Hi as TCG seller pay for 100 $ cards will I say it one of BIG 3 now as a player who wants Yu-Gi-Oh as a child and still does? That's pretty expensive 😔 how U fix it Yu-Gi-Oh Just two competitive be cheap game and way to hard for new players it is physically impossible. Get in play in
I think they just need to have more secrets in a booster box. Right now there's only 2 secrets per box. There should be at least 4 or even 8 secrets per box so the odds of getting an SP or wanted is higher.
Unfortunately it's a Konami America issue. The OCG all the cards are printed in a lower rarity, then you have a chance to pull a higher rarity. That's why OCG cards aren't legal in the TCG, because they don't want you to get the cheaper Japanese versions.
Ok, but who owns Konami America? What I mean is it's all one company and the american side has limited control. I think that OCG is just a testing ground for the TCG where they can make the real money. They print low rarity and high over there so everyone has access and can test for use then once they know what is the best cards then they can choose tha rarity they think is approprate. And the high rarity in the OCG is just for the whales over there. That's at least what I think happens and why.
@@josepharmstrong6852 wish things would be better anyway lol but yeah I guess that’s possible 💙we’ll see but I know it would be a good step if they changed that imo
@@josepharmstrong6852 Dont think that is the way it actually works in OCG. The thing is in EU/NA there are 3 big TCGs. Magic, Pokemon and Yugioh. In OCG there is a lot more. If they started to apply EU/NA rarity printings people would just switch games. There is way more competetion in OCG. So they HAVE to make cards more affordable. Does this excuse them from the practice we have? Oh hell nah.
wasnt the reason becouse ocg cards are constructed differently (i dunno if they were slightly smaller or thinner) and therefore its like playing with different card sleeves, or marks on card sleeves
Totally agree. The worst part is that the OCG already does this right now, printing cards in lower and premiun rarities, and it just makes the game more afordable. I wish Konami would try to make the game affordable for everyone, I think having the lower rarities in sets would also help stores move product too. People would be more willing to open a box if you are likely to get 2 or so copies of the cards you need plus a chance of a super cool version of it.
The TCG used to have this model too. This isn't just an accident, they did it deliberately knowing exactly what would happen as a result. They did it because they knew that TCG players wouldn't care. They didn't do it in the OCG because they know Japanese consumers wouldn't have stood for it.
My MTG group allows proxies and printing. we all still buy packs and products. but it allows us to not be limited in deck building and even customise our cards. its great fun. and thats what we play card games for, fun
Sadly, some online spaces (like MTG related subreddits) have been taken over by the companies that make the related game (Wizards of the Coast) and outright ban even the discussion of proxies. Thankfully, as stated in the video, a lot of people are independently understanding that the use of proxies to help build the community is better in the short and long term
@@Andrew_the_Worthy_Shield I 100% agree. That's why we all still buy products. Though we don't have a LGS here unfortunately. The secondary market pretty much makes proxies a must. Some mtg cards are so highly priced. Plus the collectors complained and had the reserve list become a thing.
I think the reason why that will never be a wide spread solution is Konami runs everything(and they ban proxies cause they want you buying cards).You don’t play in local events without it being Konamis rules. So if you want to use proxies, you basically need to play with friends. Yugioh as a whole is weirdly stuck to its corporate overlords. As someone who’s played lots of competitive Pokémon (online singles)and even dipped my toe in comp FPSs, the idea of the IP owner dictating formats or minutia about something as meaningless as proxies is just baffling to me. Like it’s just wild to me what the yugioh community puts up with, and how they just take it and don’t form their own tournament structure and their own ban lists separate from what Konami puts out.
Exactly they could learn a thing or too like what they did in rarity collection if they did that with every set it be nice for the more budget players like for FUCKs sake SP has a super print in ocg like WTF Konami
A deck should cost a person about 50 to 100$. Budget decks for kids or less fortunate people for around 30$ And print some ghost rare stuff for collectors.
@@strangedogg5068 konami didnt do that the people did. If a box is 50 and a card comes in 1 in 4 boxes you can guarantee you get a card with the price of two boxes. People are willing to pay that, it is what it is.
