The Truth About Why Magic: The Gathering Is So Expensive

I still remember buying my first Magic booster. It was only a couple of pounds at a Local games shop, I had no expectations at all but my friends were keeping an eye for any beginner's luck. Unfortunately the pack was a dud! But alas I absolutely loved it, admiring the art on each individual card, reading the mechanics to piece together what potential playstyle they could be used in. I never imagined that some of the chase cards sell for thousands!

Magic: The Gathering is an absolutely beloved card game, with strategy, beautiful art, and sometimes an investment. Cards such as Black Lotus, The One Ring (1/1 serialised) make global headlines. In this blog I’m going to be talking about why Magic has become so expensive, how many cards and sets exist, which cards hold the highest value, and which products are worth considering to get the best bang for your buck in 2025.

Why Magic: The Gathering is so expensive

First let’s go back to the beginning

In the early 1990s, booster packs were inexpensive and few people thought about long-term value. Over time, older sets went out of print and demand grew. The Power Nine and ABUR dual lands turned into legends, and collectors drove their prices up. A mint Alpha Black Lotus can now sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Reserved List

The Reserved List, introduced in 1996, is Wizards of the Coast's promise that certain older cards will never be reprinted for tournament play. This list includes the Power Nine and the original dual lands. With supply fixed forever, scarcity keeps raising their value.

Speculation, Secondary Market and Hype

The Magic secondary market acts like a stock exchange. Prices rise when a card dominates tournaments or when a crossover set creates excitement. Serialised chase cards in the Final Fantasy set (The Golden Chocobo (1-77), are designed to attract both collectors and speculators. Prices can also drop if a card is reprinted or loses competitive relevance, which keeps the market unpredictable. 

How Much Money Has Magic: The Gathering Made?

Magic has grown into one of Hasbro's most valuable products.

• In 2022 it became Hasbro's first brand to generate over a billion dollars in a single year.
• In 2023 the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment, which includes Magic and Dungeons & Dragons brought in $1.46 billion in net revenue.

The business model does not depend on a single idea. New expansions, premium collector products, and MTG Arena digital sales provide them with steady income year after year.

How Many Magic: The Gathering Cards Are There

By 2025, Magic has produced more than 27,000 unique card designs.

If you count alternate art, foils, languages, and promos, the number climbs past 100,000. This variety is part of the appeal, some cards become competitive staples, others showcase new mechanics or crossovers that draw in fans from other interests.

How Many Sets of Magic: The Gathering Are There

Magic has created more sets than many players realise.

Since 1993, Wizards of the Coast has released over 100 premier expansions Such as Zendikar, Innistrad, and Theros.

If you add Commander products, Master editions, Secret Lairs, Universes Beyond Collaborations, and special promotional sets, the total exceeds 1,000 set codes listed on databases like Scryfall.

This constant flow of products keeps the game fresh but can feel overwhelming for new players (and even veterans).

Which MTG Set Should You Buy

The best set depends on your goal, my favourite sets to purchase recently are Bloomburrow (because I love the whimsy and those little critters!), Final Fantasy (because of my love for the franchise!) and Duskmourn (for the spooks and to beef up my commander deck).

For New Players

Start with Jumpstart or Core 2021. These sets are simple to learn and affordable while still offering useful staples.

For Collectors

Focus on sets that are limited in print or have crossover appeal. Think Final Fantasy (Magic the Gatherings best selling set, making over $200 million in revenue), and there is speculation that the new Avatar set might follow a similar path.

The stand out for 2025 is most definitely Final Fantasy, which was released on June 13, 2025. It's a standard legal set that unites two major franchises. The serialised Golden Chocobo by Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura was the chase card of the set with the very first one being sold for $40,000! This follows the success of The Lord of the Rings collab where the unique One Ring (1/1) sold for two million dollars. 

Which Magic: The Gathering Cards Are Worth the Most

The Black Lotus and Power Nine

The Alpha Black Lotus remains the most famous and valuable card (excluding serialised cards). The worth is locked in by the Reserved List, which guarantees they will never be reprinted in a tournament-legal way. The iconic factor also plays into the value of this card with anyone interested in MTG knowing the name "Black Lotus".

Crossovers

• The One Ring (2023): Sold for around $2,000,000, making it the most expensive Magic card ever.
• Golden Chocobo (2025): Serialised 1-77 cards already count among the rarest modern items - with the highest confirmed sale being #53 which was sold at $78,000.
• Sol Ring - Dwarven: Serialised 1-700 with the notable graded sale of $26,200 for a BGS 10 Black label copy. Typical graded sales will be a bit lower.
• Sol Ring - Elven: Serialised 1-300 with sales typically falling somewhere between £5000 to $8000.

