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You're listening to the MTG Sold podcast. This is the week of July 13th through July 19th,

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2026.

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The top by number was big. TCG player did about $1.4 million. Revenue up,

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around 36%, units up around 27% from the week before, but almost all of that came from

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one product, and the product isn't even out yet. The Hobbit debuted at MagicCon Amsterdam

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on Saturday the 18th. It doesn't release until August 14th. Its two booster displays did

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about $540,000 between them last week, which is roughly 39% of the entire week's revenue.

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The collector display alone led the whole board at around 308,000. The play display was

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second and around 231,000, and you can see the revealed land in the daily sales. Monday

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through Friday had been running around 167 to 193,000 a day, pretty flat, and then Saturday

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the day of the panel jumped to about 343,000. That was the biggest single day of the week.

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Part of what's pulling people in is what's actually in the set. The one ring is being

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reprinted, the same one ring from the original Lord of the Rings set that turned into one

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of the most valuable cards in modern Magic. And there's a guill that version of Smog that

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only shows up in collector boosters. There's a real reason the collector display is the one

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leading the board and not the play display. It still pre-order money on a set and nobody

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can open yet, but there's a specific chase card behind the money, which is different from

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just release hype. The head-mind number is real, but it's pre-order money on an unreleased

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set, and that's not the in-hand market getting stronger. Those two things aren't the same,

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and you can watch them come apart in the data. The play display price fell about 8% on the

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week, and the pre-release pack fell about 18% even with all of that demand behind them.

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The reason is, supply. When a set reveals and everyone pre-ordered at once, the sell is

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show up even faster than the buyers. The pre-release pack more than double is available

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listings in a week, so the price drifts down while the volume climbs, because sellers are

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undercutting each other to lock in the sale before the product is in hand. That's ordinary

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for a pre-order. I just didn't want anyone reading a 36% revenue week as the whole market

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ripping, because it wasn't.

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Under that, there are three things I actually care about this week. First, Final Fantasy

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Collector. Last week, I wondered whether it would hold above $1,500 and went to about $1875.

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I'm sorry, $1875, up around 21%, which is the highest per price unit in the whole data

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set by a long way. This box is different from everything else I've tightened, because the

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supply just can't come back. There are a share of lies chocobo cards in it, and Wizards

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can't re-print the box without breaking the whole thing, so the poll only shrinks. The

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boxes are getting quoted towards 1900 now. The catch is, is that only 25 units carried

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that move. The direction makes sense to me because the supply generally can't grow, but

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I'm not going to make much of the size of a jump that rests on that few sales, especially

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with people cracking boxes to flip. A supply that can only shrink, plus a wave of flippers

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usually means a lot of chop before you get to a settled price. Second, Marble. This one

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moved in a way I didn't expect. Last week, it was the four regular commandodex that's

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offened. This week, it's the surge foil collector additions, the premium versions. Doom

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prevail is down about 60%, fantastic four, down about 18, will count to forever, down

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about 16. All three on more supply and more units sold, so demand didn't leave. It was the

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premium that came off. Our sources are pointing to another commander repaint wave around the

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end of July, with better confirmation expected coming this week. I can't confirm the reprint

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myself yet, so I'm not going to say that it's settled. But if you were clearing inventory

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ahead of a print run, you knew that was coming. The premium edition is the first thing you

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sell, and if it was the premium edition across all three decks that came off at the same

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time, if that reprint gets confirmed next week, this is probably what we're looking at.

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There's some context around Marble worth mentioning too. The pro tour was an Amsterdam that same weekend

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July 17th to the 19th, more than 350 players, and it came down to a brood scale combo deck

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in the finals. A themed pro tour keeps us set in front of people while it's released when

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no supply is still working itself out. And Marble is still the in-hand backbone of this

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market. Away from all of the hobby pre-orders, the Marble collector and play displays were

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the real revenue underneath, somewhere around 70 to $48,000 respectively.

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Third, and this is the one I've been waiting on, Jamstar, Marble Jamstar. Last week I said

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the thing to watch was which way it's supply would break, it built. The Marble Jump Turt

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display is still selling through more than three times its shelf every week, so the demand

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is hot, but the supply finally came up around 16%. And the price stayed flat, right around $166.

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Supply arriving, demand hot, price not moving. That's the delayed shipment story playing

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out. I also got confirmation this week that there's

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a big restart coming, something like 75,000 units hitting the market at large. What I don't

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know is how much of that actually lands on TGG player versus somewhere else. If it lands

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here, supply keeps climbing and the price goes off, if it goes elsewhere, the crunch holes

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and the move towards 170 is still on the table.

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Then there's the quiet stuff. I tried not to skip past. A few older pre-cons kept tightening

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with no news attached to them. Saltire Risen actually led the gainers up about 24% at a

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sell through over 1.5, and it's a 2025 pre-con with nothing behind it that I could find.

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Vlosser Ramptor from 2023 kept grinding up. Absiband Armor hit a sell through near 5 on

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Manipule. I went looking for a reprint in an event video and came up with nothing for

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any of them. The only thing I can offer is a guess, and it really is just a guess.

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Universe Beyond keeps bringing new players in and a dragon set is an easy place for a new

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player to start. I came back that up, but what I can say is that these decks are moving

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on plain supply and demand instead of a headline, and that usually makes them worth more attention

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than they get. A couple of quick flags on the numbers will fire wrap up. The Marble Gift

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Bundle, it looks like it dropped 24%, but that's a restock. Supply roughly tripled and sell

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account nearly quadrupled in a week, so that's inventory arriving, not demand dying.

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And most of the Manipule moves last week were only a few orders on a tiny baseline, so

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those are direction only. Two, the Hobbit entries on Manipule had data quality flags, so

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I'm letting those aside. Three things I'm watching this week, one, the Marble reprint and whether

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gets confirmed and whether the collector's edition keeps sliding as it gets closer. If

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a deck holds through a reprint, the demand was real, if it falls apart, it was scarcity

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holding it up. Two, whether that jumpstart restock actually reaches TCG player or gets absorbed

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somewhere else. And three, where the Hobbit pre-order price is settled heading into August

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14th. Pre-order prices tend to be the softest right after the reveal, and again, right before

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the product ships, so a drift from here would be the calendar more than week demand.

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That's the week, big number on top, but most of it was one set, and that's still isn't

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out yet, and the signal's worth acting on requireder than the headline. I'll see you next