TMNT Collector Booster Presale Prices Emphasize Unfortunate Truth

Last updated on December 22, 2025

Heroes in a Half Shell | Illustration by Victor Maury

Preorders for Magic's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collector Booster Displays (CBD) are doing the thing that preorder prices are not supposed to do: They’re dropping like rocks months before release.

And it’s not happening in a vacuum. Marvel’s Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender, two other Universes Beyond MTG sets that launched their preorders close to, or even above, the $1000 mark, are now listed for less than half of that amount.

In other words: The CBD gold rush which Final Fantasy sparked this year seems to be coming to an end.

TMNT Collector Booster Displays Dropping Hard

Leonardo, Sewer Samurai | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

According to MTGStocks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collector Booster Displays are currently at about $500. They were listed for three times as much in late October.

Source: MTGStocks

This matches the listings at the time of writing at TCGPlayer: All of them are below $500.

That’s definitely not “cheap,” in particular when Wizards of the Coast suggests $38 for one TMNT Collector Booster (which, since there are 12 boosters per CBD, puts their suggested price at around
$456), but certainly a lot cheaper than what they were two months ago.

And, notably, they are dropping months in advance. Most Magic products come with a “hype tax,” so to speak, with pre-released prices of pretty much everything (from boosters to single) dropping a lot as soon as the set launches. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is fast approaching WotC's suggested retail price even before Lorwyn Eclipsed is fully revealed.

There's probably two reasons for this: There seems to be close to no hype to tax in TMNT's case… and, the FIN gold rush may be over.

Magic Players Don't Seem Too Hyped About Turtles

A big part of why TMNT is slipping may be simple: a lot of people just don’t want to pay premium collector prices for this set. Even at MSRP, players are not too keen on it.

“I have not heard a single person at my LGS mention the set even in passing,” wrote u/CtrlAltDesolate earlier this month.” Usually people are talking about sets 6+ months in advance, and how they're planning on getting xyz from it or looking forward to certain characters if it's UB. TMNT is likely to be a Spider-Man levels of flop imo.”

Redditors on other threads listed several factors, including bad timing (too close to Lorwyn Eclipsed) and UB fatigue. And the reaction is similar even outside the Magic bubble. “Turtles isn't the high fantasy most [Magic Players] are used to,” notes u/AnnoyedAFexmo in the TMNT subreddit. “Spider-Man also bombed.”

To be clear, the consensus is not universal: There are several posters that mention loving the TMNT franchises, growing up with them, and being very happy that prices are going down. But they seem to be in the minority, with the majority finding pizza-gobbling turtles in New York as too goofy and not enough Magic-y.

The End Of A Gold Rush

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed – Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

One of the biggest Magic news this year is that Final Fantasy became, factually and objectively, the biggest thing in Magic, ever.

FIN broke a ton of different records, including the most expensive CBD at launch at about $1200 in June this year. And it was also an outlier in that Final Fantasy CBDs not only didn't go down right after release, but it went up, by a lot, in the following weeks, peaking at around $1600 in August…

Source: MTGStocks

… and remaining very close to that until today.

It soon seemed that FIN had not only broke all records, but also launched a “new normal”: First Spider-man, and later Avatar: The Last Airbender, debuted their pre-sales of CBDs with prices unheard of before Final Fantasy:

But it's becoming increasingly clear that Cloud's one of a kind.

Spider-man was, as Tim says, “hands-down the worst set this year, and perhaps among the worst of all time.” Perhaps there are a few things about Magic and modern New York that just don't mix? Whatever the reason, SPM CBDs soon crashed.

But then came Avatar: The Last Airbender: An adaptation which was very well received by players as most felt Aang and MTG blended a lot better than Spidey. And it brought a ton of powerful cards…

Source: MTGStocks

… but, from its record opening at close to $1000, Avatar had also dropped to nearly half as much before releasing, and many of the current listings on TCGplayer offer it for less than $400.

TMNT seems to confirm what the price drop for Avatar and Spider-man suggested: Final Fantasy was a one-time thing, and many Magic players are unwilling to pay too high a premium for Universes Beyond sets.

And doubly so when there's little Magic in it.

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