@@strangedogg5068 well more than $30 I would give them that I don’t think any card alone should be worth more than like $10-$15 but I’d say in general every card should be like a dollar
I agree with the reprints should be done in almost every set. Just think about how many common Pot of Greeds and Change of Hearts we got back in teh day.
@@josepharmstrong6852 Those cheaper alternatives need to be available for new cards which is what OCG has, and many other card games makes important staples low rarity so you can get an abundance of them without breaking bank.
Hard agree. I've gotten to a point where I just refuse to play the game until the cards for a deck I want to make are all affordable via aggressive reprints like the recent collection set. If they just wind up totally unplayable even at a locals level by the time that happens, then I just ignore that specific deck and move on. It's gotten ridiculous. What I don't understand is that OCG has little checks and balances to even it out. Some really rare cards are given secondary lower rarities to make them more affordable. TCG doesn't do this. In fact, a lot of cards TCG knows damn well will be staples or very solid main deck considerations get obnoxious rarity bumps and short prints. Not exactly like people have oodlies of disposable income right now. If anything, it just encourages me to stay away from Konami product because you see how hostile the game is to a low spender right from that first experience trying to build your deck. They have to realize that this doesn't help them bring in new players.
It's so cool to hear from you that demand. I think konami should change their business model to acommodate a larger player base. It doesn't help putting all the staples and game-changing stuff restricted into the highest rarities as for that only shortens the player base and turns the second market into the only actual market
When the physical game prints over a billion dollars globally every year, I dont think they've much reason to change. They've got a nice nest egg they're sitting on, and the game appears to be more popular than ever with the advent of YT/Twitch personalities.
@@dante9284 You are right that they may not change it because it's profitable. But many of those public figures are actually concerned by the pricegating into the physical game competitively because it mess with the whole franchise. We see a lot of local stores ending deals with YGO because of that, for example. Without those stores, many players can stop playing entirely and not going back, instead of going casual or online for a few years. The economical warp that benefits the company an insurmountable way for a few weeks are quite damaging for the game.
@asimhussain8716 we did for the past year and you know what happened? Stores either went out of business, or stopped doing yugioh all together cause they would lose thousands of dollars with each set release. The problem is if theres either no good cards in a set, or all the good cards are low rarity, then you quite literally remove the incentive to buy product in mass. If all I have to do to get eveything I need is to buy 2 or 3 boxes, then that means the rest of the product thats available will just sit on the shelves. And thats money down the drain for the stores.
@@asimhussain8716 youre aiming at the wrong source. The player base is what runs the game not konami. This game lives and dies with the players. When stores close, thats less players willing to play, or attend other locals or events. The less players thebless money goes into more stores, and if product continues to not sell, that discourages even more players from supporting their lgs store, and therefore more stores go out of business. Its a trickle effect. Affecting stores ultimately affects players in a negative way. Its not like it's for the greater good. What youre asking from the players is extremely unrealistic. To a large number of people this game is a form of escape from the real world. To a large number. Attending their Saturday/Sunday locals is the one thing they look forward to all week. They look forward to their favorite yugitubers, posting every other day. Yugitubers themselves look forward to the next juicy content that they can make for the player base playing a game they genuinely love to play. Im sorry bro but that sinical view in asking folks who love this game with their heart and soul to just give up, all because some cards cost a few extra bucks is not realistic at all
@@dante9284L take. They get their profits from distributors who supply stores. How much these sets actually sell isn't relevant unless they end up leaving stores and vendors with too much dead stock to deal with.
I would argue that reprints don’t work. At least, they don’t do enough. People should get to play with them BEFORE they get hit on a ban list or fall out of the meta. The only solution for that is to have them at multiple rarities in the core set. Otherwise it would need an immediate reprint and that would kill the value of the core set and screw people over
@@UTgohan except the OCG exists and they've been doing multiple rarities of a card within a single set for many years. Good ol konami USA is the sole reason these cards are so god dam expensive.
