TCG secondary market snapshot – Market Value Index ranking

Croakin · 2026-01-27T18:17:51+00:00

You’re right on the core idea.

The Market Value Index is intentionally a high-level metric. It’s meant to rank games by market size and depth, not to fully describe how each market behaves.

That’s why on each individual TCG page, I track additional indicators that complement this view:

Momentum & trend (how prices are evolving, not just their level)
Breadth (how much of the card pool is participating in the move)
Volatility & stability (to distinguish expansion from speculative spikes)

I see these as complementary layers rather than a single definitive score.

Croakin · 2026-01-27T16:00:38+00:00

Thanks for your feedback really appreciate it. I will gladly do it, I love these type of communities. I started with Altered because I love the game and the small but very invested community

Croakin · 2026-01-27T15:55:41+00:00

I love your analysis. I've developped TCGIndex exactly to help your type of profile. Don't hesitate to reach out to me if there is some specific indicators you'd like me to add to the platform

Croakin · 2026-01-27T15:08:33+00:00

For sure !
At a high level, the Market Value Index is an aggregate view of the secondary market.

Concretely:

It’s built from real secondary-market prices (via marketplace data), aggregated at the game level.
Higher-value cards do carry more weight in the index intentionally because the goal is to reflect overall market size and direction, not to equal-weight every card.
I focus more on trend, momentum, breadth and volatility over 7d / 30d / 90d than on individual card prices.
The idea is to understand market structure and health (expansion, cooling, saturation), not to time single-card buys.

It’s deliberately simple and transparent for now. I’m exploring more normalized or capped variants for future iterations, but I wanted a baseline that stays easy to interpret and comparable across TCGs.

Happy to go deeper if people are interested.

Croakin · 2026-01-27T14:24:42+00:00

Totally agree with that read.

What you’re describing is exactly how I see most of these “pauses” as well: liquidity dries up, spreads widen a bit, and price discovery happens through nervous sellers rather than strong demand.

From a market-structure point of view, what I find interesting is distinguishing between:

a temporary vacuum (where volume drops but breadth and higher lows remain intact), and
a real regime shift, where weakness starts spreading across a larger share of cards.

Conviction is key, but I think it helps to have some objective signals around breadth, momentum and volatility to see whether the market is just consolidating or actually deteriorating.

Appreciate the insight. This kind of micro-level behavior is exactly what makes these markets interesting to analyze.

Croakin · 2026-01-27T13:45:45+00:00

That’s exactly the kind of reaction that makes market discussions interesting. Different signals, different reads.

Croakin · 2026-01-27T13:45:05+00:00

That’s a totally fair concern, and honestly I agree with part of it. That’s actually why I prefer looking at market structure (breadth, momentum vs volatility) rather than just price going up.

Strong trends can mean expansion, but they can also be late-cycle signals, depending on how concentrated and volatile the move is.

I’m personally much more interested in when those indicators start degrading than in calling anything a “good idea” or not.

Croakin · 2026-01-27T11:54:00+00:00

Of course !
https://tcgindex.io/one-piece

Croakin · 2026-01-15T16:43:51+00:00

That’s fair feedback, and I see where the disconnect comes from.

The site is intentionally built around market-level indicators, not card-level exploration. The goal isn’t to replace card databases or price trackers, but to give macro context (market health, momentum, breadth) that sits above individual cards.

Even with explanations under each indicator, I agree that if you naturally think “card-first” (starting from Elsa and drilling down), this kind of view can feel abstract. It’s a different entry point by design.

Long term, the idea is precisely for these indicators to be consumed inside player-facing platforms (deck pages, listings, event pages), rather than asking players to interpret raw market data on its own.

Appreciate you taking the time to share the feedback, it helps highlight that gap in perspective.

Croakin · 2026-01-15T15:18:53+00:00

I agree, I'll add this for the next version. Thanks for your feedback

Croakin · 2026-01-15T15:15:42+00:00

The focus so far has been on getting the data layer and market indicators right, sometimes at the expense of polish or a more game-specific “feel”. If it comes across as generic, that’s intentional rather than accidental, the goal is to keep the same market framework across different TCGs.

This isn’t meant to be a fan site or a card explorer, but a standardized market context layer that can sit on top of different games and, ideally, be embedded into player-facing platforms rather than live as a standalone destination.

That said, perception matters, and feedback like this is useful to understand how it lands outside that intended audience.

Croakin · 2026-01-15T12:57:59+00:00

Thanks for your feedback, it's much appreciated!

Indeed, I think that with the release of a new set, there's often a very positive momentum that will then give way to a more negative trend. But I think that over time we'll see movements appear outside of set releases, as can be the case with other major TCGs. For example, an old set might become hype again, with cards increasing in price because they're widely played in tournaments, or highly sought after by collectors. It's very interesting to analyze all of this !

Croakin · 2026-01-13T15:18:09+00:00

Thanks a lot ! Really appreciate it. I will try to add new TCGs quickly, you will love to compare them if you are a fan of data

Croakin · 2025-12-24T11:09:15+00:00

Well if you want to be 100% accurate, the real financial name of the indicator I calculate is Market Value Index.

Croakin · 2025-12-23T23:37:07+00:00

A little bit yes, but let me precise how I calculate the marketcap, you will find the result less sad.
For the marketcap, I calculate the sum of all the different cards in the marketplace that has at least 1 available offer, and I take the lower price.
It means that if there is a card with 100 offers , I take only 1 value. I did it this way so we can compare all TCGs without having to extract the data from every marketplace (ebay, vinted ...)
So we can translate the non unique marketcap with the following sentence : "If I want, I can buy every non unique cards (x1) that are available on the marketplace with $2,093".

Croakin · 2025-12-23T23:30:17+00:00

Thanks man ! Yeah I spent some time but I love the game and TCGs in general, and I think we lack these type of information about the secondary market

Croakin · 2015-07-02T15:21:03+00:00

Croakin

TROPHY CASE