Metagame: Is Standard getting too expensive?

Author's Note: This article considers Magic: The Gathering prices in US dollars to assess the current state of Standard pricing. It's undeniable that Magic has become more expensive in Brazil over the last decade, driven both by the factors outlined in the text and the notable devaluation of the Real (R$) as currency over the past 15 years as a long-term aggravating factor.

Last week, I tried putting together some budget deck lists on Magic Arena. The goal, as usual, was to bring content about accessible strategies that players could use on the ranked ladder and for newcomers to have a north star on where it might be a good idea to invest their initial wildcards. It's part of the job; I do it every year, two or three times—and this time, I ran into more obstacles.

I started with Mono Green Landfall, a strategy I've been using fairly often to grind daily rewards on MTGArena. Being mono-colored, it technically doesn't need dual lands, and there's no shortage of common "fetch lands" to replace Fabled Passage for a beginner. I discovered how much worse it plays without Ba Sing Se and, obviously, Badgermole Cub.

I put the lists together; some concessions hurt, but at least the lists worked, and they won at least half their games in Best of One. I finished my work with the impression that building budget lists has become much harder today than it was last year. On Magic Arena, it's a predictable consequence—with seven releases in a year and a slower rotation, the number of decks composed of piles of rares and mythics tends only to increase.

Counting the sideboard, Mono Red Aggro today runs an average of 30 rares and 4 mythics, the same numbers as Mono Green Landfall. That's more than Izzet Spellementals, averaging 25 rares, with more than half of those in the mana base, and it's about the same number of rares as Izzet Lessons. Dimir Midrange has 30-34 rares and 4-8 mythics; Excruciator significantly bumps the mythic count to 14 but maintains the 30-35 rare average. Nature's Rhythm lists play with the highest mythic count today: 16. Building a Jeskai Control requires the highest number of rares, with 50.

No surprise, the average cost of a deck on Magic Arena has always been composed of more rares, although mono-colored lists historically demand fewer wildcards than two-or-more-color archetypes. The element that stood out was how the cards seemed indispensable to the point the deck didn't seem to work without them and how "cheap" options didn't have enough room to "compete" on equal footing.

Let's extend this logic to tabletop Magic. On Arena, including four Badgermole Cub means spending four mythic wildcards—it's harder to acquire, but the demand for rares is higher, so the "investment" is less risky because there are other more important cards in the rare slots.

On paper, a playset costs US$ 240 (or R$ 1,200, considering the lowest price on Brazilian marketplaces). Mono Green Landfall costs, on average, between US$500 and US$600, and almost half of that cost is concentrated in one playset. If we look at other more accessible decks, we find a similar pattern—Mono Red Aggro, with an average cost between $200 and $300, has the largest share of that cost concentrated in Hexing Squelcher ($80 per playset) and Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might (30 each).

Dimir Midrange, US$ 500, concentrates most of its cost in Kaito, Bane of Nightmares (US$ 80 per playset), Wan Shi Tong, Librarian (US$ 40 each) and/or Quantum Riddler (US$ 45 each), plus the rising cost in the mana base of various archetypes: Gloomlake Verge costs US$ 65 for four copies, and a playset of Multiversal Passage goes over US$ 50. In Izzet decks, Riverpyre Verge reaches around US$ 90 for four copies—almost half the total cost of Spellementals, or half in versions without Stock Up and Ral, Crackling Wit.

Discussions about prices happen every day. Dozens of social media posts appear on the subject, and even podcasts discuss, legitimately, current Standard prices compared to other eras. There's a reason we don't cover the topic much on the site: in Brazil, Magic has always been expensive. A Booster was R$ 10 in 2008, when the minimum wage was R$ 405. Today, a Booster costs R$ 40, and the minimum wage is R$ 1,621. The pattern remains the same.

Outside the country, the MSRP of boosters also seems to have kept pace, at least with Play Boosters and their equivalents. In 2010, a pack was $3.99, about $6 today. A Play Booster from a standard Magic set costs $5.49, except for Universes Beyond sets, which are above average: $6.99. Magic might be compensating for losses on normal sets with gains on collaboration expansions.

We need to look, therefore, at singles. They've had a similar proportion, but not always. Jace, the Mind Sculptor hit US$100 in April 2011. Primeval Titan cost around US$ 45 in the same period. In 2013, Huntmaster of the Fells cost US$ 30, and Thragtusk, despite being a rare rather than a mythic, cost US$ 25—the same price range as Snapcaster Mage in the same period and Sphinx's Revelation at its peak in the following season.

