The Foil Tax: how much more is a foil Magic card, and is it worth it?
“Are foils worth it?” is one of Magic’s oldest debates. We compared 1,228 cards that have both a foil and a non-foil price. The headline premium is small, and it has been shrinking for twenty years.
The foil premium collapsed by era
Median foil ÷ non-foil ratio by release era. As foils went from rare novelty to standard, the premium fell off a cliff.
Modern foils are barely a premium; vintage foils are the real thing
7% of foils in the data actually sell for less than the non-foil, and the typical modern foil adds only about 1.4×. Where foils still command real money is the fixed-supply vintage end: the biggest gap here is Polluted Delta (Onslaught), whose foil runs about $1,350 versus $125 non-foil. Pair this with the reprint cliff: old, un-reprinted supply is where Magic’s premiums live.
Median foil premium, by era
| Release era | Cards | Median foil premium |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-2004 (vintage) | 24 | 8.5× |
| 2004–2013 | 119 | 5.5× |
| 2014–2019 | 168 | 1.8× |
| 2020–now | 917 | 1.4× |
Method & sources
- We pulled Magic cards with both a non-foil and a foil USD price via the open Scryfall API and computed the foil ÷ non-foil ratio per printing.
- We took the median ratio overall and per release era (from
released_at), robust to one extreme card. - Cards under $0.30 non-foil are dropped so rounding on bulk does not create fake ratios; ratios above 500× are treated as data errors and excluded.
- TCGplayer USD (foil and non-foil) via the open Scryfall API. Valued 2026-07-05. Reference estimates, not sold records; prices move. Reproducible from the open API.
FAQ
Are foil Magic cards worth more than non-foil?
Usually a bit more, but far less than people assume, and it depends heavily on age. Across 1,228 cards with both a foil and non-foil price, the median foil premium is just 1.6×, and 7% of foils actually sell for LESS than the non-foil. Only 37% carry a 2× or bigger premium.
Why do old foils cost so much more than new foils?
Because foils used to be rare and are now standard. A pre-2004 foil trades at a median 8.5× its non-foil, and 2004–2013 foils at 5.5×, when foils were scarce and prone to curling. But from 2014 on, sets print far more foil (and foil-only treatments), so supply caught up: 2014–2019 foils sit at 1.8× and 2020+ foils at just 1.4×. The foil premium collapsed as foils became the norm.
So should I pay up for a foil?
For a modern card, rarely, the premium is small and the non-foil plays identically. Foils earn their keep on vintage and Reserved-List staples, where the premium is real and the supply is fixed. The extreme case in this data is Polluted Delta (Onslaught): the foil runs about $1,350 versus $125 non-foil, roughly 11×.
Where does this data come from, and is it reliable?
We pulled Magic cards with both a non-foil and a foil TCGplayer USD price via the open Scryfall API and took the median of the per-card foil ÷ non-foil ratio, overall and by release era (TCGplayer USD (foil and non-foil) via the open Scryfall API, valued 2026-07-05). We drop cards under $0.30 non-foil to avoid bulk-rounding noise. These are reference estimates, not sold records, and prices move. We never scrape marketplaces and never invent a number; the figures are reproducible from the open API.
Got foils in your binder? See what they're actually worth.
Foilio values any card across Pokémon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Lorcana and more, live prices in EUR & USD, your whole collection tracked. Free, no signup.
Cite or embed this study
Free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Paste the embed on your site for the chart card + a link back, or grab the plain citation.
<a href="https://foilio.net/studies/foil-tax?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://foilio.net/studies/og?stat=8.5%C3%97&label=what%20a%20vintage%20foil%20costs%20vs%20its%20non-foil%20(a%20modern%20one%20is%20just%201.4x)&title=The%20Foil%20Tax%3A%20how%20much%20more%20is%20a%20foil%20Magic%20card%2C%20and%20is%20it%20worth%20it%3F" alt="The Foil Tax: how much more is a foil Magic card, and is it worth it?, Foilio" width="600" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:12px" />
</a>
<p style="font:13px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif;color:#555;margin:6px 0 0">
Source: <a href="https://foilio.net/studies/foil-tax?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral">The Foil Tax: how much more is a foil Magic card, and is it worth it?, Foilio</a> · data CC BY 4.0
</p>Foilio (2026-07-05). The Foil Tax: how much more is a foil Magic card, and is it worth it?. Retrieved from https://foilio.net/studies/foil-tax