With the recent release of Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond - Marvel's Super Heroes , there have already been some incredibly interesting developments in a short amount of time. The Collector Booster Boxes have stubbornly held their hefty $450 MSRP mark and are currently marching toward the $500 threshold. Sitting around $470 right now, there is a surprisingly low supply, with less than 250 quantity currently available on TCGplayer. This indicates that there is a massive amount of buying volume for a brand-new release, setting a firmly bullish tone.
Furthermore, the quantity of collector-exclusive singles available in the inventory is quite low. Based on the buying volume and listed inventory, we can logically guess that most Collector Booster Boxes being purchased are being kept perfectly sealed . A much lower amount is actually being ripped open, which is precisely why collector-exclusive singles are not flooding the open market. Investors are parking their money in sealed wax, creating an artificial scarcity for the singles that players and character collectors desperately want.
This sealed-heavy approach makes complete mathematical sense when you realize there are really only two collector box exclusive cards that make a $450+ box worth cracking. The undeniable #1 chase is the Cosmic Foil Mind Stone , which is extremely rare with less than 150 total copies in existence. The #2 chase is the Mythic Borderless Mind Stone , currently commanding an astounding $1500+ price tag . Coming in at a distant #3 is the Thanos comic foil at around $250, with almost all other cards falling significantly below that mark.
When calculating the true expected value, the comic variant collector exclusive treatment cards feature a brutal 1-per-Collector-Booster-Box pull rate . Because of this, many savvy collectors simply do not want to open a box for over $450 when there is a very, very small chance of pulling the borderless mythic Mind Stone, and almost zero chance of hitting the cosmic variant. It is far more likely you will pull a comic foil Marvel hero worth less than $250. Yes, there are other rares that have value, but there is very little chance of breaking even on the opening.
Let's look specifically at the 15 collector-exclusive Marvel Super Hero cards available in these boxes. Due to the sheer number of comic foil variants, the rarity and pull rates for specific heroes are heavily spread out. While there are many solid cards in the set, for collectors and investors, the best move in our opinion is hyper-focusing on these collector exclusive singles . The most bullish factor is the current listed inventory; these cards are getting eaten up incredibly fast by the market, fueled by massive cross-appeal from both hardcore MTG players and mainstream Marvel fans.
To truly understand the opportunity cost , we need to look at specific cards. Take Thanos, the Mad Titan (Borderless); there are currently less than 50 Near Mint copies on the market, sitting at almost $270 per card. For the price of just one Collector Booster Box, you could almost guarantee yourself two of these iconic villains. Similarly, Doctor Doom (Borderless) has less than 20 NM copies available and hovers around that same $270 price point. The math heavily favors buying the single over gambling on the sealed box.
We can see this trend aggressively trickling down the roster. Tony Stark (Borderless) is currently around $90 with less than 60 NM copies on TCGplayer—you could purchase almost five of these for the cost of a collector booster box! Meanwhile, Black Widow, Super Spy (Borderless) is less than $40 with under 150 NM copies available, meaning you could stockpile twelve of these exclusives for the same sealed price. We could go on and on with the math on any of the comic foil variants, but this effectively illustrates that these singles are much rarer than initially thought . As sealed box prices start climbing and singles slowly get removed from the market, this set is showing vastly higher potential than most realized, cementing it as one set we'll all probably look back on and wonder why we didn't get more .