Magic: The Gathering – The Hobbit officially launches this Friday, August 14, but players hoping to buy in at a reasonable price may find the road to Erebor blocked by a very familiar enemy: preorder markup. A Play Booster display, which has commonly been sold around the $120 to $130 mark for major Magic releases, is currently sitting at a TCGplayer market price of $197.47. That is more than a 50 percent jump before the set has even reached full tabletop release. Other online retailers have listed boxes around that same price, and with many local shops already selling out of their preorder allotment, players will have to pay up or wait for stock to replenish.
It is hardly unprecedented for a Magic set attached to a beloved fantasy property to draw heavy collector attention. Still, The Hobbit is arriving after the enormous commercial success of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and Wizards of the Coast has not exactly made it difficult for buyers to chase premium treatments. The set includes Dragon Hoard cards, Book Cover variants, Dwarvish-language cards, classic-artist box toppers, and a 500-copy Gleaming Gold Smaug the Magnificent headliner.
That last category is where the real early money is going. The following are the five highest-priced presale cards currently showing active TCGplayer market prices, based on premium treatments rather than standard printings:
– Gleaming Splendor, Borderless Surge Foil: $546.18
– The One Ring, Borderless Surge Foil: $508.23
– Smaug the Magnificent, Showcase Surge Foil: $223.99
– Thranduil, the Elvenking, Borderless Surge Foil: $182.31
– Sauron, the Dark Lord, Borderless Surge Foil: $171.47
None of these prices should be treated as settled. Presale values are famously volatile, especially when supply has not yet hit the market and the set contains multiple versions of the same card. The $197 Play Booster box price may look alarming now, but players who want cards for decks rather than display cases may be better served waiting for the first wave of openings to hit the secondary market
