Magic: The Gathering rounded up the top spot on the TCGplayer Top 25 Sealed Products chart for April 2024 with their Outlaws of Thunder Junction Collector Displays. The TCGplayer chart (see “April 2024“) ranks the most active products on the platform by dollar volume, showing the beginning and ending prices of each product, and helps add some insight as to where Q2 2024 is headed for the TCG market.
2024 is starting to look a lot like 2023 as far as the very top of the chart goes. In 2023, Magic: The Gathering ran away with the top slot on this chart for six out of the first seven months of the year, helped along by the overwhelming demand for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth products (see “June 2023“). In 2024, Magic products have already gone four-for-four heading into May 2024, which indicates that new Magic: The Gathering products are basically in a bull market to start the year (see “‘Magic,’ Up at Hasbro“). No real surprises here; just wash, rinse, repeat, and reorder when appropriate.
However, there are some real surprises happening with the other major TCGs. Star Wars Unlimited seems to have charted in the top five for a second month in a row (see “March 2024“). It’s too early to tell, but could there be a Big Five to Big Six situation developing here? The Big Five (see “The Big Five Rule“) are all still present on the chart with Pokemon TCG being the weakest showing in April 2024, mostly due to the timing of their release cycle (see “‘Twilight Masquerade’“). Spark of Rebellion sticking around on the chart and battling it out with the heavyweights for the first two months of its release is a major win for this new TCG. As to whether or not this action translates to longevity in the market, that is yet to be seen.
Spark of Rebellion‘s performance on the April 2024 chart is encouraging for the TCG market as a whole, though. The fact that so many different TCGs are managing to carve out a slice of the pie for themselves and continue to print new sets is a lead indicator that the market is robust and probably growing. In 2023, TCGs managed to squeak out a win (see “2023 TCG Sales Inch Up“) whereas other categories, like board and traditional card games, dipped over the course of the same period of time (see “Board and Card Games“). In 2024, the TCG space seems to be developing a very strong group of leaders with a secondary group of TCG products (including games from Bushiroad, Legend Story Studios, Weebs of the Coast, and Bandai) that are also selling well. The post-pandemic era is turning out to be somewhat of a Silver Age of TCGs that is finally following up the Golden Age (1993-2003) with a second run at glory.
Source: ICV2
