Price Trends: Magic: The Gathering Cards Climbing in Price - 01/21/2025

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 in the past 30 days.

(Note: This report only considers Near Mint copies of cards with at least five sales between December 17, 2024 and January 15, 2025.)

Here are ten highlights from that report. First, we have the five cards that gained the most value in the past 30 days after starting with a Market Price of $5 or less.

Top 5 Price Increases—MTG Cards $5 or Less

#5 Archon of Cruelty

• Set: Modern Horizons 2
• Increase: +$8.85
• Current Market Price: $12.75

The theme in December was fallout from the bombshell Banned and Restricted announcement which dropped just one day before the time period covered in this report. Modern-playable cards felt the most turmoil, with many cards spiking as players tried to update their pet decks for the new format.

The unbanning of Faithless Looting gave red decks faster access to reanimation targets than they’ve had in a long while. When it’s followed by Persist, Faithless Looting lets players slam an enormous non-Legendary creature into play as early as turn two, and Archon of Cruelty is generally considered the best target available. 

#4 Seasoned Pyromancer

• Set: Double Masters 2022
• Increase: +$10.04
• Current Market Price: $12.81

Seasoned Pyromancer is another card that saw very little play in Modern before the ban announcement and now shows up to most every tournament. Energy decks, which lost Amped Raptor in the update, have started to slot in Seasoned Pyromancer as another way to squeeze Energy out of Guide of Souls and another source of bodies for the Guide to buff.

#3 Yggdrasil, Rebirth Engine

• Set: Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed
• Increase: +$10.42
• Current Market Price: $12.74

With the banning of The One Ring in Modern, Through the Breach decks had to rethink their approach. Yggdrasil has caught on as an easy way to double the number of Through the Breach effects available, while also potentially accelerating their combo a turn ahead of schedule.

#2 Seasoned Pyromancer (Borderless)

• Set: Double Masters 2022
• Increase: +$12.34
• Current Market Price: $16.24

A Borderless treatment didn’t do much to keep this version of Seasoned Pyromancer valuable while it wasn’t seeing play. But now that it’s part of the best deck in Modern, it’s rising with all the other versions.

#1 Seasoned Pyromancer

• Set: Modern Horizons
• Increase: +$14.82
• Current Market Price: $17.60

Like I said: all the other versions.

Next, these are the five cards that gained the most value in the past 30 days after starting with a Market Price over $5.

Top 5 Price Increases—MTG Cards Over $5

#5 Lion’s Eye Diamond

• Set: Mirage
• Increase: +$29.26
• Current Market Price: $446.90

This minor spike represents a small fraction of the value of this Reserved List card, and doesn’t signify anything beyond the fact that a handful of copies were sold this month (as usual). Lion’s Eye Diamond remains well below its historic high of $668, which it hit briefly in June 2021 during the pandemic-era collectibles boom.

#4 Gaea's Cradle

• Set: Urza's Saga
• Increase: +$34.24
• Current Market Price: $819.94

Like LED above, Gaea’s Cradle hasn’t truly spiked—this giant of a card is just turning in its sleep. It remains well below its historic high of $1177, which it reached in July 2021.

#3 Volcanic Island

• Set: Revised Edition
• Increase: +$36.08
• Current Market Price: $694.32

Volcanic Island is approaching $700 for the first time since 2023, but it’s still below the $900 Market Price it held briefly in July 2021. Another Reserved List card shakes the earth with its snoring.

#2 The One Ring (Borderless Poster)

• Set: Universes Beyond: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
• Increase: +$39.42
• Current Market Price: $287.62

Against all logic, this version of The One Ring (and some, but not all of the other versions) managed to gain value after the announcement that it would no longer be legal to play in Modern. You could argue that the long-anticipated ban relieved any pressure Wizards of the Coast might have felt to reprint The One Ring, making it a safer collectible even as it became less appealing to players.

Whatever the reason, the ban hasn’t cooled fans’ fervor for the Ruling Ring, which still burns as hot as the fires of Mount Doom. 

#1 Mox Opal

• Set: Modern Masters 2015
• Increase: +$58.93
• Current Market Price: $159.01

Mox Opal was the biggest winner of the Modern B&R announcement in December 2025, and rightly so. Banished to the banlist from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2024, this fast mana artifact is once again free to terrorize Modern, though the format may be better equipped to deal with it than it was in 2019.

So far it shows up most often in Underworld Breach decks which, while powerful, haven’t unseated Energy as the top dog of Modern. But as long as fast mana continues to enable broken interactions in Modern, Mox Opal will be there, and fans of those combos will have to pay dearly to cradle this piece of perfection in their hands.

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 January 2025 Price Trends Report to review every Magic card that went up in value this month. Then list those cards on TCGplayer so your inventory can do more for your business.

Download the Magic Price Trends Report

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