Not to mention the prizing at YCS events. If you're not only spending thousand(s) of dollars, testing for hours, having the talent and everything that comes into a top at an event... it's not worth the money alone
that problem is kinda a you problem, you see this buisness like. most good or organized player get out of a ycs with more money then before and there is already travel costs and hotel included
@@N1GhtKnIGht What are you talking about!? 😭😂.. There is no cash prize for winning s YCS. And you can't count the prize cards or other goodies as the cash prize because it's not Cash. It's not like the winner of a YCS is walking out with a 100k check
@@lordsupernewton8888 What are you talking about!? 😭😂.. There is no cash prize for winning s YCS. And you can't count the prize cards or other goodies as the cash prize because it's not Cash. It's not like the winner of a YCS is walking out with a 100k check
What you are talking about is how it works in the OCG. Little Knight was a super, but also a secret and QCR. Secret rares over there are used as a rarity bump for lower rarity cards. WANTED was also a regular rare over in the OCG so...
I love how the digimon tcg has alternate arts of the rarer cards and they end up being the expensive ones, but if just need a copy for a fairer price then there is the regular artwork version.
As a newly started Digimon TCG player, i absolutely LOVE this about the game! I made a very good Beelzemon deck with 90€ in total that is competitively viable!
I pulled a Secret S:P Little Knight the weekend of release. I get Konami needs reasons to get people to buy packs, but cards should never be that expensive
Funny enough a new pokemon set comes out, then a couple chase cards also get a tin/ box promo a few weeks later and then a another card will get some promo 2 months after release. They don't have issues moving product. They don't have to reprint IMMEDIATELY after, but give it 3-4 months. Maybe after the next core set comes out, then a promo version of S.P. little knight or fenrir or triple tactics thrust. We shouldn't be waiting over a year for a heavily diluted reprint set with wonky pull ratios. People who aren't gonna buy boxes WON'T. The people that want to play meta, will buy early on and get that accessibility, that already exists. Hell, once box prices fall, that makes some folks actually buy some sealed product. Again we see this with pokemon, with anime Duelist sets and deck build sets.
@@PendBestDeck151 That would be a good response. Let the cards get hyped on release, and then a few months later when Konami has the data to just reprint those cards in a preconstructed product. Competitive players will always want the meta defining cards immediately so Konami will make their money on that and then have them ready for budget players while the cards are still relevant. Unfortunately Konami doesn't operate that way and instead uses OCG as playtesting and then gives the best performing cards rarity bumps. Like how Dark Armed Dragon was a rare in Japan but got bumped to a $300+ secret rare when it was ported over to the TCG. Same with S:P Little Knight being a super in the OCG.
Very happy to see Paul talking about this. As someone who was very excited for the Diabelstar engine, I can’t afford to drop $400 for three spells and 3 diabelstar. It’s just not feasible for me. I love the idea of different rarities (that Pokemon example was great!) so I can get a “less blinged out version” of a deck I actually want to play. I can understand cards that are hard to get/ collectors pieces being worth a decent amount, but cards needed to just play a deck being $100 a pop? That blows my mind.
Konami needs to copy Konami, ocg makes the rarity treatment similar to other games, just watch an unboxing of ocg and tcg agov AND man i feel sad (even for their chance of get ultimates in Main sets)
A little too late tbh. I personally tapped out from the paper yugioh and just gonna play virtual. The meta decks shouldn't cost 500+. This is gonna bite them on ass the coming soon.
You don’t even need to look to Pokémon for this example. The OCG does this with their sets and I:P has a super rare printing and is like $5, secret rare $25 and quarter century is like $100. I think it cards had lower rarity cards that are easier to access it could help change the mentality of just buy singles, which seems like it would help stores sell more product
The most I have ever spent on a card was about $103 on a copy of the Magic card City of Traitors and just below that was $100 on a copy of Bayou. Those cards being on Magic's reserve list nearly guarantees no reprint unfortunately and brings up another rough topic that leans into why the casual Magic community is so lax about proxies now.
