Streamer xQc is spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to scour through Magic The Gathering booster packs in order to find the coveted The One Ring card, valued at a whopping $2 million. The prolific streamer is going to great lengths to obtain the Magic The Gathering card, which continues to skyrocket in value as time goes on.
Wizards of the Coast's long-running collectible card game Magic The Gathering recently released its highly-anticipated The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth collaboration set, bringing in classic characters from Tolkien's beloved universe. While the chances of finding The One Ring card are dismally low to begin with, WOTC has made a truly precious version of the Lord of the Rings card with a one-of-one foil variant. The foil card features the black Speech of Sauron using Tengwar letterforms, and can only be found exclusively in the new booster packs.
Shortly after learning about the ultra-rare card, xQc decided to head down to his local card shop to purchase some Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Collector Booster packs over a series of videos. xQc began by first purchasing a few booster boxes, which come in at $500 a piece. Later however, his friends brought him a huge cardboard box containing at least 13 more of the booster boxes, bringing the total to roughly a whopping $9,000. While his first pulls were unsuccessful, it remains to be seen if xQc will become the owner of The One Ring.
While $9,000 may seem like alot for someone to spend looking for a single card, the amount should be pocket change for xQc in the wake of his new deal. Earlier this month, the streaming world was rocked when it was announced that top Twitch star xQc would be signing with Kick, a direct competitor, for an astonishing $70 million with a potential performance-based $30 million on top. The move has been met with criticism by fellow streamers, but his contract allows xQc to make content on other platforms, including Twitch.
While not nearly at the same price point, collectible cards are still as lucrative an industry as ever. An extremely rare Pokemon TCG Pichu card just broke the sales record for most expensive Pichu card ever sold, going for $25,800. Rated a perfect PSA 10, the card was drawn by a second-grader as part of a movie promotion in Japan, featuring a spiky-eared Pichu in flowers. While nowhere near the $2 million valuation of Magic The Gathering's The One Ring card, it's just another example of how valuable collecting certain cards can be.