The Big Things: Foil Multipliers
Foil, or “premium” printings, of cards have existed for the majority of Magic’s history, making their main-set debut in 1999 with the release of
Price Metrics
Let’s start off by looking at some historical price data for the two initial waves of foils, pre-modern (those printed between Urza’s Legacy and
So while the average absolute foil value of this period is definitely higher by comparison, it isn’t necessarily representative of the bigger picture. For that, we’re going to need to turn to a different metric: the foil price multiplier. This is calculated by dividing a card’s Foil Market price by its Market Price and denotes what the percentage premium assigned to the foil version is, which is going to be very helpful in price trend assessments going forward. This can also be taken across all cards in a set, culminating in the mean foil price multiplier, which is what we’ll be using the most when assessing broader trends.
Looking Back: Pre-Modern
For our pre-modern case study, we’ll turn to Urza’s Legacy.
The poster child of this set,
This points to an interesting trend seen throughout the pre-Modern period of foils. The mean foil price multiplier across a set is uniformly high, with even rather inexpensive cards demanding significant percentage premiums for their foil counterparts, but there nonetheless exists a ceiling in terms of absolute value which the market is willing to assign to any one individual card. Grim Monolith serves as an excellent example for this: the card is played wildly and commands a high demand, but has not mustered the strength to break beyond the broader limitations for the price assignable to cards printed outside the first-tier Reserved List Staples (see my article here where I break down the tier system for further context). No matter the price of the base printing, $2,000 is a lot of money to pay for a Magic card.
| Grim Monolith | ||
|---|---|---|
| Urza's Legacy | ||
Looking Back: Modern
As for the next era of foils, we can evaluate Magic’s first modern Standard set,
Similar to that of Urza’s Legacy, Mirrodin also experiences a trend where the foil price multiplier for cards throughout the set decreases as the base price of the card in question increases.
| Chrome Mox (Borderless) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Double Masters: Extras | ||
| Mirrodin | ||
| Double Masters | ||
Looking Forward: Present Day
A bit of background before we get into what’s going on here. Project Booster fun, as rolled out by Wizards of the Coast, was the invention of Collector and Set booster packs, alongside all of the specialty treatments which became commonplace in the sets to follow. This created an explosion of price points for cards, with etched foils, textured foils, borderless foils, and a plethora of other new treatments flooding the market. This had the benefit of allowing for increased player access at the cost of obscuring the overall marketplace. As opposed to one-off specialty products such as the Masterpiece series, it quickly became difficult to ascertain what the “most rare” version of a card was. Just check the price data for
How has this affected pricing? Well, the short answer is that it has crashed the price multiplier for traditional foils. Yes, a handful of specialty treatments have been able to retain a substantial premium between their foil and non-foil counterparts, but this has come at a cost to the rest of the printed card pool. Looking to
Project Booster Fun brought with it an explosion in the supply of foils, a shift dramatic enough in and of itself to suppress foil prices simply by crowding out demand. Beyond this shift in the number of foils, it is also important to address the quality of foils: players and collectors alike have bemoaned the warping effect of foils in recent years, with some foil curling conditions even being so severe as to make cards unplayable in tournament settings. This diminishing demand for foils coincided with an oversaturation of supply, furthering the collapse in prices through to the present era. Now, these issues have a longer history beyond that of Project Booster Fun, so if you are interested in the demand-side question of foils, playability, and prices, feel free to let us know in the MTGStocks Discord server.
| The Great Henge | ||
|---|---|---|
| Throne of Eldraine | ||
| Throne of Eldraine: Extras | ||
Conclusion
Overall, there are two important trends to recognize over the course of Magic’s history with premium printings. The first, something primarily limited to the pre-modern and modern foil eras, is that the multiplier of a foil card is not a one-to-one correlation with that of the non-foil price. A doubling of Grim Monolith’s Market Price won’t necessarily double the Foil Market Price, so it is important to keep an eye on all the driving economic pressures at the time, not just the base demand for a card. This is the opposite case with present day foils, however, as the collapse in the mean foil price multiplier means that traditional foil prices shift along with the non-foil demand. With an eye on the prices of the future, it seems best to treat present day foils akin to that of their non-foil counterparts, while modern and pre-modern foils require much closer inspection.
Harvey McGuinness
Harvey McGuinness is a student at Johns Hopkins University who has been playing Magic since the release of Return to Ravnica. After spending a few years in the Legacy arena bouncing between Miracles and other blue-white control shells, he now spends his time enjoying Magic through CEDH games and understanding the finance perspective. He also writes for the Commander's Herald.