They should've learned from £20 magnamhuts that we'll still buy product for good super rares - they'd sell far more if the average pack had something you actually wanted in it, instead of having to hit one of the absurd cards to get the value out of the set
I play two separate trading card games already, and even still Pokemon occasionally gets me to build a deck and go to locals for a few weeks to mess around with something due to the low barrier to entry. Most recently, it was a Dialga Vstar deck that cost me about $60 to build from scratch, and next up might be a Miraidon ex deck, since I'm a big fan of Raikou. It's straight up just a bad player experience to have competitive staples total up to $500 plus dollars before you even START building the actual archetype you're thinking of trying out. Even if you go, "Eh, but you can just slot in different engines and have SOME efficacy, even if it's not optimal," you can't un-know that the meta engine is the best way to go for the deck you chose to build, and every game loss that comes down to the cards that you know you're missing will build up just a bit more resentment toward the game's business practices. I shunted over to Cardfight Vanguard around 2013, but I've been tempted to look at Yu Gi Oh a few times in a similar way that the Pokemon TCG has gotten me, but every single time I've been priced out of any desire to try again.
I agree I've been playing the Digimon tcg since it came out and I love that even most cards are less than 10$ even sec rare cards are like 20-30 max and the only expensive cards are the alt arts/ full arts which I think Yu-Gi-Oh has such good artists they could make beautiful full arts I would take a full art black rose over a starlight any day
Shadowverse Evolve also has relatively cheap cards. Even with the highest rarity versions of cards, nothing had a market price over $350 currently. That's even with a waifu collaboration set which released on the8th of this month. Given I did get 10 boxes because I was only having my friend teach me if I had a deck from the collab, but it was still a great surprise to pull the most expensive card in the set, while not realizing at first, it was most expensive in whole game too.
Due to some personal issues i hadnt been to my locals in a year, i ran into one of the main players who even judged at our nationals. And my shock to find out, that everyone quit yugioh to play pokemon(and having fun) due to the prices just being too ridiculous for everyone to play top meta decks
Pricing has got really bad for me between Sinful and S:P. They're so vital to play competitively right now. My locals have a lot of really good players who go to YCSs and Regionals etc. It's becoming demoralising turning up when I'm facing decks that cost £500 that I simply can't afford to compete with. Honestly feels embarrassing that I can't afford those cards. I'm a lower skill level anyway let alone being unable to afford the cards to play at a competitive level. S:P is the most egregious to me. It is so unbelievably strong that it's a get out of jail free card for any deck. Literally paying £90 to have "the out" available at all times.
@@lordsupernewton8888 imagine telling someone to play a different game if they can't afford good cards lmao. Trash take L+ratio+think about what you said
@@michaeldymond741 We all have opinion's that's yours :). And i respect it. I also said to find a deck that fits what he has, but L+whatever you said right,. Maybe read what i wrote and stop thinking it's all hate.
The different lower rarities solution sounds super viable for yugioh. Rarity wh0r3s will always do the most to get their secret rares anyway. It's not like konami will lose out on sales or anything. In fact, it might even increase sales.
Having JUST learned about how the OCG prints stuff i'm left feeling super ripped off. Like the idea that a card game prints ALL cards at a common rarity and then has fancy versions of key cards is SUCH a lovely model. There is still money in the 1st and 2nd hand markets BUT it doesn't compromise the affordability and accessibility of the GAME itself.
It's sadly in inherent problem of a TCGs. The fact that they are a collectors thing in one aspect, but then also have a competetive scene. These two just don't mix well. At least not in the way that Konami is treating it. Honestly the competetive side if YGO should be completely free. That's what you need for a true competition. If you need 500$+ decks to compete, it is quite literally pay to win. Sure playing that deck still takes skill, but somebody with a 50$ deck is will never be able to beat top decks even if they are technically a better player. (what ever that means)
I’m glad you brought up pokemon tcg in this vid. There’s definitely still a lot of meta cards in the game that can get expensive since you can play 4 copies of said cards but I honestly think Konami could learn a lot from what Pokemon are doing with their rarity pyramid. Having different rarities of the same card in a set definitely keeps costs low for players and also gives collectors something worth collecting
@@anthonymercado8126 if we’re talking vintage collecting then you’re right. In terms of the cost for competitive play Pokemon is cheaper. If you look back at some of the meta cards that’s been relevant in Yugioh it hasn’t been uncommon for a staple or a vital engine starter to cost you over 100 per copy, that card might have even been a 3 of too in your deck. To me that’s unacceptable. Pokemon on the other hand (like I mentioned in my original comment) always for the most part has a common alternative that’s dirt cheap. Obviously it all depends on the player preferences weather you want to bling out and get the top rarity but in terms of been able to play on a competitive level Pokemon is so much cheaper
i been saying for years now... every secret rare should also be printed as an ultra, collectors, and starlight rares.... there shouldnt be 1 printing of meta relevant cards AT ALL
Locals and big tournaments should give the big cards out as prizes to incentivize people to show up Not super unrealistic Locals distribute the uncensored art versions of cards you get for spending X amount on product
I feel like that would have people act like their very lives are at stake with prizes like that, which would bring for a very unfriendly, if not outright toxic environment.
