Speculation: What the Letter After the Number Is Worth

Demo article. RiftboundStocks is an unofficial fan project; this piece, its author and the market activity it describes are illustrative and not real analysis.

The folk wisdom is simple: the fancy printing is worth more than the plain one. It gets repeated in every discussion of alternate treatments and it is wrong often enough in this catalogue that I want to lay the counterexamples out properly. Across the base-and-variant pairs tracked here, the variant carries a premium in roughly half of them, and in several cases the base printing trades at multiples of its starred sibling. Whatever the star denotes, it is not a reliable price signal on its own.

The pairs that go the wrong way

Green Father in Unleashed is the starkest case: the base 233/219 trades at several times the starred 233*/219. Scorn of the Moon at 234 does the same thing, Blind Monk at OGN 304 does it, and Loose Cannon at OGN 301 does it more mildly. Meanwhile Hand of Noxus at OGN 302 goes decisively the other way, with the star well clear of the base, and Virtuoso, Keeper of the Hammer and Herald of the Arcane also favour the star. That is four pairs in each direction from the same handful of sets.

Base above star

Card	Market	7d
Green FatherUNL 233/219	US$182.48	+6.6%
Green FatherUNL 233*/219	US$52.76	-1.6%
Scorn of the MoonUNL 234/219	US$145.28	+8.9%
Scorn of the MoonUNL 234*/219	US$36.50	-17.6%
Blind MonkOGN 304/298	US$126.62	+4.5%
Blind MonkOGN 304*/298	US$24.26	-1.9%
Loose CannonOGN 301/298	US$140.70	-8.7%
Loose CannonOGN 301*/298	US$119.24	+5.2%

Star above base

Card	Market	7d
Hand of NoxusOGN 302*/298	US$142.67	+21.9%
Hand of NoxusOGN 302/298	US$53.32	+7.2%
VirtuosoUNL 226*/219	US$206.78	-0.5%
VirtuosoUNL 226/219	US$171.33	+2.7%
Keeper of the HammerUNL 237*/219	US$120.01	+14.7%
Keeper of the HammerUNL 237/219	US$93.28	-8.3%
Herald of the ArcaneOGN 308*/298	US$45.00	+4.8%
Herald of the ArcaneOGN 308/298	US$24.76	-15.2%

The lettered variants behave differently

The cards carrying a letter rather than a star are a separate population and they behave far more predictably. Teemo, Strategist at OGN 121a, Kai'Sa, Evolutionary at OGN 112a, Sivir, Ambitious at SFD 120a and Order Rune at OGN 214a are all Showcase printings sitting well above anything comparable at base rarity. Where a direct comparison exists — Sivir appears as an Epic at 120/221 and a Showcase at 120a/221 — the multiple is large and has been stable for months.

Teemo, Strategist

Origins · 121a/298

ShowcaseMind

Market

US$167.14

Low

US$143.91

Foil

US$1,184.92

7d

-0.6%

Buy →

Affiliate link: RiftboundStocks earns a commission from qualifying TCGplayer purchases — at no extra cost to you.

Lettered Showcase variants

Card	Market	7d
Teemo, StrategistOGN 121a/298	US$167.14	-0.6%
Kai'Sa, EvolutionaryOGN 112a/298	US$143.75	-4.3%
Sivir, AmbitiousSFD 120a/221	US$132.06	+20.9%
Order RuneOGN 214a/298	US$116.97	-0.9%
Sivir, AmbitiousSFD 120/221	US$32.09	+51.3%

The most plausible reading is that the two notations are not the same kind of thing and should never have been discussed together. Lettered variants appear to mark a distinct Showcase printing of a card that also exists at a normal rarity, which is a clean scarcity story. Starred printings sit inside the Showcase run itself, where both printings are already scarce and the relative populations are opaque from outside. I cannot verify either claim and I am not going to pretend otherwise, but the price data is consistent with it.

The actionable version, such as it is: stop paying a premium for a star as a matter of reflex, and check the specific pair before you buy. Half the time the market has decided the base is the desirable printing, and if you are working from the general rule you will be systematically overpaying on exactly those. That is a small edge, it requires no forecasting at all, and it is the only kind of edge this column has ever been any good at.