HowTo Network emblem How To: Gaming THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
A colossal runed stone vault door split down its centre, gold gearwork rings and heavy chains across it, molten orange light and sparks pouring out of the seam onto broken rock

● MAGIC · CHAPTER 02  —  DOOR 03 · CHASE THE MYTHIC

CHASE

sets, mythics & money.

what to crack, what to chase.

Which sets are worth cracking, which cards hold value, and how to chase a mythic without lighting money on fire.

▸ THE REPRINT CURVE

A card is only expensive while it is hard to get. Everything you pay above that is a bet on nobody printing it again.

Prices in Magic do one thing over and over. A card leaves print, the supply stops growing, demand keeps climbing, and the number goes up until somebody at the printer decides otherwise. Then it falls in a week and comes back slowly — to somewhere well under where it was. That shape is the whole chapter. Learn to see where a card is sitting on it and you stop buying at the only moment that never pays.

THE GAP PEAK WHERE IT SETTLES REPRINT RELEASE OUT OF PRINT THE FLOOR SETTLED WHAT PEOPLE PAY ▲ TIME ▸

A reprint is the only thing that reliably beats scarcity — so check whether one is coming before you pay the peak.

▸ FOUR PRICES, ONE CARD

PRINT TREATMENTS · LOW TO HIGH
Regular The version in most packs. It is the price people quote at you, and usually the only one worth owning to play with. BASE Foil Same card, fewer per box. The first step up in price, and the first to curl if you store it badly. ↑ Extended Art Art pushed out to the card's edge, printed only for that set. The pool is fixed on release day and never grows. ↑↑ Borderless / Showcase The one on the box art. Fewest printed, most photographed, and priced like both of those things are the same thing. ↑↑↑

One card can be sitting in four price brackets at the same time. Before you compare two listings, check you are comparing the same treatment — most bad Magic purchases start right there.

A single burning ember falling toward a still black lake, its sparks scattering across a violet horizon and reflecting in the water

Three steps.

CHOOSE · SPOT THE REPRINT · COUNT THE COST.  THEN DECIDE.

A man at a wooden desk under a warm lamp, holding a card in a rigid toploader so the foil catches the light, a jeweller's loupe and a microfibre cloth beside him

▸ FROM THE ARCHIVIST · IAN

"Every binder in the world is priced off the highest listing nobody ever bought. Price yours off the last copy that actually sold and the number gets smaller, honest, and a great deal easier to trade against."

READ: KNOW WHAT YOUR BINDER IS ACTUALLY WORTH →

Essays on the chase

IAN & POPPY ON WHAT THINGS ARE WORTH
A brass desk lamp lit over an open, empty glass-topped display case on a wooden desk, with a magnifier on a brass arm, a leather ledger and one glowing amber crystal IAN · ESSAY · LIVE How to Know What Your Binder Is Actually Worth The honest valuation. Ian on sold prices against asking prices, condition you would rather not admit to, and the number you can actually trade or sell against. READ →
POPPY · ESSAYLIVE How to Pull Your Grail Without Going Broke Set the budget before the box is open, not after. Poppy on chasing one card on purpose instead of ten by accident. IAN · ESSAYLIVE How to Read a Population Report Without Lying to Yourself How many graded copies exist, how many are gem, and why the number you want to see is almost never the number that matters. IAN · ESSAYSOON How to Sell a Chase Card at the Right Moment Nobody rings a bell at the top. What a rising price is telling you, what it isn't, and the exit most collectors miss by a month.

◆ MORE ESSAYS AS THIS DOOR GROWS.

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▸ SCARCITY IS A PROMISE NOBODY SIGNED

Rarity holds right up until the week it doesn't. Buy the card you want in your deck, not the one you hope to flip.

The how-to guides

STEP-BY-STEP · BY ROUTE · BY IRIS
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Every price on this street is somebody's opinion. Two of them are the market.

ROUTE 01 · READ THE SET

▸How to Tell Which Sets Are Worth OpeningSOON ▸How to Compare Booster Types Without the HypeSOON

ROUTE 02 · READ THE RISK

▸How to Spot a Reprint That Tanks ValueSOON ▸How to Check What a Card Actually Sold ForSOON

ROUTE 03 · READ THE COST

▸How to Chase a Mythic on a Fixed BudgetSOON ▸How to Decide Between Pulling It and Buying ItSOON

ROUTE 04 · KEEP IT

▸How to Store a Chase Card So It Stays MintSOON ▸How to Sell Near the Top Without RegretSOON
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Where to next.

MAGIC · CHAPTER 02 · THE OTHER TWO DOORS
▸ DOOR 01 · LEARN THE PLANE Getting Started Thirty years of history, from turn one. ▸ DOOR 02 · CHOOSE A FORMAT Decks & Formats A dozen games wearing one name.
Pull Rate ▸ PULL RATE · THE COMPANION BOARD Chasing one card? Pull Rate shows what a Magic booster actually returns — so you can see whether cracking the box beats simply buying the mythic. CHECK THE BOARD →