The Foil Premium: what the exact same card costs in shiny
Every “is foil worth more?” argument dies on the same objection: you’re comparing different cards. So we didn’t. We found 60,005 cards priced in both finishes — the exact same card, plain and foil — across 11 games. The typical shine costs ~2.7×.
Every game, ranked by foil premium
Median foil ÷ normal, same card only. “Foil cheaper” = share of pairs where the foil trades below the plain copy.
| Game | Pairs | Plain | Foil | Premium | Foil cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Union Arena | 175 | $0.58 | $22 | 26× | 5.1% |
| Grand Archive | 1,787 | $0.27 | $2.50 | 7× | 0.7% |
| Lorcana | 2,412 | $0.09 | $0.30 | 3.3× | 0.2% |
| Riftbound | 411 | $0.10 | $0.29 | 3.3× | 0% |
| Final Fantasy TCG | 3,982 | $0.17 | $0.56 | 3× | 2.5% |
| Dragon Ball Super CCG | 3,049 | $0.13 | $0.33 | 2.7× | 11.7% |
| UniVersus | 154 | $0.28 | $0.95 | 2.6× | 11% |
| Magic | 46,057 | $0.29 | $0.69 | 1.9× | 9.4% |
| Star Wars Unlimited | 1,334 | $0.20 | $0.34 | 1.9× | 1.6% |
| Force of Will | 497 | $0.18 | $0.25 | 1.6× | 15.9% |
| Future Card Buddyfight | 147 | $0.49 | $0.50 | 1.5× | 12.9% |
When the shiny one is the cheap one
The table hides a lovely inversion. In the older, foil-saturated games a foil going for LESS than the plain card is routine: 15.9% of Force of Will pairs, 12.9% of Buddyfight pairs and 9.4% of Magic pairs — roughly 4,300 cards — price the foil below the normal copy. Decades of foils-in-every-pack supply meets zero demand for a bulk card’s shine (our Magic foil-tax study shows the premium collapsing era by era, from 8.5× pre-2004 to 1.4× today — and lands on the same modest overall picture as this page’s 1.9×). The 2022+ collector games are built so this almost cannot happen: Riftbound 0%, Lorcana 0.2%, Grand Archive 0.7%. Foil scarcity is a design dial, and the new games keep it turned up.
The games you can’t measure this way
18 of the 29 games in our corpus have no same-product foil pair — each for a structural reason, and the reasons are half the story.
- Yu-Gi-Oh, Weiss Schwarz, Shadowverse Evolve, Cardfight Vanguard: no foil subtype on TCGplayer — the foil finish is baked into the rarity itself.
- Pokémon (EN + JP): its Holofoil is a different card slot, not the same card in two finishes; the same-card Reverse Holofoil pair has its own study.
- Sorcery, hololive, Gundam, DB Fusion World, Godzilla, Digimon, CookieRun, One Piece: foils are listed as separate products, so a same-product pair does not exist.
- Flesh & Blood: a three-tier foil system (Rainbow / Cold Foil) covered by its own study.
- MetaZoo, Elestrals, WoW: holo pairs exist but are too few or too thin to gate.
Method & sources
- TCGplayer lists finishes per product. For every product priced in both Normal and its game’s standard foil finish (“Foil” everywhere measured except Lorcana, whose standard foil is listed as “Cold Foil”), the premium is foil ÷ normal — the same card, two finishes, so nothing else varies.
- Data via the open tcgcsv.com dataset, sealed product excluded by name; 60,005 pairs in total, every game above the 100-pair gate. Per-game medians; the headline is the median of the game medians.
- TCGplayer market price via the open tcgcsv.com dataset. Valued 2026-07-06. Reference estimates for raw cards, not sold or graded records; prices move. Reproducible from the open dataset.
FAQ
How much more is a foil card worth than the regular version?
Typically ~2.7×, but it depends enormously on the game. Comparing only the exact same card in both finishes: Future Card Buddyfight 1.5× and Force of Will 1.6× at the bottom, Magic a modest 1.9×, the modern collector games ~3–7× (Lorcana 3.3×, Riftbound 3.3×, Grand Archive 7×), and Union Arena at 26×, where the foil is the chase treatment itself.
Can a foil card be worth less than the normal card?
Yes, and it is common in older games: 15.9% of Force of Will same-card pairs, 9.4% of Magic pairs (about 4,300 cards) and 12.9% of Buddyfight pairs price the foil BELOW the plain copy — decades of foil supply plus low demand for a bulk card's shine. The 2022+ collector games almost never allow it: Riftbound 0%, Lorcana 0.2%, Grand Archive 0.7%.
Which game has the biggest foil premium?
Union Arena, at a median 26× — its foils median $22 against $0.58 for the plain copy, because foiling there is reserved for the chase treatment (see the Star Tax study). It is also the smallest measured pool (175 pairs), so treat the exact multiple as indicative. The robust runner-up is Grand Archive at 7× across 1,787 pairs.
How was this measured, and why are some games missing?
TCGplayer lists finishes per product, so for every product priced in BOTH Normal and its game's standard foil finish (same product — the exact same card) we computed foil ÷ normal, via the open tcgcsv.com dataset (TCGplayer market price via the open tcgcsv.com dataset, valued 2026-07-06), sealed excluded, medians per game. Games are missing only where the same-product pair does not exist: Yu-Gi-Oh and Weiss Schwarz bake foil into the rarity, Pokémon's holo is a different card slot, and several games list foils as separate products. Reference estimates; prices move.
Foils in the binder? See what the shine is 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.
Related research
The Foil Tax (Magic, by era)
The Magic deep-dive: the foil premium collapsed as foils became standard.
8.3×The Flesh & Blood Foil Tax
A three-tier foil system: common Rainbow Foils ~2×, scarce Cold Foils ~8×.
4×The Reverse Holo Premium (Pokémon)
Pokémon's same-card pair: reverse-holo commons trade at ~4× the plain card.
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/tcg-foil-premium?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://foilio.net/studies/og?stat=~2.7%C3%97&label=the%20same-card%20foil%20premium%2C%20median%20across%2011%20TCGs%20(60%2C005%20card%20pairs)&title=The%20Foil%20Premium%3A%20what%20the%20exact%20same%20card%20costs%20in%20shiny" alt="The Foil Premium: what the exact same card costs in shiny, 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/tcg-foil-premium?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral">The Foil Premium: what the exact same card costs in shiny, Foilio</a> · data CC BY 4.0
</p>Foilio (2026-07-06). The Foil Premium: what the exact same card costs in shiny. Retrieved from https://foilio.net/studies/tcg-foil-premiumThe big picture, across every game we measure: The Chase Multiple · The Price Census · The Promo Premium