Condition and how it Factors into Price

For valuable Magic: The Gathering cards, condition is one of the most important factors affecting price. Two copies of the same card can differ in value many times over depending on how well they have been preserved. Collectors, investors, and grading companies all use precise categories to describe a card’s state, and serious buyers often look for professional grading before paying premium prices.

Common Grading Terms

• Near Mint (NM): Almost indistinguishable from a fresh pack. Minor printing or handling marks are acceptable. This is the preferred grade for most collectors and investors.

• Lightly Played (LP): Slight edge or surface wear that is visible under close inspection. Still highly collectible but worth noticeably less than Near Mint.

• Moderately Played (MP): Clear signs of wear such as small scuffs or whitening around the edges. Tournament legal but primarily valued for gameplay rather than investment.

• Heavily Played (HP) or Damaged: Significant scratches, bends, or ink loss. These copies lose most of their collectible value and appeal mainly to players who need a budget option or to collectors seeking extremely rare cards regardless of condition.

Professional grading services such as PSA, Beckett (BGS), and CGC assign numeric scores (for example PSA 10 Gem Mint or BGS 9.5) after checking centering, surface, corners, and edges. Cards with top grades can sell for far more than ungraded copies. For example, a BGS 10 “Black Label” version of a serialised Sol Ring from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth sold for over $26,000, well above the price of similar raw copies.

Why Condition Affects Price

1. Scarcity of Perfect Copies: As cards circulate, flawless examples become harder to find. Even brand-new releases such as serialised Universes Beyond cards can have tiny print defects that lower their grade.

2. Display and Collectibility: High-grade cards look better on display and hold stronger long-term appeal for collectors.

3. Liquidity and Trust: Professionally graded cards come sealed in tamper-evident cases and include population reports, giving buyers confidence and making future sales easier.

4. Insurance and Long-Term Investment: Clear grading documentation helps with insurance and simplifies resale.

How Magic: The Gathering Is Becoming “Pokémon-ified”

Over the last few years, Magic: The Gathering has adopted trends long associated with the Pokémon TCG. We now see chase cards, serialised prints, alternate arts, and frequent premium variants released in quick succession. Products such as Secret Lair drops, Universes Beyond crossovers, and ultra-rare serialised treatments create a feeling similar to hunting for shiny Pokémon.

There are positives to this approach. Flashy treatments and pop-culture tie-ins draw in new players and collectors who might never have tried Magic otherwise. Excitement around serialised cards like The One Ring 1/1 or the Golden Chocobo can generate buzz that grows the player base and provides fresh energy for local game stores. The expanded variety also allows players to express personal style through unique deck aesthetics.

However, there are clear negatives. Constant premium releases can overwhelm long-time players and dilute the sense of occasion that once came with a new set. The focus on short-term hype and speculative buying risks turning the game into a collectibles market first and a strategy game second. There are worries that heavy reliance on limited, high-value variants pushes the game away from accessible play and toward a pure chase economy.

This is incredibly apparent with the treatment of Collector Boosters, when brands put these up for sale they sell out incredibly quickly. This points more shops to working with more intimate sales channel and giving their loyal customers the first chance at purchasing these.

How to Keep Magic Focused on Players

To balance excitement with long-term health, Wizards of the Coast and the Magic community can take practical steps:

• Reaffirm Core Formats. Continue supporting Standard, Pioneer, Modern, and Draft with affordable reprints and well-balanced mechanics so that competitive play remains welcoming to new and budget-conscious players.

• Ensure Regular Print Runs for Key Staples. Reprint popular lands, removal spells, and format-defining cards in widely available products to keep essential decks affordable.

• Limit Overlapping Premium Releases. Space out special editions and serialised runs to maintain their special appeal and reduce consumer fatigue.

• Highlight Lore and Gameplay in Marketing. Put story and world-building at the forefront of set promotions to remind players that Magic is about strategy and narrative, not just rare foils.

The Future of Magic: The Gathering Pricing

Magic: The Gathering has grown from a small game with cheap boosters into a billion-pound global brand. The Reserved list keeps its rarest cards permanently scarce, while serialised treatments and high-profile crossovers add new layers of value.

If you play the game, enjoy it while knowing which cards can hold or grow in price. While the pricing boom of Magic shows that the game is alive, and does have negative effects on the average player, raising the price of