What is the Most Expensive Card in Yu-Gi-Oh?
In February 2019, the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card was the Shonen Jump 2010 Prize Card, Stardust Divinity. The second most expensive was the Shonen Jump 2013 Prize Card, Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City. Neither card can even be used in a Duel, due to the fact that each can win you the match if it attacks directly. In February 2019, a copy of Stardust Divinity was listed for $19,999 on eBay.
What Does Stardust Divinity Do?
Stardust Divinity is a Level 10 Fairy-type Synchro Monster that requires 1 LIGHT-attribute Tuner and 2 or more non-Tuner Fairy-Type monsters. It can’t be Special Summoned except by Synchro Summon. If this monster attacks your opponent directly and reduces their Life Points to 0, you win the Match.
Like Grandopolis, the Eternal Golden City, which we’ll look at next, there are replica copies available on the market, as well.
What Does Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City Do?
In January 2019, a copy of Grandopolis was for listed for sale at $18,999.99 USD on eBay. This listing made Grandopolis at the time the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card for sale..
Grandopolis is a Rank 8 XYZ monster that needs 3 Level 8 monsters to summon. It has 2800 ATK and 3500 DEF. He must be Special Summoned by Xyz Summon and no other way. If Grandopolis attacks your opponent directly and reduces his or her life to 0, if one of the original Xyz Materials was a Machine-type monster, you win the Match. While this is somewhat difficult to actually pull off, because it can win the match, like Victory Dragon and other similar Shonen Jump Championship prize cards, it can never be used in an official Duel.
There’s a replica of Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City out there that was released in 2014. One replica copy was graded by Beckett Grading Services as a Gem Mint 9.5 and sold for an undisclosed best offer on eBay. There was another Grandopolis replica listed on eBay in January 2019 for $1200. If you absolutely want to own a Grandpolis, the Japanese version is available for $10 - $15 on eBay.
What’s the Next Most Expensive Yu-Gi-Oh Card?
The runner up for the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card is another Shonen Jump Championship Prize Card. This is the 2017 Shonen Jump Championship prize card, a Link monster called Iron Knight of Revolution. Like Grandopolis, it also cannot be used in a Duel.
Iron Knight of Revolution requires 3 Machine-Type effect monsters to successfully Link Summon. When this Extra Linked card attacks your opponent directly and reduces their life points to 0, you win the Match. In many ways, this is probably the superior monster. In any case, a copy of Iron Knight of Revolution was listed on eBay for $11,999 in January 2019.
What’s the Most Expensive Playable Yu-Gi-Oh Card?
For a long time, the most expensive playable Yu-Gi-Oh card was Crush Card Virus. This is actually still the case in 2019. Two copies of the Shonen Jump Championship 2007 ultra rare printing were listed on eBay for about $3,000 - one of which was in lightly played condition and the other in near-mint condition. Another two copies of the Shonen Jump Crush Card Virus were listed on eBay for $4,995 each. Of course, if you really want to own a Crush Card Virus, a Gold Series 2008 copy sells for a little over $35.
But in February 2019, the surprise unbanning of Cyber-Stein in a late January 2019 Forbidden & Limited update caused the Shonen Jump prize card to be listed for about $10,500 on eBay. Of course, Cyber-Stein has a rare printing in Dark Beginning 2 which sells for as low as $13, plus with the Extra Deck limited these days to 15 cards and no one really playing that many fusion monsters, Cyber-Stein was no longer broken enough to worry about. It’s still fun to summon a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, though - even at the cost of 5000 Life Points.
What’s the Most Expensive Card in Yu-Gi-Oh History?
There are many other expensive Yu-Gi-Oh cards out there, but reportedly a one-of-a-kind Black Luster Soldier printed on stainless steel is the #1 most expensive card in the game’s history. It was the prize given to the winner of the first-ever Yu-Gi-Oh tournament ever held in Japan back in 1999. According to Gemr.com, in 2016, the stainless steel Black Luster Card was valued at around $10 million and reportedly sold at one point for $2 million!
The most expensive Black Luster Soldier that you can buy otherwise is the Duel Terminal 7 rare printing which you can buy for roughly $5 in 2019.
In January 2019, the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card in competitive play was the Ultimate Rare printing of Cyber Dragon from Cybernetic Revolution, a card that was selling at the time for around $100 USD.
One of the “boons” cycle that gave you 3 of something for a single Mana, Healing Salve is clearly the worst of the five. Of course, when you're up against Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and even Giant Growth, that's pretty hard to beat. Gaining 3 life isn't horrible, of course. Also, preventing up to three damage to a target is useful, too.
Healing Salve allows you to save a creature from targeted damage such as Lightning Bolt or combat damage. But compared to those other four boons, it's a pretty mediocre card, since it's so situational. Still, while we look at it today as a pretty weak card, it wasn’t all that bad in the beginning. It’s also still such an iconic, classic card that it’s been reprinted numerous times, including in Duel Decks: Divine VS Demonic.
Despite being one of the more worthless cards in the original Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets today, Beta copies of Healing Salve sell for over $5 US and Alpha copies push $10. Despite being relatively weak even by early Magic standards, it was still playable back in the earlier days, and is still a collectible in black border.
When graded by PSA or BGS, Healing Salve is actually somewhat valuable. An Alpha copy in BGS 9 or higher condition can fetch over $30. On a side note, the rare “Summer Magic” variants of the Fourth Edition set includes Healing Salve, and a BGS 9 copy was receiving bids in excess of $70.