The state of the trading card market, by the data
People talk about "the trading card market" as if it were one thing. It is not. TCGIndex tracks 14 different games at the set level, and the gap between them is enormous: while some niche games have run up double digits over the last 90 days, others have given back a big chunk of a launch-hype spike. This is a live, data-driven look at where the money actually is, and where it is moving. The ranking below is generated from current data, so it reflects the market as it stands today, not a number we wrote down once.
The fastest-growing markets right now
Over the last 90 days, 11 of the 14 games we track are up and the rest are down. The leader is Riftbound at +68.3%, and the laggard is Star Wars Unlimited at -6.4%. The pattern underneath that spread is the interesting part: the strongest growth tends to come from the smaller, younger and anime-driven games rather than the giants.
The giants move slowly, and that is normal
Pokémon and Magic are by far the largest markets by total tracked value, and they almost always post smaller percentage moves than the minnows. That is not weakness, it is scale. A mature market with hundreds of sets and tens of thousands of cards simply cannot swing as fast as a game with a handful of sets. For a collector that means the giants are the ballast in a portfolio, and the smaller games are where the fast moves, and the fast reversals, happen.
When the hype corrects
The clearest cautionary tale right now is Star Wars Unlimited, down -6.4% over 90 days. A brand-new game launches into a supply shortage, prices spike on hype, the publisher prints to meet demand, and the early froth comes back out. It is the most repeatable pattern in the hobby, and it is exactly why a big launch-week number is not the same as a durable market. The data shows it happening in real time.
Where the growth is concentrated: the fastest-growing sets
Game-level numbers hide the real story, because growth almost never spreads evenly. It concentrates in a handful of sets, and tracking value at the set level, not the single headline card, is what TCGIndex is built for. Do that across all 14 games and one theme keeps repeating: the heavy lifting is done by anime licences and crossover IP, with a couple of boutique and vintage sets alongside them. As a snapshot from August 2026, these were among the fastest-growing sets in the market over 90 days. Every one is a real pool of value, not a just-released set climbing off zero:
| Set | Game | Set value | 90d |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra Booster: Anime 25th Collection | One Piece | $38k | +139.5% |
| Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba | Union Arena | $6k | +133.8% |
| Fusion World Energy Markers | Dragon Ball Super | $32k | +105.7% |
| Gundam Promotional Cards | Gundam | $15k | +96.4% |
| Alpha | Sorcery | $48k | +90.4% |
| Fabled | Lorcana | $12k | +80.9% |
| The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth | Magic | $23k | +74.3% |
| One Piece Promotion Cards | One Piece | $223k | +62.3% |
The names tell the story. Union Arena's anime licences, One Piece's 25th-anniversary booster, the Gundam franchise, Sorcery's original Alpha set and Magic's Lord of the Rings crossover did the work, while the core of the two giants, base-set Pokémon and core Magic, sat steadier. Demand follows the source material, and at the set level you can watch it happen months before it reaches the headline chase cards. Notice the last row too: One Piece's promo pool is up 62% on more than $220,000 of tracked value, which is real money moving, not a thin-float spike.
Every tracked game, ranked by 90-day movement
| # | Game | 90d | 30d | 7d | Momentum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riftbound | +68.3% | +34.9% | +1.0% | 65 |
| 2 | Sorcery | +42.6% | +5.8% | +0.2% | 59 |
| 3 | Lorcana | +37.2% | -1.4% | -0.2% | 55 |
| 4 | Dragon Ball Super | +35.7% | +19.4% | +3.6% | 71 |
| 5 | Union Arena | +24.0% | +8.5% | +2.2% | 60 |
| 6 | One Piece | +17.3% | +0.8% | +0.3% | 55 |
| 7 | Magic | +12.1% | +5.9% | +0.5% | 59 |
| 8 | Gundam | +9.8% | +3.6% | +3.0% | 56 |
| 9 | Pokémon | +7.5% | +1.8% | +0.2% | 56 |
| 10 | Yu-Gi-Oh | +2.6% | +1.1% | +0.2% | 52 |
| 11 | Grand Archive | +1.3% | -0.3% | -0.1% | 47 |
| 12 | Digimon | -0.4% | -0.1% | -0.1% | 46 |
| 13 | Flesh and Blood | -4.9% | -2.4% | -0.1% | 46 |
| 14 | Star Wars Unlimited | -6.4% | -2.6% | -0.3% | 42 |
Figures are TCGIndex market value index changes, generated live when this page loads. For the full live ranking with index values and the most valuable card in each game, see the TCG market report.
What the spread actually tells you
Three things fall out of a quarter that looks like this.
Breadth beats loyalty. The most common mistake in this hobby is treating card investing as Pokémon investing. Pokémon is a deep, liquid, serious market, and it is also rarely the single fastest-growing one in any given quarter. If you are not watching where money rotates across games, you are reading the market with one eye closed.
The set is the unit that matters, not the single card. Every figure in the table above is a set-level number. A set can climb 20% while the one chase card you happen to follow sits flat, and the reverse happens just as often. The set is where a trend becomes visible first, which is the whole reason we track value at that level.
New launches deserve patience. The games and sets that swing hardest in their first months tell you almost nothing durable. A percentage move on a set that barely existed a quarter ago is noise, not signal, which is why nothing that recent is in the set table above. Time on the market is information.
Go deeper on any game
Each game has a live market dashboard, set-level value tracking, biggest movers and a hand-written investing guide. Start with the market report, or read how the data is built.
Trading cards are collectibles. Prices fall as well as rise, and TCGIndex gives you market data and analysis, not financial advice. Do your own research before buying or selling anything.