How to Track Magic: The Gathering Card Prices Over Time

Magic: The Gathering prices move constantly. A $30 card can drop to $15 on a reprint announcement, then rebound to $40 six months later when the reprint fails to satisfy demand. If you buy at the wrong moment, you overpay. If you sell at the wrong moment, you leave money on the table.

Here’s how to track MTG prices properly.

The three markets

Magic has three main secondary markets, each with distinct dynamics:

Scryfall (USD spot) — technically a pricing API that aggregates multiple sources. Not a marketplace itself. Updates daily. Best used as a neutral reference.

TCGPlayer (USD secondary) — North America’s largest marketplace. Three prices per card: Market (rolling average), Low (cheapest listing), High (highest current listing). Market is the price dealers quote.

CardMarket (EUR secondary) — Europe’s largest marketplace. Shows average, low, and trend price. Trend is the most actionable — it’s the current average of the last 7 days, weighted toward recent sales.

MTGGoldfish — aggregator tracking USD/MTGO/Arena prices. Good for historical data but less current.

Reading a price history chart

A price history chart tells you three things:

1. Direction — up, down, flat. Obvious but critical.
2. Volatility — smooth curve (stable card) vs spiky curve (speculation-driven).
3. Reprint scars — sudden drops correlate with reprint announcements.

A healthy long-term card (Commander staple, Reserved List) shows gentle upward drift with small volatility. A speculation-driven card (recent Standard mythic, tournament breakout) shows large spikes followed by crashes.

The “should I buy now?” decision

When you’re considering a purchase, check three data points:

1. Current market price (Scryfall USD, CardMarket trend, or TCGPlayer market).
2. 7-day average — if trend is 20%+ above 7-day, the card is climbing; consider waiting.
3. 30-day average — if trend is 10%+ below 30-day, the card is falling; could be a deal or a reprint risk.

Cards within 5% of their 30-day average are “stable” — buy anytime.

Reprint risk assessment

Before buying any card over $20, ask: how reprintable is this?

High reprint risk (avoid buying at peak):

• Cards in upcoming Commander precons (check Wizards’ release calendar)
• Cards that haven’t been reprinted in 2+ years
• Cards appearing in Secret Lair teaser images
• Cards on “Reprint Equity” speculation lists

Low reprint risk (safer to buy):

• Reserved List cards (impossible to reprint non-foil)
• Recently-reprinted cards (within 6 months)
• Expedition / Invocation / Invention premium printings (one-shot products)
• Serialised / numbered variants

Seasonal patterns

MTG prices have predictable seasonal patterns:

• Pre-set-release — chase mythics from the upcoming set speculate upward 2–4 weeks before release.
• Release weekend — new-set prices peak.
• Two weeks post-release — Collector Booster opening floods the market; prices drop.
• Six weeks post-release — tournament meta settles; actual format staples stabilise 20–40% higher than their floor; unsuccessful hypes return to bulk.
• Pro Tour / Nationals weekend — cards played in top-8 decks bump 30–100% within days. Mostly retraces within 2 weeks.
• Holiday season (November–December) — general price compression as sellers drop for quick sales.

The “buylist” signal

Every major dealer maintains a buylist — the price they pay for cards you send in. Buylist price is typically 50–70% of retail. When buylist prices converge with retail, the card is at a floor (you won’t save more by shopping around). When buylist is significantly below retail, there’s room for prices to drop further.

Check buylist on TCGPlayer Market seller pricing, CardMarket pro buylists, and CardConduit for aggregated buylist data.

Tracking tools

Scrytics (coming soon) — 365 days of daily price history per card, across Scryfall/CardMarket/TCGPlayer simultaneously. Per-finish tracking. Push alerts for price targets.

MTGStocks — free, web-based, charts going back 5+ years. Best for long-term analysis.

EchoMTG — collection-tracker with price history. Web-first, requires subscription for full features.

MTGGoldfish — historical price charts, tournament meta tracking, budget deck rankings.

Target-price alerts

A workflow most serious collectors run:

1. Set a target price for each card you want (“Dockside Extortionist at $60 or below”).
2. Get notified when any market hits that target.
3. Buy immediately — targets are rarely hit for long.

Scrytics will support this natively (coming soon). MTGStocks has “pricewatch” for most cards.

What tracking won’t tell you

Price tracking is reactive, not predictive. It tells you:

• Where the card has been.
• Where it is now.
• How volatile it’s been.

It doesn’t tell you:

• Whether a reprint is imminent (Wizards doesn’t leak).
• Whether a tournament breakout is coming.
• Whether a ban is being discussed.

For those signals, follow MTG news sources (MTGGoldfish, Hipsters of the Coast, Reddit r/mtgfinance) and Wizards’ announcement cadence.

How Scrytics consolidates tracking

The Scrytics card detail pages (example) pull all three markets into a single price panel:

• Scryfall USD (normal + foil + etched)
• Scryfall EUR
• CardMarket avg / low / trend
• CardMarket 1-day / 7-day / 30-day averages
• TCGPlayer market / low / high

With a 365-day chart showing all three sources side-by-side. When the markets diverge (it happens on older foils and rare promos), you see the full picture rather than trusting one source.

The iOS app (coming soon) adds push notifications on price targets and trend-change alerts. No subscription.

The short version

Check three sources. Compare to 30-day average. Assess reprint risk. Buy stable, sell climbing, avoid the peak of any hype cycle.

Do that, and you’ll outperform 80% of casual buyers who buy on announcement day and sell on banning.