Does Magic: the Gathering Have a Waifu Tax?

Welcome back to another edition of Variant Vault, where I organize Magic: the Gathering card variants by price from most to least expensive to determine which variant is best for you. Today I’m going off my usual beaten path and answering the question: Does the waifu tax exist in Magic: The Gathering? 

A “waifu” is generally defined as a slang term used on the internet and in fandoms to describe a character (usually female and from a non-live action medium, such as anime or animation) that one finds attractive. A “husbando” is the male equivalent of a waifu. As for what a “waifu tax” is, it is the concept of a card or collectible demanding a higher price tag due to the art showcasing a character deemed as a waifu. To answer the aforementioned question, I will be discussing Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice and Guardian Project, both of which received borderless anime artwork variants in the recently released Ravnica Remastered. While there are a plethora of cards that have received anime-like treatments in Magic, I chose to focus on just these two cards to make this article a digestible length.

$11.63$14.99

The Lists

There are a total of 25 variants across all the English-language tournament legal printings available of these cards, with Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice having 12, and Guardian Project having 13. All prices used were gathered from the MTGStocks price database as of 1/28/2024. The full list of all these variants by price can be found below, from most to least expensive. 

Aurelia Exemplar of Justice Variant Prices:

 

Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice (Anime Borderless)	CardKingdom $17.99	TCGPlayer $14.51
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $3.97
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $1.72
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $1.57
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $2.73
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice (Retro Frame)	CardKingdom $1.29	TCGPlayer $0.90

Guardian Project Variant Prices:

Guardian Project	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $12.70
Guardian Project (Anime Borderless)	CardKingdom $15.99	TCGPlayer $13.26
Guardian Project	CardKingdom $16.99	TCGPlayer $12.74
Guardian Project	CardKingdom $14.99	TCGPlayer $11.63
Guardian Project	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $14.33
Guardian Project (Retro Frame)	CardKingdom $11.99	TCGPlayer $10.00
Guardian Project	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $10.99

Most Affordable Variants

I’m starting with the most affordable variants this time around to set a baseline price differential between these cards. The cheapest variant of Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice and Guardian Project are their non-foil retro frames at $1.10 and $8.99, respectively. At their most affordable, Guardian Project’s price is about $7 more than Aurelia’s. A similar price differential is seen in every one of Aurelia and Guardian Project’s variants, except for their foil and non-foil anime borderless variants.

Most Collectible Variants

The most collectible variants of Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice and Guardian Project based solely on price are their serialized variants at approximately $150.04 and $252.52, respectively. This is no surprise; if a serialized variant of a card exists, it’s almost always the most valuable variant of the card. So let’s focus instead on the second most collectible variants, which are their foil anime borderless prints at $35.99 and $28.00, respectively. This makes sense for these versions to hold value, because they’re the most flashy and scarce new variants from Ravnica Remastered, if you exclude serialized cards. However, looking at the lists, the foil and non-foil anime variants are the only ones in which Aurelia is more expensive than the Guardian Project alternative. Why is that the case? Let’s look at some possible answers.

Playability & Rarity/Scarcity 

When looking at how desirable these cards are for use as game pieces, we know that isn’t the answer. Currently, these two cards mostly see play in Commander, and when looking through EDHREC’s usage statistics for these two cards, Guardian Project (139,494 of 1,616,598 eligible decks, or 9%) dwarfs Aurelia (7,660 of 763,421 eligible decks, or 1%) in popularity. While Aurelia is a legendary creature and can be used as a commander, she only has 313 decks to her name, which isn’t a substantial enough number to demand such a premium based on it being a popular commander someone would want to bling out.

$10.99

Rarity/scarcity can also be ruled out as well, because, as I mentioned in the introduction, the anime variants for these two cards originate from the same set and have the same designated rarity of mythic. Therefore, unless the borderless anime variants of Aurelia were short-printed in Ravnica Remastered (printed at a lower frequency compared to other cards of equal rarity on the factory printing sheets), which I highly doubt, someone is just as likely to open an anime borderless Aurelia from a booster pack of Ravnica Remastered as they are to open an anime borderless Guardian Project. 

So What’s Left?     

At this point, playability and rarity have been ruled out as the cause of the discrepancy. So what other explanations are there for these price and purchasing rate disparities? The contents of the unique treatment and artwork present in the anime borderless variants of these cards. In other words, the less-played card whose art has an anime Angel woman front and center is worth more than the card that is played more whose art has a shirtless anime Elf-man hybrid front and center, because demand for the art with an anime Angel woman on it is high enough from the subsect of players with enough disposable income to maintain this premium price tag in comparison to more affordable variants of both cards. 

So Is There A Waifu or Husbando Tax in Magic?

Yes, specifically a Waifu Tax does exist in Magic: The Gathering, at least from the sample of data from looking at these two cards. What that says about the greater Magic: The Gathering ecosystem can be left to wider discussion since this article exists to answer the question I started this article with from a financial perspective rather than to make a value judgment based on said answer. 

Thank you so much for reading! If you haven’t already, give MTGStocks Premium a look for more cool Magic finance stuff. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I’ll see you next time. 

Further Reading:

The Problem With Serialized Magic Cards