The Problem With Serialized Magic Cards

Magic is full of special treatments. Extended art, borderless, showcase, the list goes on. The newest of these treatments – and perhaps the most experimental – is the serialized run.

Serialized cards have been hanging around Collector Boosters for over a year now, having made their full set debut with The Brothers' War back in November of 2022. Since then, they’ve largely been the same from set to set; otherwise visually identical to a copy of the set’s showcase frame, these cards don a special foil treatment of their own as well as a unique numbering stamp, typically from 1-500. There have been exceptions, however.

Outside the Norm

March of the Machine brought us the first departure from the traditional serialization approach via the unique art treatments found on the set’s five Praetor cards. For this run, all legendary creatures printed with a Multiverse Legends frame had their own serialized version, but the new issue of the set’s Praetors (Elesh Norn, Jin-Gitaxias, etc.) had an extra differentiator: if serialized, their card came with artwork unseen elsewhere from the set. 

The results of this break from tradition were staggering. In all other cases, serialization was a significant multiplier for a card’s value, but not an astronomical increase. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer saw more play than Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and their serialized prices reflected that. Meanwhile Vorinclex saw less play than both (certainly less than Ragavan), yet the unique art of its serialized version was enough to push its price far beyond that of either card. 

This wasn’t an issue of artificial price inflation from top-heavy listing data, either. Going by TCGPlayer, the special issue serialized Praetors continue to sell in quantities akin to other popular, but significantly cheaper, serialized cards from the same set. People want cards that feel special, and this exclusivity did that.  

This has been the most significant break from the norm by far, but it hasn’t been the only break. The One of One Ring aside, the next experiment with serialization came via a change in the amount of serialized cards produced in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. That set had Sol Ring printed in three different variants, with each variant having a different serialization count: 300, 700, and 900. 

Judging the effects of this change is difficult, considering that it was only applied to three distinct cards in an already specialty product, rather than a unique case in a broader set, but the overall data displays a simple trend: the Sol Rings printed with lower serialization counts are worth substantially more.

The next time we would see numerical norm breaking was with the release of the Universes Beyond: Doctor Who crossover set, as each titular Doctor card had an extended serialization run respective of their incarnation’s number. The Tenth Doctor was serialized out of 510, The Eleventh Doctor out of 511, etc. While the shortened print runs for Sol Ring had a substantial effect, the small increase for the Doctors was barely noticeable. 

The New Norm

Looking at more recent sets, such as the Lord of the Rings Holiday Release or Murders at Karlov Manor, this experimentation with the size of serialized print runs appears to be the new standard. In LTC, this was done through the XXX/100 run on the cards previously printed in the Realms and Relics cycle (in addition to the XXX/500 run for poster frame cards), while in MKM this has been bolstered to an XXX/250 run for all serialized cards.

We’ve seen that reducing the number of serialized cards frequently increases their overall price – less is more in the collectibles world, afterall – but whether or not this rises to the same degree of prominence as what we saw experimented with via the Praetors in March of the Machine is yet to be seen. It certainly bodes well for the prices and excitement of serialization, but is it enough to make them the flagship collectible Wizards of the Coast wants them to be? I’m not so sure, and it all comes down to one card: Chromatic Lantern.

Chromatic Lantern has been serialized twice, each in XXX/500 runs, in essentially the same format. Now, I’ll yield that there are different arts between the two, but both use the same foiling, the same retro frame, and the only difference in art is that one is meant to be a schematic for the other. Some may hold fast to the position that these are different cards, but I can’t shake the sense that Wizards effectively doubled the serialization count for a card in what I can only toss up to a problem of poor foresight. 

The logic behind serialized cards as a collectible is their uniqueness – its where their price strength comes from. Sure, Hallowed Fountain might get reprinted a million times in the lifetime of Magic, but there will only be 500 with a number in the corner of their art, and we can all look back to 2024 for their release…right? Well, Chromatic Lantern dashes that notion. It serves as a portent of what Magic can do as time goes on – reserialize again and again, and not even in substantially unique forms. Granted, there was never any explicit agreement akin to the reserved list stating that Wizards wouldn’t do this, but now that they have it puts into question the capacity of limited serialization runs (XXX/100, XXX/250, etc.) to be meaningful. Chromatic Lantern might as well have a run of XXX/1000 now, so what confidence is there that an XXX/250 card from MKM doesn’t get doubled back right up to XXX/500 in our next return to Ravnica?

Wrap Up

This has certainly been a bit more of an alarmist take than I’m used to writing, but the coincidence of a card’s double serialization alongside the shrinkage of serialized numerations is enough to raise eyebrows regardless of what you think about Chromatic Lantern. At the very least, it seems counterproductive. Serialized-exclusives, like the Praetor artwork, have been far more successful in drawing attention to these singles than simply cutting print runs, so I’m doubtful that more of the same – just with smaller numbers in the art box – will make a massive wave in the sets to come. Something to look out for as a jump in serialized prices, perhaps? Sure. The dawn of recurring $1000 standard bulk mythics peeking out of Collector Boosters? I doubt it.

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