Although games like Pokémon have a much larger collector audience, Magic: The Gathering has increasingly catered to shiny-card fans in recent years. Now, players can get all kinds of cards in premium printings, with more foil treatments than anyone can count.
For collectors, it’s never been a better time to get into MTG, but the massive list of available products can be intimidating. Whether you’re new to collecting MTG’s finer cards or just looking for a Christmas present for your MTG collector at home, this should help you find a gift for the MTG player who already has everything.
Just Buy Singles
Look, if you want to buy a specific MTG card, even if it’s a bit pricey, buying the singles you want is likely the cheapest way to go. Finding a specific card for collectors in sealed product can be an absolute nightmare, especially if the card is on the cheaper side of things.
To check the prices of the cards you’re after, searching them on market sites like TCGplayer and Mana Pool is your best bet. If you find a cheaper copy of the card you want, you can even buy it outright on these sites.
If you’re after a bunch of expensive MTG cards from the same set, buying sealed product may seem like a better option, but it still likely isn’t worth it unless you want to open packs for the sake of it. However, one exception exists.
MTG Secret Lairs
Unlike most sealed products, Secret Lairs give MTG collectors exactly what they want. All contents in these products, except for one Bonus Card, are revealed at the outset, so there’s no mystery about what cards you’ll open.
While the lack of mystery is the biggest bonus here, reprint values vary wildly across individual Secret Lairs. Our Secret Lair Superdrop reviews show this, giving you the reprint values of individual cards when they’re announced.
Even if the cards you’re after have a lower reprint value, all of Magic’s Secret Lairs offer unique artwork that you typically cannot find anywhere else. These unique variants are great for collectors, and they often go for more than the card’s cheapest reprint values.
While this all sounds like an incredible deal for MTG collectors, there are a few catches. The biggest is that, for what you spend, you don’t get many MTG cards.
For the typical prices of $29.99 and $39.99, depending on whether you want nonfoil or foil, you can get as few as 3-4 cards. You get far more cards in Booster Packs for a far lower price, but the cards you get in Secret Lairs are usually worth far more on the secondary market.
The only other wrinkle lies in actually acquiring Secret Lairs. Because most Secret Lairs are limited-print products, they’re usually only available for an hour or so after they go on sale. The most sought-after Secret Lairs can even sell out in 20 minutes.
If you miss out on the initial sale, MTG Secret Lairs are a far worse deal. These often become extremely inflated when sold second-hand, and are no longer worth the price.
Still, if you’re around for a Secret Lair sale, with prequeues commonly going online on Mondays at 11:00 AM EST, Secret Lairs are some of the best things for MTG collectors to buy. The actual shopping experience is absolutely horrendous, however, so I don’t blame you for skipping it.
MTG Collector Boosters
If you want to take a shot at finding one of MTG’s golden tickets, Collector Boosters are the products for you. Outside the Reserved List, most of MTG’s most expensive cards are found in these packs, but the odds of opening them are extremely small.
If you’re lucky enough to hit MTG’s most exciting Headliner cards, you could find cards worth tens of thousands of dollars. Smaug, the Magnificent’s Headliner variant, for example, is going for a whopping $24,000 on TCGplayer.
Of course, the chances of finding these cards are extremely slim, and trying is expensive. While a normal Hobbit Booster costs just $5 on TCGplayer at the time of writing, Collector Boosters cost $54. If that weren’t enough, Collector Boosters will be an even worse deal soon, as they will have even fewer cards starting with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm.
Still, if you’re after a ton of Collector Booster-only variants for your collection that are all somewhat pricey, a Collector Booster could be a fun opening experience. Even so, I still wouldn’t recommend Collector Boosters over buying singles, but it could be a good gift for a loved one.
Special Bundles
Every once in a while, particularly with popular Universes Beyond franchises, Wizards of the Coast has had a second release of sorts. These products typically have an extremely small supply and offer unique reprints of famous characters that end up being quite expensive on the secondary market.
The recent Chocobo Bundle from MTG Final Fantasy is a good example. Offering a selection of Final Fantasy reprints with unique artwork, these cards even feature a unique foil Chocobo Track treatment.
Beyond unique treatments on valuable cards, these Special Bundles often include a Collector Booster, which is lots of fun for MTG collectors to open. In that sense, this can make for one of the best gifts for collectors, but as usual, there is a catch.
Like the Secret Lair products, availability for the more exciting Special Bundles is really, really poor. Gift bundles and the new one-off bundles like Reality Fracture’s Secret Lair bundle aren’t too bad, but rare, desirable bundles like the Chocobo Bundle and Phyrexia: All Will Be One’s Compleat Edition Bundle tend to sell out super quickly.
Of course, you can often find these second-hand, but again, the price will be blown up far past the intended MSRP. At these prices, the bundles often aren’t worth it unless you’re buying a gift for someone who specifically asked for said bundle.
So, while there are lots of higher-end products for the MTG collector who has everything, you’re really better off just buying singles. Still, if you’re buying a gift for an MTG collector in your family, these are the best options out there.
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