Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! all have thousand-dollar cards, but how does Blue-Eyes White Dragon compare to Black Lotus and Charizard?
Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, and the Pokémon TCG all vary in terms of gameplay style, with each game using a different resource system and having different effects on cards, but one thing that all the games have in common is their value as collectibles. Each unique card in every TCG has both gameplay effects and monetary value outside of its in-game power. Which cards are the most valuable in each game and which game is the most affordable today are reasonable questions that one might ask when getting into both the act of playing the games as well as acquiring memorabilia.
For Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon, each of the most expensive cards holds weight both for their nostalgic factor and power as an in-game piece. Every game has evolved and reached healthy levels of success, with Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, Magic Arena, and Pokémon TCG Online - and many of the newly printed cards have had higher supply and thus lower prices. As one goes back in time more and more, cards begin to become collector’s pieces rather than game pieces.
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As collector’s items, all the games have cards that are worth at least quintuple digits, whether for sentimental reasons, gameplay reasons, or rarity. Looking below the most expensive cards, there are still some unique cards that have retained and gained value over the past 25 years. For people who either want to collect current cards or play without breaking the bank, it might also make sense to look at current metagames and analyze which games allow for deckbuilding on a budget.
The race for the most expensive cards from Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon is mostly three-way competition between an Alpha Black Lotus, Blue-Eyes White Dragon 1st Edition, and The Holofoil 1st Edition Charizard. Magic: The Gathering’s Black Lotus sold for the most at auction, totaling $500,000.00. The Shiny Holographic Charizard that many Pokémon fans and trading card enjoyers know about sold for a height of $369,000.00, and Blue-Eyes White Dragon 1st edition has a lower price, with a still surprising value of $85,100.00 for a PSA-graded 10. However, as of February 2022, the record holder goes to Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon card, which sold for around $900,000.
All of these cards fetch high prices, but Blue-Eyes White Dragon does net the least amount of money if collectors are looking for six-digit figures. The reason that the Blue-Eyes White Dragon is less valuable is most likely due to supply and demand. There have been reprints of the card and the original 1st edition’s value is more tied to the nostalgia of the first release rather than gameplay mechanics. There are some tournament promotional arts that are more expensive than the base first-edition Blue-Eyes, but the dragon is the most expensive card that was available in booster packs, even if it was rare.
Beyond the typical most expensive collector’s pieces the games have to offer, there are certain cards that are rare due to a lack of reprints, promotional events, and special one-time offers that can dwarf official cards played in tournaments. Yu-Gi-Oh!’s most famous example is most likely the stainless steel Tournament Black Luster Soldier, which was given out during the 1999 Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament as an exclusive prize and was sold for around $2 million. Pokémon’s version of this card is the Pikachu Holo Illustrator card - a trainer card that was given to winners of a contest held in 1997 by a Japanese magazine and has sold for a still shocking $900,000.
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The most interesting of these promos is the MTG card Proposal, which was given to the creator’s then-girlfriend Lily as a wedding proposal. Only nine copies exist and one was reportedly listed for $50,000 dollars, but none have been confirmed to be sold. Across the board, the most expensive Magic promotional cards aren’t as expensive as the Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon cards. Whether because of less interest or because of a lack of sales data, the prices for the MTG cards are much more attainable and some can even be found for triple-digit prices.
For those opening boxes today, all of the cards from more recent sets like Pokemon's Battle Styles should be within reach. There are still games to play and cards that will accumulate value over time. Booster Box prices are incomparable due to each pack size being different, but on TCGPlayer, Battle of Chaos packs are worth $2.40, Pokémon Brilliant Stars packs are worth $3.50, and MTG's Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty packs are worth $3.84. Analyzing the odds, figuring out how many rares one would open, and how much expected value is present in these packs might be hard, but people have done the math and it varies from set to set.
Individual cards in both Yu-Gi-Oh meta decks and Magic: The Gathering usually cap out at around $30.00 for regular versions, while foil variants can run above $50.00. Pokémon keeps a lot of its cards inexpensive with many separate variations and making its chase holofoils and art cards focus more on collectability than playability, but sometimes cards that are both competitive and expensive like Mew VMAX can slip through the cracks and cost around $20.00 per copy. In both Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, there are cards dubbed “lottery cards” by the community that can be worth upward of $100.00 and beyond. These are full-art treatments that often appear once per case of six booster boxes, making them rare and desirable by collectors. Yu-Gi-Oh! skips this tactic entirely and the lottery cards present in other games are almost never needed to make a functioning deck.
Depending on whether someone’s purpose is to buy cards, speculate on certain card values, or build a deck, the answer to the question “Which card game is worth the most money?” might vary. While the highest-end collectibles belong to Magic and Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! has plenty of tournament promos that rival those cards in price. At tournament and casual play levels, the most expensive cards aren't much more expensive than any other game, and people who buy booster boxes today will often have a personal reason for choosing one card game over the other.
There are all sorts of collectors - those who are after the most expensive cards, those who are after a specific type of card or style of gameplay, and those who open booster packs to look at the often well-detailed art. Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh! all have cards that fit these categories. For those looking for returns on investment or ways to “cash out,” each game has a healthy fanbase that is always looking for the best cards and is willing to pay money for them.
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Joshua Cole is a gaming writer for Screen Rant and a recent graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Writing for Film and Television. He's taken that storytelling prowess and analysis and is applying it to gaming, where stories are aplenty. He's based out of San Diego, California, and when he's not writing, he's probably looking for another creative outlet in the form of playing Magic: The Gathering or Planet Coaster.