Gaming Reports 
After the Universes Beyond set The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, Magic is once again returning to J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic world, this time featuring cards, characters, locations, and moments from The Hobbit. The new collaboration is available to preorder now before it comes out August 14. Like previous Magic releases, there are plenty of ways to get your hands on cards, from booster packs and bundles to a Draft Night kit and beautiful Scene Boxes. But for the hardcore collectors, Collector Booster packs are the way to go.
Unfortunately, due to high demand, single Collector Booster packs are sold out on Amazon.
If you’re still interested in securing a few Collector Booster packs, TCG Player has them for preorder. The catch, however, is that they’re marked up significantly compared to what Amazon was offering them for. Some listings on TCG Player go as high as $87.90, whereas when they were in stock at Amazon they were $37.99. So if you’re ok with paying exorbitant prices and don’t want to miss the boat or wait for an Amazon restock, TCG Player might be the route for you.
Why are Collector Booster packs so expensive?
Regardless of the expansion, these special booster packs function similarly to Play Booster packs in that they each contain 15 Magic cards. The difference is that Collector packs contain up to five or six Rare or Mythic rare cards, whereas a Play Booster pack contains just one or two. Additionally, cards found in Collector Booster packs are more likely to have alternate or showcase treatments (or whichever term the respective decides to use), and some treatments can only be found in Collector Boosters, increasing the expected value of cracking a pack to significantly higher than average.
With The Hobbit specifically, you have the chance to open a one of 500 serialized Smaug, the Magnificent headliner gold card that are only available in Collector Boosters. TCG Player listings for the Showcase version of this card are around $149.99, while the base version of the card is around $90, and both of these are much easier to pull. There aren’t any listings for the Borderless gold version quite yet, but with only 500 getting printed and the popularity of the Hobbit IP, I wouldn’t be shocked to see this card break $1,000.
Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.
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