I feel like multiple rarities is something that would be amazing competitive or not I feel like cards like Horus and Diabellstar are interesting but you shouldn't pay an arm and a leg for cards that might be a small part of a deck. Not to mention $100 for just 1 copy of Seeker of sinful spoils is nuts makes it impossible if you wanted to play the lore pure or would be on a budget.
Completely agree. Personally I don't care about rarity. If I had common prints I would be happy. I was so Happy when I first got the dark magician girl with probably the first reprint that came out I got for $10 with a booster pack in a sealed package. It was common but the joy of having it in my hand👌 can't beat that. The whole pint in my opinion is to simply enjoy the game.
Absolutely this. While Age of Overlord was an amazing set, getting competitive cards should not cost so flipping much. Konami would stand to sell more product to people who would want more of the cards being more readily available from packs instead of letting people just buy singles...no?
An easy fix to this is to just make the secret rare chase cards also common in the set. They can even increase the secret rare pull rate if they wanted. That way no one can complain about prices since all important cards would be common. Then the collector market would also be happy because the rare rarities will still retain great value. What's funny us that if this were the case, then more people might actually be willing to buy product because you can actually get the cards you want by buying product. But because the cards you need are hard to pull it's just way more logical to just buy singles.
If you did a mass boycott of the cards you’d see Konami increase the printing so the price goes down. Unfortunately if you don’t have standards for what you will pay, then you will pay a lot
The issue with both yugioh and also magic the gathering, is the competitive formats need either 3 copies or 4 copies of a card to play with. When cards cost even $15-20 each thats a $60-$80 playset for just 1 card. Yugioh boxes are cheaper than mtg boxes but have less cards per pack; both games have power creep issues with yugioh being way worse. But if singles cost nothing and boxes are $100 or nor for mtg $140-$160, then no one will buy sealed product and then singles will stay high again. Its an issue from konami and wotc, and they need to find a cost basis that makes sense and a print run that is more accurate that what has been happening.
I agree man. I love Rescue Ace and Mikanko, I spam them on DB and have so much fun playing them but realistically I wont be able to build them irl because I simply cant afford the Diabellstar engine. Its so frkking frustrating I capoiügnfmf, idk, Konami should just print them and sell them as singles. Idkidk I just want to compete offline with decks I like the most but I simply cant
100% agree. The ultimsystem from thenGX era needs to return. I dropped $60 on a copy of thrust preorder and now I’m sick at how expensive that card got.
I'm perfectly fine with collector rarities having a higher price tag since they're meant for collectors (stuff like Starlights) but I think the main problem is when they decide to release a super powerful card like Little Knight or even the Diabellstar stuff but only make them available in a single higher rarity because then it just inflates the price even more of the card since they're just naturally rarer to pull. Like you said in the video, I feel like it'd be infinitely better if they kept the higher rarity versions of the cards but just made lower rarities in the same set so cards are more accessible
The reason why these cards are worth that much is because the boxes themselves are expensive, so if you have to open, say, 2 boxes to get one copy of this card on average, then you will have to pay a fraction of that box price, in the case of really good cards, a rather large fraction.
Proxying is fun, I do it all the time; in fact I have made 6 decks from proxies: 2 decks completely from scratch, a Pippa deck and a Yu Gi Oh Variant of the Necron Commander deck for M:tG. The most expensive part of the proxying has been the Dark Magician Girl sleeves.
I completely agree with you, Paul. Even though it's online only, this is why I love how Infintiy Wars (not marvel) does things. They officially support proxies. I think this might actually be what you are looking for (the business model at least. It's difficult to just let Yugioh go :P it's such a unique game). I hope you will give it a quick look at least. It's worth more exposure than it's currently getting at least.
