How do TCGplayer and Cardmarket prices differ?

Single cards of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game come from local game stores and from online marketplaces: TCGplayer in the United States, Cardmarket in Europe and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic. This article compares TCGplayer and Cardmarket. Look up the same card on both and the two figures rarely match, and the currency is only part of the reason. The two sites work out their prices in different ways, and each figure comes from a different crowd of players and sellers.

Where do TCGplayer and Cardmarket sell Riftbound cards?

TCGplayer is a marketplace based in the United States, and every price on it is in US dollars. Its sellers are based in the United States and Canada. Sellers who meet TCGplayer's requirements for international sales can ship abroad, and buyers in other countries can also use a package forwarding service.

Cardmarket calls itself a European marketplace. Accounts can be opened in the countries of the European Union and in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Prices on Cardmarket are in euros, and the British pound is the only other currency an account can use. A price on TCGplayer therefore tells you what players in North America pay, and a price on Cardmarket tells you what players in Europe pay.

What does each price figure measure?

TCGplayer's Market Price is built from recent sales completed on TCGplayer: it averages the prices of several recent sales, leaves out the outliers and changes as new sales complete. TCGplayer also shows the most recent sale and the Listed Median, the middle of all the prices sellers ask. For a card with few copies on offer, the Listed Median can sit far above what buyers actually pay.

Cardmarket's price trend is a line fitted through the sales of the last 28 selling days, a linear regression in Cardmarket's own words. Cardmarket also works out the lowest price on offer, the average of the current offers and the average sale price of the last 28 days. Because the price trend looks back over four weeks of sales, it can lag behind when a card suddenly becomes popular or falls out of favor.

Why can the same card cost more on one site than on the other?

The first reason is the currency, so convert before you compare. At the European Central Bank's reference rate of 9 October 2026, one euro was worth $1.12, which made a card at €10 on Cardmarket and one at about $11.20 on TCGplayer roughly the same price.

The second reason is that each market sets its own prices. Cards sent between North America and Europe cost more to post, and customs duties and import taxes can come on top, which the buyer pays on both sites. Because of that, a card can stay more expensive in one market than in the other.

The gaps can be large, and which site is cheaper differs from card to card. Most Epics are champion units and signature cards, and four of them show how to compare the two sites.

• Jinx, Rebel, a champion unit of Origins, is priced at $2.79 today.
• Rebuttal, a signature spell of Vendetta, is priced at $1.34 today.
• Death Mark, also a signature spell of Vendetta, is priced at $0.65 today.
• Kennen, Storm of Shuriken, a champion unit of Vendetta, is priced at $0.86 today.

Each price above is in the currency of the marketplace chosen with the switch under this article. Change the switch to the other marketplace, convert the currency as described above and compare the same four cards. Gaps like these are not fixed, so check both figures on the page of the card rather than assume that one site is always cheaper. How much a card costs at all depends first on its printing and on the decks that play it, as the article on what decides the price of a Riftbound card explains.

What does a market price leave out?

A market price is the price of the card alone. Three things change what a copy really costs you.

• Condition. TCGplayer's sellers list cards in five conditions from Near Mint to Damaged. Cardmarket uses seven grades from Mint to Poor, and the names do not line up: Lightly Played is the step right below Near Mint on TCGplayer, while Light Played is three steps below it on Cardmarket, as the article on what card conditions like Near Mint mean sets out.
• Language. On Cardmarket, each seller marks the language of every copy, along with its condition and whether it is foil. A copy in another language can be the cheapest one on offer, as the article on whether Chinese and French cards are worth more or less explains.
• Shipping and fees. A TCGplayer seller sends everything you get from them in one package for one shipping fee, and some sellers ship for free once you spend $5 with them. On Cardmarket, the shipping cost is set by Cardmarket from the two countries and the weight. A shipment worth more than €25 must be tracked, and a tracked shipment almost always goes through Cardmarket's Trustee Service, which holds the payment until the cards arrive for a fee of 0.5 percent of their value in most cases.

On both sites, a handful of cheap cards from many different sellers can cost more in postage than in cards. A local game store sets its own prices as well, so compare its price with the figure of your marketplace.

Which price should you go by?

Go by the marketplace where the card would actually change hands: TCGplayer for a player in the United States or Canada, Cardmarket for a player in Europe. The other market's price leaves out the postage and customs that come with crossing the Atlantic. Two habits help when you compare prices.

• Use one marketplace for a total. When you add up a collection or the cards a deck still needs, take every price from the same site, so that the total does not mix two markets and two currencies.
• Look past the headline for expensive cards. For a rare printing with few sales, such as the cards named in the article on which Riftbound cards are the most expensive, check TCGplayer's most recent sale and the number of copies listed, or Cardmarket's lowest offer and its average sale price, before you trust one figure.

How does this site show TCGplayer and Cardmarket prices?

The page of every card shows both figures under Market price: TCGplayer's Market Price in US dollars and Cardmarket's price trend in euros, for the plain card, the foil card or both, each with a link to that printing on the marketplace. In the Settings of the card list, you can show prices under the cards and choose between dollars from TCGplayer and euros from Cardmarket. The price sort and the value of your collection follow the same choice, and the page of a shared deck adds up its cards on both marketplaces.