A single Enchantment in Magic: The Gathering’s Hobbit set is selling for $530. It isn’t Smaug. It isn’t the One Ring. It’s a card about drawing your second card of the turn.
Universes Beyond has been a fight club for MTG players since the day it was announced, but a return to Middle-earth got even the skeptics to perk up. The Commander Decks still haven’t shown up. What has shown up is a set full of genuinely great artwork and some cards worth hunting for.
Two caveats before the money talk. These are TCGplayer prices, and the One Ring doesn’t have a number attached to it yet. Pre-release pricing is also famously unstable, so expect these figures to move fast.
If you’re cracking packs on launch weekend, though, here’s what you’re praying for.
The cheap end starts at $160
The Queen of Dale opens the list at $160, and she lets you recruit whenever your opponents cast noncreature spells.
Recruit means you draw and discard a card, and if you discard a nonland card, you get a 1/1 white Human Soldier token. At two mana, triggering off every noncreature spell your opponents throw down, that’s a board and a graveyard filling up quickly.
Thranduil, the Elvenking is the set’s first book cover treatment, and there are plenty more coming. He’s a 5/6 with all activated abilities of Elf cards in your graveyard.
He also draws and discards when another legendary Elf enters, which is exactly what typal decks want. Green and blue have no shortage of Elves to feed him. He’s around $170.
Dwarves, dragons and free equipment
Thorin, Mountain-King, another book cover, attaches equipment to one of your creatures for free.
When one or more pieces of equipment become attached this way, that creature deals damage equal to its power to up to one target creature. He’s a 3/4 with Trample and sells for around $195.
Smaug the Magnificent’s borderless treatment is one of the best-looking cards in the set, and it’s going for around $200.
The card doesn’t spell it out on this version, but it deals damage equal to the number of Treasures you control to any target, creature or player. You also get a Treasure token at the beginning of your upkeep. And it’s a 4/3 with flying and haste.
Want more Smaug? Functionally identical to the version above, this one shows the dragon asleep on his hoard.
Same card, different nap. It’s selling for around $225.
The burglar and the wizard
Bilbo, Thief in the Night finally turns up as a 2/2 that reduces the cost of spells cast from anywhere but your hand. He does the same thing when he attacks, which is a nice bit of design for a character whose whole job is sneaking around.
This version sits at around $240.
Gandalf, Goblins’ Bane was never going to be cheap. But this version earns it. He can be cast as a 2/3 Avatar Wizard who gains +1/+1 with noncreature spells and pings opponents for damage, or he can act as a Sorcery.
Flameshape exiles two cards from your library and lets you play them as long as you control a Wizard. The book cover version is close to breaking $300.
The Arkenstone costs more than the dragon guarding it
Before the One Ring, there was the Arkenstone. This Legendary Artifact powers up your creatures and gets you end-of-turn card draw.
You can play it as a Sorcery too, searching for a legendary creature card and putting it into your hand. That one’s $305.
Prefer a different treatment? You’ll pay for the privilege. This one is $400.
The $530 card nobody saw coming
Gleaming Splendor sits well beyond the $500 mark. It’s an Enchantment that hands you Treasure Tokens as players draw their second card on a turn.
The artwork tells you exactly what it wants to do: pair it with Smaug, the Magnificent in red and white and let the Treasures pile up. You can also pay additional mana to force other players to draw a card, which is a polite way of describing what happens next.
It’s $530 right now. Ask again on Monday.