I think TCG should take a page out of OCG and offer multiple rarities of cards as they're released. I think starlight, ghost, and collector rares should be more expensive, as they're intended as collector pieces (first). A lot of expensive cards do end up getting reprinted anyway, but it takes a year or so (products like megatins and battle of legends) so they're just not as relevant as on release. Seems to me as it's designed this way to sell product first. (Also why are OCG box prices half the price of the same TCG counterparts, makes no sense)
This is a big issue in the TCG that the OCG has already solved by doing what was suggested, providing lower rarity versions of important cards for the competitive players and rarity bumps/alt arts for the collectors. And they can't hide their scummy practices anymore now that the internet allows news to carry over from region to region in a flash.
I think some cards can go for $100+ value, though it should be limited to higher rarity variants of cards as well as commemorative variants. One Piece the prints like this, though there are a couple cards that could be made more accessible as their age has led to a spike in their price, Starter deck 4 Queen and Starter deck 3 Love-Love Mellow are notable examples of this going for prices roughly equal to the initial price of their starter decks if not more now that the decks are out of print.
Konami wants people to buy as many packs as possible to drive sales with stupid rarities. Players will spend absurd amounts to play the "best of the best." The problem is power creep and a lack of variety of decks. If you have a tier 0 format, the cards that are essential to those engines will be expensive as hell. If you have MORE varieties of decks, it drives the price of all cards down because you dont NEED those specific cards if you can play something else thats actually viable. For now I'm sticking to master duel. I would never pay 1500 for a deck that might get hit by ban list or power crept in a month or two just to repeat the cycle because thats absurd. I dont need to buy a new gaming PC every few months for a new game so the whole "hobbies are expensive" thing is BS. Equipment SHOULD last.
I think Konami should drop the total number of cards in a set to 70 cards and just print every card in every rarity. It encourages each player to pick up a box of product because on average they will pull a play set of each card. I’m not touching a box of AGOV but I did pick up an S:P on TCG player. But if I knew the odds were in my favor to purchase sealed product that’s exactly what I would do. And as there are 70 cards in any one rarity the blinged out versions of the cards would naturally cost more in singles.
Few things: 1- Don't adopt the GX model as it was, the secrets were just as hard to get and did not come in Ultimate, the ideal model would be a mix of Battles Pack and Rarity collection, where EVERY card was a common and you got a starfoil of any card of the set in every pack, mix that with Rarity Collection giving us all the rarities and make the cooler ones harder to pull, but you can ALWAYS play the commons. 2 - Since we're probably not doing option 1 any time soon, I think the easiest solution for main sets is select the rarities in a different way, put the cards you need multiples of at a lower rarity and the 1-ofs at higher, so the Sinful Spoils package would look like this: WANTED at super, Diabellstar at ultra (since you use 1 to 3), Original at secret. We need more value at the super rare spots, those make sets super valuable since even single packs are worth buying, Darkwing Blast was kinda like this with most secrets being 1-ofs for their intended decks and having high value supers and a few important ultras. 3 - At the end of the day, every hobby has its cost, Yugioh should definitely not be this expensive, but since the game was based on a series where special cards were super rare and came with pride of ownership, the actual game mirrors that maybe a bit more than it should, players that regularly play at tournaments might just feel the weight of not being able to responsibly afford all the important cards (I know I do), but for a lot of casual players which are a big part of the game, having that one rare card that none of your friends have and won't go out of their way to afford is like having the one copy of Blue Eyes when there's only 3 in the world, it's kinda dumb but I remember my school days feeling that.
AGOV made me officially declare no more buying yugioh for me. I saw the card list, saw a good handful of cards that would have spiced up a few of my decks a little - nothing meta by any means, just slightly more functional at their non-meta goals - then I saw the prices. Hundreds of pounds just to put a fun new spin on my favourite deck, which by the way OCG players could get for a tenth of the cost - and which I could import from the other side of the world, including import duty, and still pay half the native cost. It's not just overpriced, it's an insult. I've been into Yugioh since GX, I've had a couple of dozen decks over the years, I've bought cards just for the sake of having them, I've designed my own custom cards and game modes, I've worked on the Yugioh minecraft mod... and despite all this I'm still not someone Konami wants as a customer, because Konami's target customers are people who will happily pay £80 for a single card.
