If you’ve been keeping track of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth secondary market prices, chances are there are a lot of things you’ll find baffling. From bizarre $15+ uncommons, a two-million dollar chase card that may or may not have been found, and incredibly expensive extended art cards, the reason for many of these pricing outliers have proven to be rather complicated.
Generally, for players who are after extended art foil goodness, Collector Booster packs are the way to go. Most of the time, players are cracking these in hopes to find some serialized trinkets, but there is plenty of opportunity to get your hands on whatever extended-art One Ring bling you are looking for… at least, at first glance.
Unfortunately, getting ahold of some of these extended art cards may be much more difficult than expected. This will also affect the overall price of some cards on the secondary market, creating even more unintended chase cards for the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. The catch? You can only find these cards in the preconstructed Commander decks!
Commander Deck Exclusives?
Players who are looking for specific extended-art foil cards from the new Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth may be in for a rude awakening. Traditionally, unless these cards see some significant play in constructed formats, the premium on these cards tend to be pretty small. This, however, is under the assumption that these extended-art foil cards have the availability that players have come to expect. Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth appears to have changed the script a bit.
This was actually noted by Wizards of the Coast, but appears to have been missed by many. As pointed out recently by TCGplayer writer Emma Partlow on Twitter, in Wizards of the Coast’s ‘collecting Lord of the Rings’ article, there was a section that addressed that certain cards can only be found in Commander decks:
“Of note, there are select additional extended-art rares and mythic rares that show up in traditional foil that are only found in the Collector Booster Sample Packs inside Commander product. While the traditional foil versions are only in the Sample Packs, you can find the non-foil versions in Collector Boosters in the extended-art rare or mythic rare slot above.”
Wizards of the Coast
To reiterate, you should be able to find all of the non-foil extended art cards as expected in Collector Booster packs. Its a select number of extended art foil cards that are much rarer than expected.
Notably, these super expensive extended art foil cards are not even guaranteed to pop up in your Commander decks. These cards are only available in the sample Collector Booster packs that are available in each Commander deck. You’re not even guaranteed a full-art foil in these packs, so acquiring these cards may be exceptionally difficult.
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Which Cards are Affected?
Fortunately, MTGGoldfish.com has began to create a list of cards that we believe, at this point, is affected by this exclusivity. Once again, this means that we are not sure if every card on this are the ones being affected by this. Here, we will outline some of the most impactful of these cards.
The most expensive of the cards you can find in your Commander Sample Booster back may very well be this extended art version of The One Ring. Even though this card (but not this version) is available in every LOTR bundle, the competitive attention that this card is getting instead appears to be driving the price of bundles up overall instead of driving the price of The One Ring down across its versions.
With this in mind, it makes sense that an exclusive version of this card would have a massive price hike in comparison to other versions. Putting aside the two-million dollar exception for a moment, extended-art foil versions of The One Ring seem to have a massive multiplier. According to TCGplayer.com, a full-art extended The One Ring currently goes for about $190! That said, according to sales posts for the card, the asking price may be higher than that, with some $300 sales selling for their asking price. There are not many of these currently in the market, and the demand seems to far outweigh the supply.
Even though The One Ring seems to be selling faster than players can put them up for sale, this may not be the most expensive card you can find. Players are still trying to figure out just how rare these cards are, so prices are rather wonky at the moment. That aside, according to MTGgoldfish.com, the most expensive of the exclusive extended-art foils you can find in these boosters is instead Shelob, Child of Ungoliant.
Prices for this card are totally out of whack at the moment, and for good reason. For anyone who wants to try Spider tribal in Commander, Shelob is the best support that the archetype has ever received. As we discussed in another article, this is a fantastic opportunity for spider lovers.
For that reason, there may be some additional interest in acquiring a full-art extended foil Shelob. Commander players love to bling out their Commander and show it off to the table.
According to TCGplayer, at this point, extended art Shelobs have not sold for more than $20, but MTGGoldfish suggests that this could be worth $500! That said, because this increase is so recent, Shelob may not actually be worth this much. Keep an eye on any developments with this one, especially if you open it.
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An obvious contender for cards to watch, Forge Anew has some interesting competitive interactions. The implications of this card in a deck like Hammertime is obvious, but the enchantment is also capable of giving Kaldra Compleat Double Strike. This can occur by moving the Kaldra to another creature after First Strike Damage with Forge Anew’s ability.
According to TCGplayer, copies of extended art foil Forge Anew have been selling for around $50 but, should this exclusivity rule apply to it, Forge Anew may get a heck of a lot more expensive.
According to MTGgoldfish, this may be one of the other big ticket cards to watch out for in your sample packs. Anduril, Flame of the West is already getting some press for being one of the better cards to find in your Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth draft packs, and for good reason. Dealing with a sword that creates two spirits and pumps an equipped creature is difficult.
Otherwise, this card may be a desirable effect for some Commander decks, especially anything that cares about Spirits. Otherwise, this is just a decent equipment to expand your board in Voltron decks.
For the time-being, there aren’t a lot of sales or postings for this card, so the price here is a bit of a mystery. That said, MTGGoldfish currently values this at $300 in its extended art foil version, and some sales postings are backing that up. Should this foil card appear in Collector Boosters, however, it may not be worth much.
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What’s Going to Happen Here?
Unfortunately, the community is still trying to figure out what cards are being affected by this extended art foil Commander Collector sample pack exclusivity. Past that point, we don’t know how rare these cards are going to be within the packs, or how many of these cards have even been printed.
In the case that these end up being extraordinarily rare, chances are these extended art foil cards will be expensive. This is could also invertedly drive up the price of Lord of the Rings Commander decks since there is an opportunity to open something seriously expensive.
What we do know is that some of these cards are going to be affected by this exclusivity. We just need time to figure out what those cards are, how many of those cards have been printed and, if the community is interested in them, how demand versus supply is going to craft these cards’ value. Take these prices with a grain of salt for the time-being, but its difficult to know where these will end up.
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