The prices above don't factor in inflation and other economic vectors within context. According to the US consumer price index, a Jace, the Mind Sculptor at US$ 100 in 2011 would be equivalent to US$ 148 in 2026. Caw-Blade, considered the most expensive deck in Standard history, cost around US$ 780. Today, it would cost US$ 1,150—more expensive than any current Standard list and the vast majority of today's Modern archetypes.

The Tarkir-Battle for Zendikar season was also one of, if not the most troublesome in history in terms of prices. The combination of Fetch Lands + Tango Lands turned the format into a Goodstuff festival: Jeskai Black, Abzan Blue, Mardu Green, and other strategies boiled down to a pile of the best possible cards within a color combination plus a light splash of a third or fourth complementary color.

The average cost of any list from that era ranged from US$ 500 to US$ 750—it was cheaper than Caw-Blade, but by a small margin: 700 dollars in 2015 would be equivalent to US$ 978 today.

There were similarities, like both being environments where Fetch Lands were available, inflating prices since they were staples of non-rotating formats. But there's also a difference in these two cases: in the Zendikar-Scars Standard, although Caw-Blade was more expensive and at absurd levels for the time, there was enough variety in costs to not tie the entire competitive cost of the format above US$ 500. Vampires and Tempered Steel were examples of more affordable decks at the time, and almost every non-blue archetype already saved you US$ 400.

Besides Jace, Vryn's Prodigy costing US$ 90 each, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar reaching US$ 160 for a playset, the mana base in the Tarkir-BFZ season was so rigid in defining what made a deck competitive at the time that it made it impossible for a list to exist without resorting to the Fetch and Tango Land combination. Before Battle for Zendikar was released, decks like Rabble Red cost on average US$ 150, and Azorius Heroic lists bordered on US$ 100, with the largest share of investment going into a playset of Flooded Strand, but the combination of a perfect mana base and the general increase in staple costs meant competitive lists easily had an average cost of US$ 500.

Expensive is not the same as inaccessible. The Standard with the most expensive deck in history had its share of archetypes for those wanting to compete or play at the local stores investing less; Tarkir-BFZ didn't have any reasonably viable competitive strategy option costing less than US$ 300 with heavy investments in the mana base—in today's format, it seems we're closer to the second case than the first, for reasons similar to Caw-Blade.

Your list is less consistent without a Fetch Land to get a Tango Land. Maybe not using them limits your ability to play with splashes or even to operate any list that plays with more than two colors. It doesn't completely invalidate the strategy; it just worsens consistency quite a bit.

This is the case with Izzet Spellementals. You can build it and not spend US$ 90 on a playset of Riverpyre Verge, but the list will have issues with proper color access on the right turns. The more duals you cut, the worse the problem gets.

On the other side, there are cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Your deck is much worse without them, to the point of being inefficient compared to the rest of the format. The number of "Jaces" in Standard has been growing for all colors: powerful cards that dominate the game when they resolve or generate immeasurable advantage if they stay on the board for a turn or two, and with the indicated properties to also affect Magic's eternal formats.

Quantum Riddler was the best card of 2025 for Modern, alongside Voice of Victory. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, Hexing Squelcher, and Moonshadow found homes in Legacy, while Elspeth, Storm Slayer and Ouroboroid propelled Selesnya Company to Tier 1 status in Pioneer—the more powerhouses accumulate in Standard, the harder it becomes to build a viable deck without at least one of them.

Llanowar Elves into Badgermole Cub into Ouroboroid in Simic, or Mightform Harmonizer / Icetill Explorer in Landfall, can carry the game by itself against any less optimized, more fair deck, or one that fails to find answers. Without Cub, the deck is much worse, and there are no viable substitutes since nothing comes close to having the same impact on the game.

When every viable and competitive deck has its own "Jace," everyone simultaneously needs four copies of it to be minimally functional. Otherwise, you're operating at a resource disparity with other strategies. It becomes an arms race, and those who can't afford to keep up get left behind.

Budget decks, or more accessible competitive strategies, have been part of competitive Magic in most cases.

The 2011 Standard had Vampires and Tempered Steel among the popular archetypes with lower entry costs. The 2013 season, where Jund Midrange with Huntmaster of the Fells, Thragtusk, Shock Lands, and Liliana of the Veil reached US$ 600, had a Mono Red Aggro for US$ 100. In the Theros-Tarkir cycle, Azorius Heroic was a cheap and extremely functional option and was later complemented by Izzet Ensoul and Rabble Red, which had a higher cost for a while.

Between 2016 and 2019, we had some more accessible seasons, with exceptions only involving specific powerhouses like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. Mardu Vehicles was format-defining and cost about US$ 300, much less than the Tier 1 decks of previous formats. Mono White Aggro in 2018/2019 was extremely accessible, aside from a playset of History of Benalia at US$ 15 each.

