Presale prices are not prices: 13 chase cards from preorder to today
Every one of them is cheaper now than its highest price before release. The median card is down 47.5%.
Before a set comes out, its chase cards already have prices. Preorders, early singles from distributors and a handful of sales set the first numbers. We took two big releases, The Hobbit for Magic and The World's Strongest Warriors for One Piece. Of the ten most valuable cards in each set, 13 had a market price before release. We compared that presale high with October 25. All 13 are cheaper now, and the median card lost 47.5%.
Thirteen cards, before release and now
| Card | Before release | Release day | Oct 25 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gleaming Splendor (Borderless) · foil | $400.00 | $135.43 | $101.89 | −74.5% |
| The Arkenstone (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $399.79 | $347.92 | $163.33 | −59.1% |
| The Queen of Dale (Showcase) (Surge Foil) | $249.98 | $156.57 | $114.12 | −54.3% |
| Gandalf, Goblins' Bane (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $350.00 | $269.49 | $164.26 | −53.1% |
| Yamato (OP16-098) (SP) | $506.01 | $412.70 | $247.25 | −51.1% |
| Thorin, Mountain-king (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $207.07 | $144.89 | $105.24 | −49.2% |
| Monkey.D.Luffy (ST31-004) (SP) | $1,225.00 | $1,099.41 | $643.64 | −47.5% |
| Monkey.D.Luffy (079) (Super Leader Alternate Art) | $2,500.00 | $2,500.00 | $1,383.43 | −44.7% |
| Gollum, Riddle Master (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $165.00 | $121.16 | $93.11 | −43.6% |
| Roronoa Zoro (EB04-007) (SP) | $638.50 | $606.75 | $372.80 | −41.6% |
| Gleaming Splendor (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $700.00 | $467.91 | $423.57 | −39.5% |
| Smaug the Magnificent (Showcase) (Surge Foil) | $229.41 | $237.49 | $168.42 | −26.6% |
| Bard, King of Dale (Borderless) (Surge Foil) | $115.99 | $91.40 | $99.12 | −14.5% |
The drop starts before launch
For 11 of the 13 cards, the price on release day was already below the presale high. Gleaming Splendor in foil is the extreme case: $400 before release, $135.43 on release day, two thirds gone before most buyers had opened a single pack. The exceptions are the Super Leader Luffy, which still sold for $2,500 on release day, and the Showcase Smaug, which briefly went higher. Both are cheaper now.
Why presale numbers run high
A presale price comes from very few transactions. The people paying it want the card first, not cheapest, and there are no opened boxes yet to compete with them. Once the set is in stores, supply arrives all at once and the price has to find buyers who are not in a hurry.
That is why we never count presale prices in our comparisons. Every price move we report starts two weeks after release, when the market has real supply.
How to use this
- If you preorder singles, you are paying for speed. That can be worth it for play, but it is rarely a good price.
- If you pull a chase card in the first week, the presale price is not what it will sell for a month later.
- If you want a card from a new set, waiting a month has paid off for every card in this list.
Denis Kataev · Denis Kataev runs tcgrate. Every night the site records more than 480,000 card prices across 26 trading card games, and he writes about what those numbers show: what fell, what spiked, and which moves are real.