The recent MTG Secret Lair X Marvel sale was an incredibly successful disaster. The sale ended in just five hours, but many players felt wronged. Thanks to unreasonably limited supply, a sight crash, and a line-jumping exploit, many MTG players suffered incredibly long wait times only to fail to receive any of the Secret Lairs they desired. Needless to say, this is a scalpers’ paradise.
Arcane Signet is not an expensive MTG card, but it is a Commander staple. The card should see play in almost any Commander deck. There are very few scenarios where you wouldn’t want an artifact that taps for any color you need at two mana in your deck. As such, premium variants of that card are going to demand a high price tag. This is the case for the $200 MTG X Marvel Secret Lair add-on version. Just a day after the sale started, copies of Earth’s Mightiest Emblem are selling for $70 on TCGplayer.
Earth’s Mightiest Emblem
Earth’s Mightiest Emblem is officially one of the most expensive Arcane Signets on the market. Players who spent more than $200 on their Secret Lair X Marvel order received one of these promo cards as a bonus. Despite this card consistently selling for a crisp $70, it actually pales in comparison to the foil Future Sight bordered Arcane Signet from Mystery Booster 2.
Regardless, $70 is an absurd premium for a card whose cheapest pricepoint is 30 cents. It was expected this new variant would be expensive, given it’s a Universes Beyond printing, but this is too far. Having so many copies listed for sale the day after a sold-out sale understandably leaves a bad taste in many player’s mouths.
Parties selling off the Arcane Signet for between $70 and $200 likely weren’t trying to get their hands on the MTG X Marvel cards to play with them. These parties are simply interested in flipping the cards to make some profit. Scalpers, as they are referred to, buy massive quantities of limited releases like this, which limits the amount of product that gets into the hands of players who actually want to use them.
Many players who aspired to own Captain America, Iron Man, and the other superheroes featured in this sale were left with empty hands. Now, if they want to purchase these cards, they need to buy them from secondary sources that have jacked the prices of individual cards.
Absurd Scalper Premiums
Scalpers have already made an absolute killing on the MTG X Marvel disaster. While the Earth’s Mightiest Emblem is the clearest example of this, it’s far from the only thing selling early from this drop. Scalpers who are selling the full foil bundle from the MTG X Marvel sale are consistently getting about $625 for it. That’s more than two times the original price of the bundle at purchase. In a bizarre twist, the non-foil bundle is selling for even more.
Individual Secret Lairs were listed between $40 and $50 for the MTG X Marvel sale. Each Secret Lair is currently selling for between $135 and $200 now, with Storm being the most expensive Secret Lair by a decent margin. Storm herself is currently going for about $80 in foil and $70 in non-foil. The other MTG X Marvel mechanically unique superheroes are going for between $35 and $70, with Black Panther being on the cheaper side of things.
Anyone who bought multiple copies of the MTG X Marvel Secret Lairs and plans on selling them now is going to get more than twice their investment. This is obviously incredibly lucrative, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. As long as Wizards of the Coast continues to limit their Secret Lair quantities, expect scalpers to keep making a profit off of MTG players everywhere.
