TCGPlayer 2024 Market Trends Depict a Rapidly Changing TCG Landscape

For the past two decades, if you wanted to play a trading card game, you had about three options from which to choose: Magic The Gathering, the Pokemon TCG, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Today, the traditional “big three” as they are referred to in the TCG world feel like they’re getting a pretty sizeable shakeup, and new market trends reported by industry leader TCGPlayer shed light on where the future of the business is going.

Below, let’s take a look on what we know from the data shared, and a few of my own observations inferred from both my experience in the TCG business as well as from the report.

Sales for the top five TCGs compared year-over-year

While this graph gives more of a visual representation of growth while leaving out key numbers, it still lends some unique insights into the TCG market.

Of course, this data is more suggestive about the greater TCG market landscape as the data we’re looking at here is for sales done through TCGPlayer. For example, I highly doubt Magic outsells Pokemon TCG by as wide a margin as the above graph would have you think. Most likely the Pokemon TCG is more powerfully driven by people who pick up products at department shops and local game stores and less so via online listings.

That being said, we can still infer general trends in the marketplace from this report.

Magic the Gathering is doing very well

For starters, Magic is having a very, very good year. To think that a game that’s been around as long as Magic has been and is still growing at that kind of a rate is pretty insane, and also speaks to the longevity of TCGs in general. Rather than being all hype that eventually dies out, TCGs have the opportunity to constantly reinvent themselves and appeal to new audiences. That’s great not only for Magic but also good news for every TCG as we look ahead to the future of the hobby.

Disney Lorcana grew even more in 2024

Despite having an insane breakout year in 2023, Lorcana proved its staying power in 2024 by outperforming its 2023 debut year, selling almost double this year as it did in the previous year.

Lorcana has been doing an almost unbelievable job of continuing to innovate its game, and each set feels even stronger than the last. With that kind of growth rate it feels inevitable that Lorcana will begin to vie not only for fourth top game overall but quite likely it will be in the running for the third-place spot depending on how well One Piece continues to perform.

Speaking of the third-place spot, that leads me to my next observation.

There really isn’t a “big three” anymore

With Yu-Gi-Oh slipping in sales this year versus last year, and an overall lackluster response from its own fandom for the game lately, it feels like already discussions around there being a big three in the TCG world have been put to bed. In reality, there’s more like a big five right now with newcomers like Star Wars Unlimited overachieving in sales among others potentially in the running for an expanded consideration even beyond a Big Five.

Which leads me to my next point.

TCGs as a hobby are growing overall

Trading card games are much more mainstream today than they were when I was growing up, and continue to get more mainstream all the time. Huge IPs continue to drive sales for these games that are becoming as much a form of entertainment as your favorite HULU series, and relatively accessible games like Lorcana are helping drive this sort of mainstream craze for the hobby.

Part of the reason we can’t limit TCGs so easily to a Big Three anymore is simply because the hobby has grown so much, creating more space for players to pick and choose their favorite game or IP and still have plenty of others to play with.

My predictions for the TCG market in 2025

Now that we’ve taken a look at this graph together and talked about what it could mean for the TCG market overall, here are a few of my predictions for what we could see happen by the end of 2025 in the TCG market.

UNION ARENA will be in the top 10 for TCGs with the most sales

UNION ARENA, a new anime card game from Bandai, was released at the tail-end of 2024 meaning it probably didn’t have enough time to make it into the consideration to be included in the top 10 this year. However, that will undoubtedly change by the end of 2025.

UNION ARENA has had a terrific launch, outselling many of the big names in the industry since its launch and already picking up a pretty avid following. This is driven by strong support for tournaments at the local level (including excellent prizing) and a game that while being driven largely by IPs is well-balanced and an absolute joy to play.

As more sets featuring different IPs are released throughout 2025 the game should grow exponentially, and I would not be surprised to see the game make it into the top 10 next year. My feeling is it will end up being somewhere around #5 by the end of it, depending on how well the other top TCGs perform.

Yu-Gi-Oh could slip out of the top three by the end of 2025

While it feels like the TCG world has already grown too much to be limited to a Big Three anymore, given Yu-Gi-Oh’s decline this year, it doesn’t seem out of the question that it could end up slipping from the top three all-together before long

If Yu-Gi-Oh continues to decline at the rate it’s going, and the other games continue to almost double in size each year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the inevitable drop out of the Big Three happen as early as towards the end of next year. While it feels inevitable at this point that another game will eventually take the third spot behind the Pokemon TCG, whether or not that happens as soon as 2025 remains to be seen.

Pokemon TCG’s growth rate will likely increase next year

Finally, despite some modest growth this year for the Pokemon TCG, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that growth pick up significantly by the end of 2025. Already we are seeing a renewed interest in Pokemon TCG products as evidenced by the mad hype for the latest Pokemon set: Surging Sparks.

Fans of the game are already eagerly anticipating the next set, Prismatic Evolutions, and drawing parallels between it and other legendary sets that drove many to the hobby.

Additionally, more exciting sets have already been teased for next year, including a Team Rocket set that will surely pack a punch in the nostalgia department.

Although 2024 wasn’t a bad year for the Pokemon TCG, it wasn’t the greatest, with most of the sets meeting mixed reactions from the fanbase until Surging Sparks. 2025 will likely remedy this and bring with it not only renewed interest in the game, but a much higher sales Gross Merchandise Value number.


Whatever way you shake it, it seems to come out the same: the world of TCGs will never be the same. The hobby is bigger and better than ever as a whole, and it feels like there’s a space for just about anybody to find an IP and card game they enjoy and are good at. The old established status quo feels largely to be fading away, and it feels more true to say than ever that we are in a new golden age for trading card games.

Joseph Anderson

About the Author: Joseph is the founder of JosephWriterAnderson.com. You can learn more about him on the about page.

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