In the 30-day window ending July 25, nine Nazgûl printings each broke away from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. The set itself stayed inside +2% to +4% at every one of those closes. The printings did not.
What broke away
Every row is the same card name, in the same set. Each move is that printing's own, measured beyond the set's shared move, at the close date shown.
| Printing | Beyond its set | Set itself | Close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nazgûl (0728) Showcase Scrolls, foil | +86% | +4.0% | $120.56 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0726) Showcase Scrolls, foil | +80% | +4.0% | $150.90 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0725) Showcase Scrolls, foil | +66% | +2.1% | $107.82 · Jun 29 |
| Nazgûl (0730) Showcase Scrolls, foil | +61% | +4.0% | $109.36 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0723) Showcase Scrolls, foil | +59% | +4.0% | $145.80 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0338) foil | +39% | +3.4% | $28.79 · Jul 6 |
| Nazgûl (0551) Showcase Scrolls | +35% | +4.0% | $81.16 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0725) Showcase Scrolls | +32% | +4.0% | $76.19 · Jul 13 |
| Nazgûl (0730) Showcase Scrolls | +24% | +4.0% | $62.72 · Jul 13 |
Why one set changes the story
The squirrel break-away was a tribe spread across seven products. This is the opposite shape: one card name, one set, nine printings moving at once.
The reason a single uncommon has this many printings is the card's own rule. A deck may run up to nine copies of Nazgûl, and the set printed nine artworks, each with its showcase and foil treatments. A card designed to be collected nine at a time is, in effect, its own tribe. Demand for the full nine is demand for the name, and in the data it shows up exactly that way: printing after printing detaching from the same set's near-flat move.
The why, on the record
The mechanism is documented, but from 2023, not from this month. Wargamer reported in June 2023, at the set's launch, that the nine Nazgûl artworks spiked as much as 547% from about $3, driven by the nine-copy rule, the card's uncommon rarity, and Lord of the Nazgûl emerging as one of the set's most-built commanders.
For the current wave we found no dedicated coverage at the time of writing. The structure moved first; the story has not been written yet. The 2023 chase mechanism is the standing candidate explanation, and we do not attribute what we cannot measure.
Depth, stated plainly
The five Showcase Scrolls foils at the top of the table are collector-tier copies in the $107 to $151 range, and their quote streams are thinner: up to one window day in five carried no fresh price for them. The most liquid row is the plain 0338 foil at $28.79, up 39% beyond the set on a near-continuous quote stream. The breadth of the move does not hinge on the thin rows, but their exact percentages deserve wider error bars than the liquid ones.
What to watch
Whether the collector tier keeps pricing apart from the base artworks, and whether the breadth holds. A chase-driven wave can settle two ways: the name keeps its new level as nine-copy decks and binders actually fill, or the excursions retrace as speculative copies come back to market.
A break-away tells you a card detached from its set's shared move. It does not tell you direction from here. We measure structure, not direction.
Numbers are daily TCGplayer closes, combined into weekly readings, data through July 25, 2026. A break-away is a card whose move detached from its own set's shared move over the window; single-quote jumps are excluded. The full cross-game list updates daily at the break-away digest, method at methodology.
