It’s been roughly a week since the initial release of the Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem expansion.
While a printing issue delayed the release of the set in other regions, the first wave in other parts of the globe, especially in North America, has already formed the initial response from the second-hand market.
Special Mention: Primite Lordly Lode and Primite Dragon Ether Beryl
If you were to look at second-hand markets like TCGplayer and filter the list for best-selling items for this expansion, both of these Primite cards would be sitting undisputed at the top.
We’d like to be fair in our reporting, but there’s no denying how powerful these cards are in the Trading Card Game (TCG). With their body of work as evidence, the Primite cards would definitely be the chase cards of most sets that feature them.
So instead of reporting a pretty obvious conclusion, we’d like to draw attention instead to the initial market performance of cards that aren’t these two.
5. Gem-Knight Nepyrim
The Gem-Knight archetype is a beloved rogue archetype that is sadly notorious for its use in rather toxic FTK/OTK tactics.
Gem-Knight Nepyrim started this set’s launch with a $3 market average, which has only continued to climb to a current $9 median.
We won’t retread old ground discussing Nepyrim’s performance; you can find that in our previous article, here.
By just looking at the analytics provided by TCGplayer, there are still a lot of players who enjoy using Gem-Knights and are easily paying for a full set of the archetype’s powerful combo piece.
We can see this card ticking up in value for a little while longer since it’s a Secret Rare that also has a Starlight Rare variant. Nepyrim’s collector’s value can be held up by the virtue of its rarity alone.
Unless there’s a major upset at a highly public tournament, we can see this card plateauing at the $20 mark at best, or start sliding down at worst as the week draws to a close.
4. Parlor Dragonmaid
Parlor Dragonmaid comes off as a bit of an oddity for this list. It’s not meta-relevant like Primite, nor is it part of the new wave of support that Monster Mayhem is introducing to the card pool.
Instead, it’s one of the archetype’s best one-card combo starters that hasn’t seen a print run since 2020.
Parlor Dragonmaid is sitting at a rather bizarre $3-4 market average per copy. This isn’t price gouging even at a full set. Even during Monster Mayhem’s launch, the median price for this card was recorded at being less than a dollar.
At the time of writing, however, TCGplayer recorded that over 2,000 copies have already exchanged hands. Despite its initial performance in the market, this card will more than likely fall in value once players accumulate a full play set.
Parlor Dragonmaid can technically be bought on the cheap while there’s still ample supplies of Monster Mayhem packs flooding the market.
If you’d like to get started on building an engine/deck using this archetype, it wouldn't hurt your wallet to invest in a full set even now
3. Noh-P.U.N.K. Rising Scale
Part of the new wave of support, and one of the three archetypes that Monster Mayhem is focused on, Noh-P.U.N.K. Rising Scale had a pretty astonishing first day performance.
Over a thousand copies of Rising Scale were sold on the second-hand market at about $15 each. The median held steady for a couple of days, but it has already dipped to a $12 market average.
While Rising Scale greatly benefits its own archetype, pulling double duty as both a powerful combo starter and extender, the P.U.N.K. archetype hasn’t seen a lot of representation in tournaments recently.
This is pretty apparent with how TCGplayer’s analytics are already showing a downward market trend so soon after the set’s initial launch.
If you’re willing to wait a little longer, we can easily see this card hitting the $10 market average, or lower, in about a week. Rising Scale is an Ultra Rare, so it won’t be that difficult to find one on the market later on.
2. Lady’s Dragonmaid
The first extra deck monster on this list, Lady’s Dragonmaid joins Parlor Dragonmaid in setting a rather strange performance for this expansion’s opening week.
Despite how much potential Lady’s Dragonmaid can bring to her archetype as a powerful board-building piece, this card launched with a $4 - $5 average. It has currently gone up to a $6 - $7 median, but the climb is slow.
More than likely, the market value for Lady’s Dragonmaid will hit its peak soon, since even interested players wouldn’t need a full set to use her.
What’s astonishing, however, is the performance shown in the market analysis. TCGplayer has recorded over 3,000 copies being sold in the past five days alone. Not even the Primite cards have been able to move this kind of bulk. Notably, this could be attributed to this card’s lower rarity level.
Players interested in using the Dragonmaid archetype, now might not be a bad time to pick up a couple of pieces of Lady’s Dragonmaid. At the very least, you won’t be paying through the nose for copies of this card.
1. Galatea-i, the Orcust Automaton
Taking the lead for this article, Galatea-i flips the script a bit. This Ultra Rare launched with a $19 market average. It then slightly dipped to a $15 - $16 average before climbing back up to near its launch median value ($19).
Coincidentally, Galatea-i’s current lowest average market value was back on the 14th.
This was a day before a World Championship Qualifier (WCQ) was held in Milwaukee, where an Orcust-Fiendsmith deck featuring a copy of Galatea-i managed to take 2nd place from a population of 200+ players.
At the moment, it’s a little difficult to say how much of this card’s value is being held by its scarcity, its rarity, or the positive optics Orcust received from the Milwaukee WCQ.
Thankfully, being an extra deck monster, Galatea-i isn’t that big of a hit to the wallet for Orcust players, at least for the meantime.