any of the above?
Shards of Alara
The change of Supply
Alara will contain 249 cards – 20 Basic Lands = 229 (non-land) Cards
- 15 Mythic Rares (6.6% of the 229 Cards)
- 53 Rares (23.1%)
- 60 Uncommons (26.2%)
- 101 Commons (44.1%)
There are fewer cards in the set, so the % of Total Rares is 29.7% which is about average historically. Rosewater’s article compares Rares in previous Sets to Mythic Rares in Shards of Alara. I need to deal with this first. I’m not sure what he is actually communicating but here is the data:
Mythic Rares in Alara make up 6.6% of the large (229 card) sets.
In “Paper” & “Scissors” (145 card set) they make up 6.9%.
- In his article he compares Tenth Edition Rares (which make up 33.3% of the set or 10.9% of the Time Spiral Block) to Mythic Rares in a Large Set (6.6% or 2.01% of the Block).
- He compares Shadowmoor Rares (28.5% of set, 8.97% of Block) to Mythic Rares in a Small Set (6.9% of set, 1.34% of Block).
- He compares Future Sight Rares (33.3% of set, 5.41% of Block) to Rares of Large Sets (23.1% of the set, 7.09% of the Block) & Planor Chaos Rares (24.2% of set, 3.6% of Block) to Rares of a Small Set (24.1% of set, 4.68% of Block).
The only thing I can understand is #3, but the first two are way off the mark. I’m not sure what he was trying to get at, but his example failed a basic mathamatical comparison! I’m afraid most of his article was “spin.”
While that is a bit off topic, it does illustrate the difference in supply for the Mythic Rares.
But if you have a low supply and no demand, you don’t have a price increase, you have a “specialty good” that few will want.
Effect on Demand
It is assumed since Magic is a “trading card game” that mythic rares will automatically become desirable. So, Demand will start “higher” for mythic rares than rares. The normal prices on rares hover around $10. Mythic Rares should go for $13 – $15 or $20? Depending on the card. That isn’t cheap, but it isn’t that bad. What if we add in the same factors that have affected Mutavault? At the very least, you’d be looking at a $50 or $60 Mythic Rare! Bitterblossom’s factors? $40 or $50 Mythic Rare minimum. If it was just an “ok card” that wasn’t a game changer, it would probably stick around $10 – $20. If it is a good card and useful to most players, but not at the level of Mutavault, then I expect it to be around $20 – $30. All of that to say, demand for most mythic rares will be higher, just has demand for most rares is higher than uncommons.
A BROKEN Mythic Rare
This is the worst fear of every current magic player. The Broken Mythic Rare. The game changing, must have, tournament level, mythic rare, that is a must have for multiple decks! This fear comes from seeing rares like Tarmogoyf hit standard play and change the way we play the game. This fear comes from a distrust between the player and the corporate owned Wizards. The fear comes from seeing imperfections in the past, seeing cards slip through the cracks. In my opinion, it is a valid fear.
The BROKEN Mythic Rare has a chance to be over $100 for a single card. Why? It is a high Demand, hard to find, game changing, tournament level, Mythic Rare in multiple winning decks!
How Rare is this Broken Mythic Rare? Wizards says that 1 in 8 (12.5%) booster packs will contain a Mythic Rare. So, in a box of 36 Boosters, you will get 4 or 5 Mythic Rares. We are looking for 1 Mythic Rare of 15 (6.67%), so when you do the math, you have a 1 in 120 (1/120) or 0.8% chance of opening a Broken Mythic Rare. But what is the chance that your box of 36 boosters will contain the 1 particular Mythic Rare you need? It is between 
So what are the chances that you will open the particular Broken “regular rare” in that box of 36 boosters? (7/8 * 1/53) = 7 in 424. So the chances of opening a particular broken regular rare is between
What were the chances of opening the BROKEN Tarmogoyf in a box of Futuresight?
1 of 60 Rares in a box of 36 boosters
12 Boxes nets a 99.92% vs 20 boxes for the Broken Mythic Rares
So, if Goyf is half the price of 1 box (~$40) of boosters, then what would our BROKEN Mythic Rare (BMR) be if it slips through the cracks?
Goyf: 1/24th of the price of 12 boxes (its 99.9% chance) = ~$40
BMR: 1/24th of the price of 20 boxes (its 99.9% chance) is ~$67
So I would say that the Price of our BROKEN Mythic Rare would hover from $60 to $90! But this is only for a BROKEN must have Mythic Rare, which we are told will not exist.
What do all the words mean?
I know, there are a lot of “words” up there. In my humble opinion, the new Mythic Rares will not have a huge impact on the card prices in the game of magic. We expect that Mythic Rares will be better cards than regular rares so they will be worth more or will cost more. And unless a Broken Mythic Rare slips through the cracks, prices should be pretty similar to what we have today.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your feedback!
MTG Rookie 