In 2020/2021, Cycling occupied this space for less than US$ 100—but the pandemic made paper play impossible, so we don't have precise data on how much it would cost in a tournament setting—and Mono Blue Tempo starred in accessible lists with an average cost of US$ 100 or less both in 2019 with Autumn Burchett's Mythic Championship-winning deck and in 2022, with a version running Haughty Djinn and Tolarian Terror.

In most cases, they weren't the best decks in the format—the three-color piles and Goodstuff decks occupied that spot. But they held the important space of offering an accessible strategy for players, especially at local game stores and also on Magic Arena: Mono Blue Tempo ran four rares and no mythics without losing absolutely anything in consistency.

A Mono Red Aggro costs between US$ 200 and US$ 300 today, and a good part of that value is concentrated in the number of Hexing Squelcher and Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might the player has. Before, it was concentrated in Screaming Nemesis until it got banned. Considering the more optimized ceiling, we're talking about a Mono Red three times more expensive than the same archetype in 2013, twice as expensive as in 2015.

The other accessible strategy in Standard today is the recently emerged Mono White Warp, which runs cost reducers, creatures with Warp, and Springleaf Drum to trigger Cosmogrand Zenith. The value varies by list and the decision to use Voice of Victory and Elspeth, Storm Slayer, but the average today sits around US$ 150 to US$ 300.

In summary, the two main accessible archetypes in Standard today require up to three times more investment than a decade ago. On the other hand, while the higher cost of competitive archetypes in the format today is comparable to eras like Caw-Blade, Jund Midrange in 2013, and the Battle for Zendikar Standard in specific cases, the overall scope of Standard seems to have maintained the same average price as previous seasons, despite some lists extrapolating values to near US$ 1,000.

A combination of recent factors: increased demand due to game design, the three-year rotation, Universes Beyond, and the popularity of TCGs in mainstream culture.

From a design perspective, more cards seem designed to go beyond Standard and affect Modern and Legacy from release. When the same card serves three or more formats, its demand is tripled and the price rises from pre-sale as players from different environments compete for the same copies of a mythic or rare card.

More expensive Standard seasons are always those that mix cards from the format itself with a cluster of multi-format staples: Jace, Stoneforge Mystic, and Fetch Lands are good examples.

It was also part of what made Return to Ravnica Standard expensive. It was the period of the first reprint of Shock Lands since their original release in the first Ravnica block, combined with a dozen cards present in both Standard and Modern/Legacy: Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil were active in all three formats, Restoration Angel and Sphinx's Revelation were present in UWR Control in both Standard and Modern, and Huntmaster of the Fells was already considered in some Jund lists.

We have a similar side effect on various fronts today. Besides specific staples, Surveil Lands became targets for Fetch Lands and Stock Up—an uncommon at US$ 10 each—is almost as efficient as Dig Through Time for some combo decks in Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage.

The market correction cycle that made Standard cards progressively more accessible was also interrupted. The three-year rotation was designed to solve a reliability problem in investing in the format, but it also increases demand for a card in Standard for longer after boxes have been opened and amplifies the possibilities of unexpected Metagame interactions that turn them, from one set to another, into format-defining staples.

In the medium term, prices drop less—the card has more chances of still being useful until rotation—and the demand, combined with the higher power level affecting more formats, sustains the value increase.

Inserting Universes Beyond into the Standard cycle also created a value dimension that goes a bit beyond commercial policy: Badgermole Cub might never be reprinted without renegotiating a partnership with Nickelodeon because earthbending is an Avatar property. The same goes for staples from Final Fantasy, Marvel Super Heroes, Star Trek, and any other Magic partnership in the coming years.

Utrom Monitor in Pauper is the most recent example of this problem. A card exclusive to a special box of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set became a potential Affinity staple in Pauper, and its only reprint route involves a new contractual agreement or a functional version with different creature typing, which creates another problem by allowing eight copies of the same effect in the same deck. The consequence? A newly released card costs US$ 10 in a format whose main attraction is affordable prices.

Add to the sum that the card game market moved US$ 7 billion in 2024, with projections of constant growth into the next decade, and we conclude that the market has grown and prices have risen with it. If more people play Magic, more people buy Magic, and this reflects on single prices. If more people seek singles, the price goes up, and the cost of an individual card can exceed the historical average of spikes in the game because there's more demand for the product, and supply may not grow at the same rate, especially given collaborative expansions attracting hundreds of thousands of fans to the core of Magic—according to Hasbro, organized play saw a 40% increase in new players in the first half of 2025, driven by Final Fantasy, the best-selling set in the game's history.

There's no viable solution to the problem when the factors feed back into each other: design aimed at multiple formats maintains permanent demand, the presence of external IPs prevents market correction via reprints, and the extended rotation ensures released cards retain value longer, which encourages retention of products as financial assets.

