Holiday Gift Guide: The Best Collectible Card Gifts in 2025
The real reason for the season is priceless pieces of cardboard!
This article is part of the Collector’s Digest Holiday Edition powered by: 
The holiday season is upon us, and that means lots and lots of shopping. As one would expect, we here at The Den have got your back, with gift guides for all things nerd, including the wonderful world of trading cards! Both the “look at how cool this art is” kind and the “look at how cool this art is, also it’s a game” kind.
We’ve got something for everyone on this list, from inexpensive fun products to highly collectible, limited-print-run gifts, so let’s take a look!
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Scene Boxes
Do you love the art on Magic: The Gathering cards and wish you could fit them together to form a whole scene? Then these Scene Boxes are just perfect for you. Every time there’s a Magic crossover, we get a fresh batch of these, and they look great. The latest round of Final Fantasy cards includes key scenes from four of the games (I, VIII, IX, and XV), with mechanically unique cards and great art. And at $42 MSRP, they’re very reasonably priced for a friend gift. Or for an office white elephant gift exchange that you want to end up taking home yourself…
Buy Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Scene Boxes Here
East Continental Gems Limited Edition Marvel Trading Cards
East Continental Gems has taken two cool variant covers – Mark Brooks’ variant for Avengers Forever #14, paying tribute to Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and Steve Skroce’s Infinity Saga variant cover to Doctor Strange #1 – and put real, actual gemstones in them where the Infinity Gems were drawn. The Mind Gem on the Avengers cover is citrine, while the Time Gem on Strange’s necklace is peridot.
This is very different and also VERY collectible. These are retailing for $199.99 and are limited to 200 cards each, so while the price is high, it’s almost certain to go up. And these will look super cool on a shelf with highlight lighting. If you’ve got friends who love showing off their collections, this is for them.
Buy East Continental Gems Limited Edition Marvel Trading Cards Here
Star Wars Unlimited Gift Box
Star Wars Unlimited is a game with a bit of a learning curve. But the characters, settings, and cards in the game help guide you through it in a straightforward way. Also, if you are a Star Wars fan, chances are pretty good that someone in your life already plays this and can help walk you through it. Especially when you have a gift box like this that is pretty close to pick up and play – you get an oversized leader card, two variant cards, and eight booster packs to build from. This is very affordable at $35, an easy pick for the Star Wars fans in your life.
Pokémon Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Box
Phantasmal Flames has only been on shelves for a short time, but it’s already flying out the door, and these boxes easily show why. They have nine booster packs, a shiny foil Charcadet, a fancy box and sleeves for your cards, and lots of exciting art and new gameplay. This is a great high-end gift for a Pokémon player who also has a taste for collecting.
Buy Pokémon Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Box Here
Magic: The Gathering – Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box
Beginner Boxes are a relatively new Magic product that lay out, step by step, card by card, how the game works. But what makes these Beginner Boxes really great is how thorough they are about the experience. You get spindown dice, you get packs to crack, you even get mats to use. And this goes extra for the Avatar set. It’s a joy to play, with gorgeous art and fun cards and a level of craft and love of the source material that shines through on every card. The box is priced at $34.99, but because the packs are jumpstart, there’s a good chance that you’ll open more in value than that. Either way, it’s worth every penny.
Buy Magic: The Gathering – Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box Here
Skybox Metal Universe Batman of Zur-En-Arrh
When we talked to Upper Deck about this set in the spring, they refused to give us any details about who or what might be in it. So we didn’t know there would be a 1/1 special foil card for Batman’s emergency backup personality, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. This is wild. Believe it or not, $10,000 for a 1/1 isn’t that ridiculous, so if you’ve got 10-large just lying around and are a Batman fan – specifically a fan of Morrison Batman (hi, it’s me) – you should grab this.
Magic: The Gathering Tarkir: Dragonstorm Booster Box
Booster boxes are usually on the pricey side, but with good reason. Each box of Magic play boosters comes with 30 packs. That’s 420 cards. Most of them are going to be chaff, but there’s one really great way to make that chaff playable: drafts.
You and seven friends (or three, if you want to do a Pick Two draft) sit at a table with three packs each. Everyone opens pack one, picks the best card, and passes their cards to the person on the left, and that continues until the cards are gone. Then you build a deck out of what you pulled and play against the rest of the group. This is a ton of fun when you do it at your game store, and even better when it’s all friends. Tarkir: Dragonstorm was the best set from 2025 to draft. It has everything iconic about Magic, and it’s intuitive and fun to draft. It’s expensive at $110, but worth it.
Buy Magic: The Gathering Tarkir: Dragonstorm Booster Box Here
Disney’s Lorcana: Elsa Gift Box
This Elsa Gift Box has “new player” written all over it. Disney’s Lorcana is one of the most beginner-friendly trading card games out there, with deep gameplay but a very straightforward onramp for new players. So what better way to help guide someone to the world of card games than by giving them this box, which comes with a sparkly Elsa card, five packs, and a deckbox to protect all your new cards? For under $25, this gift goes a very long way.
Buy Disney’s Lorcana: Elsa Gift Box Here
An Original Lorwyn Thoughtseize
Magic’s next set in 2026 returns to Lorwyn, a plane full of fun fantasy nonsense – elementals, elves. and faeries – where the sun never sets and it’s always spring. So, naturally, the iconic card from the set is a painting of a faerie crawling in an elf’s ear.
There are a million reasons why this card is an iconic Magic card besides the art, and each of those million reasons is also an argument for an original Lorwyn version holding its value when it’s inevitably reprinted on Magic’s return to the plane. Bottom line is, for $12, you can have a little piece of history and a supremely playable card.
Buy An Original Lorwyn Thoughtseize Here
A Complete Set of the 1995 Fleer Ultra X-Men Cards
Let’s be 100 percent real here: these cards rule. They often get swept up in derisive criticism of ‘90s comics’ excess, but they’re just great. Bright, colorful art from artists at the peak of their game, and characters from an utterly bonkers era of X-Men comics mean you’re going to get some wild pulls in here, and you know what? You’ll probably love every one of them. Be prepared for Albert (the android clone of Wolverine) to become your new cherished possession, because $60 is dirt cheap for this.
Written by
Jim Dandy has always been a comic geek, but it wasn't until recently that he started gaining a variety of other interests and skills through his…