The Hobbit chase cards: nine of the top ten are surge foils

The Hobbit chase cards: Gleaming Splendor, Smaug the Magnificent, The Arkenstone, Gandalf and Thorin

The Hobbit came out on 14 August 2026 with 321 cards, alongside a companion set, The Hobbit Eternal. If you want to know where the money is in the main set, the answer is unusually specific: nine of its ten most valuable cards are borderless surge foils, and none of those nine exists in non-foil at all.

The ten that carry the set

# Card Treatment Artist Price
1 Gleaming Splendor #275 borderless surge foil James Bousema $558.91
2 Smaug the Magnificent #265 borderless showcase surge foil John Tedrick $281.11
3 The Arkenstone // Seek the Heart #283 borderless surge foil Tyler Jacobson $256.54
4 Gandalf, Goblins' Bane // Flameshape #278 borderless surge foil James Bousema $216.19
5 Gleaming Splendor #239 borderless James Bousema $145.59
6 Thorin, Mountain-king #279 borderless surge foil James Bousema $147.77
7 The Queen of Dale #253 borderless showcase surge foil Ashley Mackenzie $146.90
8 Thranduil, the Elvenking #282 borderless surge foil James Bousema $121.82
9 Bard, King of Dale #280 borderless surge foil James Bousema $141.31
10 The Arkenstone // Seek the Heart #270 borderless showcase surge foil Francisco Badilla $102.90

Same card, very different prices

Several of the chase cards are printed more than once in The Hobbit, with identical rules text each time. The treatment is the only thing that changes, and it moves the price a long way.

Smaug the Magnificent is printed four times. Three of them have market prices:

The fourth, #249, has no market price yet.

Gleaming Splendor, the most valuable card in the set, also comes three ways:

Same card, same text, and the surge foil costs many times the regular printing. If you are buying to play, the regular printing does exactly the same thing on the table.

One artist, six of the ten

James Bousema illustrated six of the set's ten most valuable cards, including the top one, the surge foil Gleaming Splendor. No other artist has more than one card in the top ten.

The Hobbit Eternal is mostly Lord of the Rings reprints

The companion set leans heavily on Middle-earth's earlier visit to Magic. Of its cards in our records, 132 of 153 are reprints of cards from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth or its Commander decks, both released in June 2023, with identical rules text. Among them:

  • The One Ring #84, borderless surge foil, reprinted from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth$543.14
  • Orcish Bowmasters #59, borderless surge foil, reprinted from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth$195.60
  • Galadriel, Light of Valinor #72, borderless surge foil, reprinted from Tales of Middle-earth Commander$224.17
  • Sauron, the Dark Lord #76, borderless surge foil, reprinted from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth$138.67

For a player, that makes The Hobbit Eternal a fresh printing of cards from 2023.

Sealed product

Every Hobbit product has its own page on the store: the Collector Booster Box, the Play Booster Box, the Bundle and Gift Bundle, and the two Scene Boxes, Treasures of Smaug and Crack the Plates.

How the set breaks down

Rarity Cards
Common 85
Uncommon 71
Rare 119
Mythic 46

Most of the set is inexpensive: 214 of its priced cards sell for under a dollar. Every card has its own page with its prices and whether we stock it. Start from The Hobbit card list, and see what Magic has coming on the release calendar.

Prices are Mana Pool market prices, refreshed nightly, for each printing's most valuable finish. As of 16 September 2026.