Price Trends: Magic: The Gathering Cards Climbing in Price – 5/20/24
Peter Day
We want you to have the best information available when you price cards on the TCGplayer Marketplace. So to help you get the most from your inventory, we’ve put together a downloadable CSV report of Magic: The Gathering cards that have dramatically increased in Market Price since the start of May 2024.
(Note: This report only considers Near Mint copies of cards with at least five sales between May 1 and May 14, 2024.)
Here are ten highlights from that report. First, we have the five cards that gained the most value in May 2024 after starting with a Market Price of $5 or less.
Top 5 Price Increases—MTG Cards $5 or Less
- Set: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: The Big Score
- Increase: +$8.53
- Current Market Price: $9.76
The Big Score is a subset within Outlaws of Thunder Junction that Wizards of the Coast originally planned to release as its own small epilogue set, similar to March of the Machine: The Aftermath. Aftermath proved unpopular, so WotC pivoted and included the cards OTJ, and while it’s possible to find them in Play Boosters of OTJ, they’re much harder to pull than OTJ cards of similar rarity. That means every card from The Big Score has a very high price ceiling if it turns out to be popular.
And Ancient Cornucopia is very popular. Wizards of the Coast probably intended for this card to be a staple in five-color Commander decks (and it deserves to be one), but right now it’s also seeing competitive play in the Pioneer deck Niv-to-Light, a midrange toolbox deck that loves getting lifegain, ramp, and mana fixing in a single card. Pioneer is the format for the current season of Regional Championship Qualifiers and Niv-to-Light is a great metagame choice, so players are scrambling to find copies of Ancient Cornucopia in time for their tournaments.
- Set: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: The Big Score
- Increase: +$10.90
- Current Market Price: $12.42
Hostile Investigator has a ton in common with Ancient Cornucopia. It’s a Mythic from The Big Score, meaning it’s even rarer than regular Mythics from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. It looks like a Commander card with its slow, incremental value. And it’s currently seeing the most play in Pioneer.
Hostile Investigator has brought Pioneer’s Waste Not discard deck to the next level by giving it another enabler and a payoff all in one card. By generating Clue tokens, Hostile Investigator lets you break the symmetry on Liliana of the Veils’ +1 ability and draw into even more discard effects to ruin your opponent’s plans.
#3 Ancient Cornucopia (Extended Art)
- Set: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: The Big Score
- Increase: +$11.65
- Current Market Price: $13.63
The extended art version of Ancient Cornucopia is rocketing in price for all the same reasons as the normal version: it’s a great card for both competitive and Commander players that’s even rarer than its Mythic rarity symbol suggests.
#2 Hostile Investigator (Showcase)
- Set: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: The Big Score
- Increase: +$12.32
- Current Market Price: $16.05
Players who want a fancy version of Hostile Investigator for their decks won’t find a fancier version than this one. Given that the premium of this version over the regular version is just $4, the increase is probably driven by competitive players who will take any version they can get their hands on.
#1 Ancient Cornucopia (Showcase)
- Set: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: The Big Score
- Increase: +$19.93
- Current Market Price: $23.90
Fifth verse, same as the first. The premium on the Showcase version of Ancient Cornucopia over the regular version is larger than the premium on the Showcase version of Hostile Investigator over its regular version—$14 in the former case vs. $4 in the latter. This might suggest that collectors and Commander fans have taken more of a shine to it.
Next, these are the five cards that gained the most value in May 2024 after starting with a Market Price over $5.
Top 5 Price Increases—MTG Cards Over $5
- Set: Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Increase: +$14.11
- Current Market Price: $628.96
This version of Sol Ring is written in Quenya (one of Tolkien’s invented Elven languages), and was only available in Tales of Middle-earth Collector Boosters. The serialized version of this card is expensive for obvious reasons, but this non-serialized version was also printed in limited quantities: only 3,000 copies were printed. That makes this an incredibly rare collectible that’s still relatively affordable, and a prime target for speculation.
- Set: Modern Horizons 3
- Increase: +$16.00
- Current Market Price: $70.99
The presale demand for this card (which releases with Modern Horizons 3 on June 13th) is even higher than many sellers anticipated. As more of MH3 has been revealed in official previews and leaks, we’ve seen tons of new support for Eldrazi decks and colorless ramp decks in general. In those decks, Ugin’s Labyrinth is a land that enters untapped and taps two mana, which is nuts.
The demand for Ugin’s Labyrinth could continue to grow in the leadup to MH3 if even more Eldrazi cards are revealed. After the set releases, its fate will depend on whether it sees success in Modern.
#3 Mox Diamond
- Set: Stronghold
- Increase: +$21.10
- Current Market Price: $558.33
Mox Diamond is a member of the Reserved List, a group of cards that Magic publisher Wizards of the Coast has promised never to reprint. Like many other Reserved List cards, its price has been rising since the start of 2024—the latest uptick in an annual cycle of upward and downward movements as speculators’ interest in the Reserved List waxes and wanes.
- Set: Revised Edition
- Increase: +$26.91
- Current Market Price: $667.88
Just like Mox Diamond, Volcanic Island is a member of the Reserved List that has gone up recently thanks to renewed interest in these cards by speculators.
- Set: Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Increase: +$43.40
- Current Market Price: $242.25
Like the Elven Sol Ring above, this card is written in Quenya and was only available in Tales of Middle-earth Collector Boosters. Wizards of the Coast printed exactly 9,000 copies of this nonfoil, nonserialized card, so they’re more plentiful and less expensive than the Elven Sol Rings. But they’re just as ripe for speculation because the number of copies in the world is set.
By selling these cards online, you can reach a broad audience of customers who are willing to pay what these cards are truly worth. Download the May 2024 Price Trends Report to review every Magic: The Gathering card that went up in value this month. Then list those cards on TCGplayer so your inventory can do more for your business.
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