Now that the entire card list for the new Lord of the Rings set has been spoiled, some stores are beginning to open Lord of the Rings product to get ready for their perspective Prereleases. This means that some lucky winners are already starting to emerge.
As you may already know, the Serialized hype for MTG Lord of the Rings Collector Boosters is extremely high. With a two-million dollar offer on The One Ring, and a reported $13000 dollar sale on the first of the Serialized Dwarven Sol Rings, there appears to be some serious money made here.
Interestingly, however, it doesn’t just stop with just Serialized cards. There appears to be another potential mini-jackpot available for these Collector Booster packs. No, it’s not the limited un-serialized version of the Rings of Power either; it is, instead, an exclusive ultra-rare Box Topper treatment. These are, apparently, so rare that Surge Foil Box Toppers are already selling for hundreds of dollars! Some are being listed for thousands!
Surge Foils Return
One of the coolest features for the upcoming Lord of the Rings is the new full-art box topper reprints. Coined as the Realms and Relics, these Box Toppers feature some iconic artifacts and lands from MTG’s history and reprints them with an LOTR theme. Think of it like Godzilla cards from Ikoria.
Even if you only get the Box Toppers that come with your Draft Booster Box, you can find some seriously valuable cards. Some format monoliths like Ancient Tomb and Cavern of Souls meet cards in need of a reprint like Oboro, Palace in the Clouds to offer a potentially lucrative experience with excellent flavor.
That said, those who have been lucky enough to open the Surge Foil Box Toppers in their Collector Boosters appear to be having quite the payday. These Box Toppers are already selling for hundreds, and being listed for thousands of dollars!
The last time we saw the Surge Foil treatment was for another Universes Beyond Crossover. Appearing as Collector Commander decks with the Warhammer 40K set, these are the most expensive Commander products ever printed. These are quite different from the current circumstance of LOTR Surge Foils since all players needed to do was buy a product to guarantee those cards. You need to get lucky to find these.
How Rare are Surge Foil Box Toppers?
Interestingly, these Surge Foil Realms and Relics Cards actually appear to be quite rare. According to Wizards of the Coast, you’ll only find these in slightly under 1% of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Collector Booster packs.
For reference, the chances of finding a Lost Legends card back in Dominaria United Collector Boosters was around the 3% mark. After a lot of analysis, players discovered that these may have ended up being a bit more common than this, but you can typically expect to find at least one of these in a case of Collector Booster packs.
The issue here was that most Lost Legends cards had little to no value in them. Sure, your chances of opening a Lost Legends card, for a chase item, were probably higher than first expected, but there was an overwhelming chance that your Lost Legends pull, should you get one, would just end up being a common worth a dollar or two. It was much harder to open one of the cards worth thousands of dollars, like Moat or the infamous The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale.
Another point of comparison in terms of rarity is the Foil Shattered Glass Transformers cards. These were incredibly rare in Brothers’ War Collector Booster packs, but were still much more common than Lost Legends or Surge Foil Realms and Relics cards. These were in approximately 12% of Collector Boosters.
Regardless of this, the most desirable of these Shattered Glass foil cards still sold for over $500 apiece. This should really start to show off just how rare these Surge Foil Realms and Relics cards really are.
Current Sales
A few outlandish numbers quickly entered the fray. This is pretty common for rarer MTG collectibles right after they get released. Most early potential sales for these cards were in the thousands, but prices seem to be appearing in the hundreds for the few cards already listed on TCGplayer.
At the time of writing, some of the cheaper box toppers in their Surge Foil form are offering prices in the $300ish range. As the demand for a reprint becomes stronger, so does the price.
Currently there is two listings of Gemstone Caverns in its Surge Foil Treatment on TCGplayer for $1000. Ironically, there’s also a sold copy for $80.
The message here is even though many players are asking for thousands of dollars out of the gate; it may be best to wait a bit and see what these truly settle at.
If you asked me what I think these cards are worth, I would say the more expensive ones will probably settle for above $500. These are much rarer than Shattered Glass cards, and the more desirable cards still list for over $500.
The other side of this coin is that there will be much larger amounts of non-foil copies of these cards in rotation since, according to Wizards of the Coast, you should be getting four Box Topper cards on average (excluding Box Topper packs) Per Collector Box.
Read More: Underrated $2 Lord of the Rings Card Could Make Waves in EDH!
Are Realms and Relics More Common Than Expected?
Perhaps even more interesting is the statistic that a non-foil Realms and Relics Card should appear in approximately 31% of Collector Booster packs. This means that a little under one-third of your Collector Boosters should have a Box Topper. This also means that, excluding the actual Box Topper packs, you should be getting about 4 of these per Collector Booster Box.
If a ton of Collector Booster packs are opened in the quest for The One Ring, the Realms and Relics reprints may affect the secondary market in a way players did not expect. Cards like Ancient Tomb and Oboro, Palace in the Clouds could use a bit of a discount anyway, so this is hardly a bad thing.
Either way, the newest wave of MTG Lord of the Rings collectibles will be interesting to watch. The novelty of these particular cards is much lower than the Sol Rings, and The One Ring, but, should the numbers from Wizards of the Coast prove true, the Surge Foil Box Toppers are some of the rarer collectibles the game has ever seen. Will they sell for thousands, or are collectors starting to feel some burnout? Only time will tell.
If you want to see what cards are being reprinted, we highlighted all the Box Toppers coming with Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth in two separate articles. This one outlines the initial reveal of the Box Toppers, and this one rounds them out.
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