This would already be a troublesome pattern in favorable economic scenarios; outside of them, it's discouraging.

The loss of purchasing power is usually more noticeable when the costs of an entertainment product are also pressured by other fronts, even if there's no proportional increase, leading players to perceive the hobby as significantly more expensive than in previous decades. A mix of accumulated global inflation with families dedicating a larger portion of their income to basic costs and debt has reduced the real value of money in several advanced economies.

At the end of 2024, AlixPartners conducted a consumer spending expectations survey with 15,434 participants across nine countries. More than 75% expected to reduce or maintain spending in 2025, with persistent inflation on essential items resulting in lower spending on categories like out-of-home entertainment. Competitive card games fall into a discretionary spending bracket more vulnerable to this type of contraction—unlike low-cost entertainment like streaming, which remains accessible even with a tight budget, building a competitive deck requires a hard-to-justify cost when margins are tight.

Even when a booster price remains stable for years, the real cost can increase if the consumer's purchasing power decreases to the point the product seems progressively more expensive in terms of disposable income. In Magic's case, the rope pulls from both ends: base decks and cheap options to play are scarcer, and the purchasing power of those with average income has been reduced, making them more selective in their spending.

Age and changes in behavior and consumption also affect this perception and might be the answer to why it's felt more intensely now than ten years ago. When your priorities change, the "cost of the hobby" also changes. If you were 18 in 2014, your Magic costs might have been equivalent to or even higher than today, but your lifestyle back then—without so many costs from responsibilities and essential expenses—might be very different now, at 30.

If people feel their money is worth less and cut back on leisure expenses as a response, then how is Magic selling more than in its entire history? Well, expenditure inequality is twice as high as at the end of the last century. In the United States, the top 20% of earners are responsible for nearly 60% of consumer spending; it was 30% in the 1990s.

The TCG market—not just Magic—grew because those who buy more have increasingly more money to spend, and the current product model for card games has learned to optimize for those at the top at the expense of the contracted base. In recent years, card games have moved rapidly towards the collectible and exclusivity segment: Riftbound already launched with metalized tournament-exclusive cards and special signature cards in boosters. Flesh and Blood expanded its collectibility range. Magic has invested heavily in this segment since 2020: Secret Lairs and the shift from their print-on-demand model to limited-stock, serialized cards in Collector Boosters, among others.

This segment of the public likes exclusivity over the game. They like the feeling of investing in something that gives returns later. TCG set design followed suit and kept the market heated. Similar movements also occurred in brands like Lego and other collectible segments.

In a direct response, it depends.

Mono White Warp exists at $150-180 at base price, Mono Red Aggro competes at $200-300, and Izzet Spellementals follows the same range, with half the cost involved in a playset of dual lands. All have proven results in tournaments and ample space at local game stores. This last weekend, MendezCL made 7th place in a Standard Challenge running a $50 Mono Red list.

Stating that the current Standard has accessible options is technically correct, but with caveats.

The diversity of accessible routes seems to have shrunk to the smallest amount since Tarkir-Battle for Zendikar. Our assessment is that the average cost of a Standard list has remained the same, but with notable pressure points both at the top of the chain—Four-Color Rhythm, Simic Ouroboroid, Elementals, among others bordering or above US$ 800—and at the base, where accessible competitive lists went from US$ 100-150 to, on average, US$ 200-300.

The causes mix and form a rope around the player. The addition of expensive bombs to the format and how they leave little room for other variants in those colors or color combinations to exist without major concessions: you can play green without Badgermole Cub, but you'll lose the core that makes all green lists viable in the format. All colors have this category of card in some way in the format today, creating a Metagame where the "budget deck" is at a clear disadvantage because the power level doesn't keep up.

Social and economic issues are the other end. The cost of living and debt have increased lately and have been suffocating the space for leisure and entertainment activities in the average consumer's lifestyle. Playing competitive card games demands much more money than subscribing to Netflix or buying a new game for the console, especially for adults who have now aged and haven't seen their income increase proportionally with costs while their responsibilities have expanded.

Magic has always been expensive, and this is not the most expensive season in Standard history. We are in a healthy environment for those wanting to compete at a high level and have the money to spare to do so, but accessible lists are losing ground. With them, the possibility of choice that turns an expensive hobby into something that different people, with smaller budgets, can share in the same environment at the store, disappears.

More than any complaint about the price of a specific card, the effect of lost accessibility can have consequences, mainly for the local game store player who just wants to have fun on a Friday night after a stressful week. It would be in the interest of Magic and other TCGs, as games beyond products, to look at this audience and remember there's a portion of their base for whom accessibility is the biggest attraction in a new release.