They need to do a reprint set every 6 months to make meta relevant cards that are expensive more accessible to people. Once a year by the time a lot of the archetype cards get reprinted they have been power crept
Digimon does the same system you just spoke on and it hurts the game tremendously. If the cards are all hyper affordable it will hurt the game in the long run.
Very much agreed there's a lot of decks I wanted to build but always held back by the price of point of certain cards and would end up not completing it. It ultimately made me give up on yugioh because I couldt pay for the cards I needed.
These are great points. I think everyone should have access to all cards for playability, and keep the hard to get rarity cards in the set for collectibility reasons. If we're spending 100 dollars on competitive cards, and not having the ability to compete without having them, we just have to HOPE that one day it'll get a reprint. The cost of the secret rarity or whatever it is should still have value, especially over the many years due to exclusivity. Maybe that's copium, but I think we could have more players interested and have a bigger market to get those said cards as a result! Then deck-building would have more of a strategy-based approach instead of a "can i afford this deck" approach.
Don't know why cards cost so much.. it's not like players are being/getting Cash prizes for winning a YCS or Regional. It's not like players have huge global sponsorships with Nike/Adidas/Puma , etc
I agree. I just pulled a $30 Garchomp, but I was able to get a bunch of $2 variants of the card so I could have the playset to play, and maintain the value in my binder.
They should just experiment with the next core set. Start introducing full art versions of cards, then make a common version and a super special full art one of a really desirable card. I am 100% sure it will sell like hotcakes like Age of Overlord is right now. Also "You should have gotten the card earlier when it was half the price" It's a card game, not a stock market.
I completely agree that they should print more often and do lower rarities and higher rarities in the same set. I had to make the decision a couple of years ago to stop buying packs as I didn't have the budget to pull until I got what I needed unless I got lucky and got it in a few packs. I nowadays look at all the good cards in age of overload and have to tell myself that I won't pull the secrets and there is no point in buying the pack. If Konami wants my money from packs, then they'd need to make those cards accessible. If it was even super rares, you can bet that I would be pulling a dozen packs.
I totally agree, after the banlist i tried some alternatives to my tear shaddol deck and the most consistent one is playing the horus engine, and amset alone, running at three is worth 150 euros, 3 cards are worth the same as the rest of my deck alone and at no point we should get to that. I wish we would see the same approach as the ocg where cards are printed in common and premium rarities alike tbh
It's a vicious cycle, to be frank. Konami hasn't supported the core and casual audiences in the West, just going for hardcore audience and so the majority of people buying product are hardcore players or sellers. As a result, sets are purchased almost exclusively for chase cards. Because sets are mainly purchased for chase cards, to turn a profit the chase cards need rarity bumps (remember the recent storeowners talking about stuff like Soulburning Volcano collecting dust in bargain bins not even a month out of its release?) If they don't do this, the product simply would not be selling enough to sustain the game. Because the strong cards need to be harder to get, the price goes up which makes players who could be the core audience get turned off from the high buy-in price to make even a rogue deck. Hence the cycle is reinforced. The rarity bumping and short printing is a bad option but for the current state it's probably the only practical move for Konami to make, financially speaking.
Speed duel handled this topic very well. It focuses on all inclusive sets with random rarity upgrades from a wanted card pool. I think, the duel devestator box was a great concept for the TCG. Instead of the tins, they easily could release a similar set every holiday season, and they don´t have to be high rarity at all, this would sell so well without crashing high rarity cards. Imagine a product, that features common version of generic cards that are frequently played and are needed to dive into more competitive based gaming. So you´d buy structures for budget deck cores, booster sets for rarity upgrades + tech and new cards, and those boxes for your staples. Secondary market could be more regulated and controlled by konami.
I like the idea of having lower rarities and collector rarities so people can make competitive decks even if they arent flashy. Those wanting to max rarity their deck CAN, but shouldn't be forced to.
It would kill the game. The game needs collectors and players. Collectors dont care about a card that has 3 different rarity. It works in pokemon because they have very unique full art cards. Unless yugioh wants to change the way they make cards it will never work.
