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0 Most Magic: The Gathering players are, by now, used to the high prices of cards, booster boxes, or other premium products that Wizards of the Coast has been releasing at overwhelming speed in the last few years. The Final Fantasy set marks a stark difference, simply by the fact that it is Standard legal. Players excited to play their favourite characters from the rich Final Fantasy lore are going to have to dig deep in their pockets to do so.
Cloud and Sephiroth are coming to an LGS near you
Yes, it’s an exciting time to be a Magic: The Gathering player, undoubtedly so. With this set and the SpongeBob Secret Lair that just came out not three months ago, you can now play Commander and sit across ‘Squidward, Sarcastic Snob’, ‘Cloud, Midgar Mercenary’, and ‘Chun-Li, Countless Kicks’. This may add a much-needed layer of hilarity to the Commander format that has, in recent years, strayed far from its casual origins and ventured deep into competitive territory. But Final Fantasy is Standard legal. Let that sink in for a minute — a premium, Expanded Universes’ product will be played in official competitive tournaments. The days when a casual player could join a local FNM and compete on a $100 budget are hereby officially gone.
Break the Bank with Final Fantasy
Let’s have a closer look. As of the time of writing, a basic Play Booster is sitting at €5.80 on cardmarket.com and at $9.70 on tcgplayer.com. As a quick reminder, you’ll likely not find the highly sought-after alternative art foils in these boosters, as your chances are 0.5% of opening a pack and pulling one. You would need to open about 200 of these in the hopes of finding a special art foil.
The real fun begins when we look at the Collector Boosters, currently priced at €58.60 in the European secondary market and a whopping $79 in the USA. You’ve read that right, that is nearly 60 Euros / 80 Dollars for 15 pieces of cardboard. Things get even wilder when we look at the price of a Collector Booster Box, sitting at a staggering €628 in the European Market, $815 in the American Market, and $650 on Amazon for the Japanese version. With that kind of money, you could buy a PS5 and still have enough for several AAA games.
Secondary Market Meltdown
As expected, the secondary market is on fire. If you want to get your hands on a non-foil, not-borderless, not-extended-art version of Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, it will cost you about $49 / €32. If you are looking to bling out your deck with foil, alternate-art versions of fan-favourite characters like Cloud, Yuna, and Tidus, you’ll need to reach deep inside your pockets to cover their absurd prices. Some surge foil variants are spiking up to $200, $300, and even $400. Commander-focused staples such as ‘Stay With Me – Rhystic Study’ are being pre-sold for $120+.
Hype, FOMO, and nostalgic millennials are all joining forces here for the perfect storm. The Final Fantasy cards are undeniably gorgeous, but when cosmetic variants become gatekeepers to play, the experience as a Magic player shifts dramatically. Rotating formats like Standard may start to feel more like a luxury than a welcoming format.
Beautiful, Beautiful, Expensive Cardboard
As most Magic: The Gathering players with years of experience already know, many of these products and singles will eventually go down in price. Some cards that people expected to shine in Standard, Modern, or Commander will ultimately flop. Someday, the hot fires of FOMO will be nothing but smoky, warm coals. And some years in the future, Final Fantasy will finally rotate out of Standard.
But until then, if players want to play Standard, they will have to sell a kidney and an eye to be part of the game they love.
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