The Mythic Premium: is Magic's rarest slot worth chasing?
The mythic rare is Magic’s top pack slot, the one you open maybe once a box. So it should be where the money is. We priced all 2,034 modern mythics and 6,991 rares to see how much that symbol in the corner is really worth.
Rarity buys a better average, not a hit
A mythic really is worth more on the median, 6× a rare. But the symbol is no guarantee: 29% of modern mythics are bulk and only 22% clear $10. And the ceiling barely cares about the symbol: among regular non-foil printings the most expensive modern card is a rare, Giant Growth (Secret Lair Drop) at $662, outselling every non-foil mythic (the priciest, Mox Opal, is $247). The rarity symbol tells you the pack slot; demand and print run tell you the price.
The 15 most valuable modern cards
TCGplayer USD reference price, 2020+ paper. Rares are marked, 3 of the top 10 are not mythics.
Method & sources
- We pulled every modern (2020+) paper Magic card with a regular non-foil TCGplayer USD price via the open Scryfall API, split by rarity: 2,034 mythics and 6,991 rares (about 90% and 95% of modern cards carry a price).
- Prices are the regular non-foil printing. Foils trade in a separate market, where some mythics run into the thousands, a different question from the pack-slot value measured here.
- We report medians, robust to a handful of chase cards, plus the share of mythics that are bulk, so a lopsided average cannot mislead.
- The “most valuable” table is the top 15 by price across both rarities. The priciest rares are special printings (Secret Lair, promos, Commander), which is the point: the rarity symbol is a pack-slot label, not a scarcity or value tier.
- Regular non-foil TCGplayer USD reference price via the open Scryfall API. Valued 2026-07-22. Reference estimates, not sold records; prices move. Reproducible from the open API.
FAQ
Are mythic rares worth more than rares in Magic?
On average, yes. Across 2,034 mythics and 6,991 rares from modern (2020+) Magic sets, a mythic trades at a $2.84 median versus $0.47 for a rare, about 6×. Rarity does lift the typical price. But the average hides how spread out it is: 29% of mythics are effectively bulk (under $1) and only 22% clear $10.
Is the most expensive Magic card always a mythic?
Not among regular non-foil printings, and that is the surprise. Using each card's non-foil price, the most valuable modern card is a rare, Giant Growth (Secret Lair Drop) at $662, outselling every mythic (the priciest, Mox Opal, is $247); 3 of the 10 most expensive are rares. Foils are a separate market where some mythics reach the thousands, but on the regular printing the rarity symbol tells you the pack slot, not the price.
So does rarity determine a card's price?
Not really. Rarity sets the odds of pulling a card, which nudges the average, but demand sets the ceiling. A heavily played Commander staple or a low-print-run Secret Lair or promo can be scarcer and more wanted than any mythic, so its price runs past the whole mythic pool regardless of the symbol in the corner.
Where does this data come from, and is it reliable?
We pulled every modern (2020+) paper card with a regular non-foil TCGplayer USD price via the open Scryfall API, split by rarity, and took the median of each (Regular non-foil TCGplayer USD reference price via the open Scryfall API, valued 2026-07-22). Coverage is high (about 90% of mythics and 95% of rares carry a non-foil price). Foils are a separate market and are not included. 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.
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Source: <a href="https://foilio.net/studies/mtg-mythic-premium?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral">The Mythic Premium: is Magic's rarest slot worth chasing?, Foilio</a> · data CC BY 4.0
</p>Foilio (2026-07-22). The Mythic Premium: is Magic's rarest slot worth chasing?. Retrieved from https://foilio.net/studies/mtg-mythic-premiumThe big picture, across every game we measure: The Chase Multiple · The Price Census · The Promo Premium · The Foil Premium