Yeah, I know the feeling. Back during the Arc-V era of Yu-Gi-Oh, I picked up BA, not because it was a great deck but because I like what it was based off of (Dante's Inferno). At the time, three copies Dante Traveller set me back somewhere between $150 to &160. Now with reprints, he's cheaper but not a great deck. Do I regret purchasing it at the time? Maybe.
I remember pulling Behemoth the King of All Animals back in the day as an Ultimate Rare, before eventually finding a ghost rare Ancient Fairy Dragon, I'd never seen anything like them before compared to the other rarities that were available at the time, and it was a shame to see Konami just get rid of them from mainline booster boxes. We currently live in the age where Konami doesn't have a foot in selling individual cards, but imagine if they did: a single card worth $100 on the third-party market would likely be even higher from Konami's "Duelist Store," but without having to worry about restocking it if it sells out because they directly print those very cards themselves instead of having anyone to buy them from. This is why the Rarity Collection (despite its price) worked to a degree and why the Pokémon TCG introduced alternate artwork cards, having lots of important cards all reprinted in different rarities gives players a better chance of pulling the cards you need for your deck and the added chance to flaunt your harder to find versions - you can build a Pokémon deck with regular art cards and play just fine, while the full-art, illustration rare and secret rare versions are literally just the exact same cards that are just more difficult to find, so it's something you can flaunt your luck/money with, but everyone has the same chance of trying to pull one from a booster pack.
Some say excessive reprints could kill the market and the value of the cards but as Paul said, cards are meant to be played and if one of them gets cheaper and lose their value overtime due to reprints then so be it.
Back when i played in late teleDad format and the next format when DaD was semi limited there were quite a few cards you needed for competitive play what were well over $100. DaD alone hit over $500 a copy and you needed 2-3, crush card virus was $250-$300, judgment dragon was $300, charge of the light brigade was $120 a pop and ehren was also $80-$100 a pop and they werent limited back then. There has always been an aspect of competitive decks being very expensive. I know some of my friends couldnt even afford to get a top tier deck back then and it stopped them from playing. It is much better today than it used to be tho it seems. So thats always a plus.
Im fine with cool collectors cards being 100 dollars or more (even if my broke ass can’t afford it), like starlight rares and stuff. But normal cards should never cost that much. Needing to drop 300 on a playset for just one of the 4-5 expensive must-have meta cards that’ll go out of season in a few months is wild
yeah pricing is a big issue especially in mtg and yugioh. the fact that yugioh still has 3-4 different rarities of cards all of which are unique cards and the fact that a box has an extremely low amount of these makes it feel really bad when not only do you not pull the good secret/ghost card from your box but also realize that not only did you not pull it but now your almost guaranteed that you dont have a copy in the box depending on which rarity the card is. pokemon having the multiple rarities of the same card makes the game much more casual friendly and collector friendly as like you said you can go after the 60-100 dollar version of the card if your a collector but also just pickup an entire set for a couple dollars each for an actual deck is great.
I think the worst thing about Konami of America purposefully making these cards expensive is that they're leaving money on the table with their outdated business model. You can compare opening packs of cards to a claw machine/grabber machines. While claw machines in the West are universally laughed at as scams to rip you off while giving you very little or nothing, the Japanese use the business model of actually giving you actual good prizes after you spend x amount and still have no prize. Prize grabbers in Japan are thriving along with an arcade scene while everyone in the west still sees them as scams after decades. Konami's greed is literally losing them money in an age where yugioh popularity is booming.
I also feel like taking on pokemon's rarity system would be way more encouraging to buy sealed products because while you wont get the money card you will way more likely get playable versions of what you want while now it feels like why would I ever buy sealed when it's cheaper to just buy the secret rare instead of like 4 boxes to pull them
I've been adamant about reprinting everything in common like they do in japan so that households of all incomes can enjoy a fun game. Start a petition please
I do agree. Cardboard shouldnt be as expensive as it is right now. But there are some points that are worth considering: 1) Deck variaty: IF all cards would be accessible to every player at an affortabe price, there would only be Meta Decks playing. Which is barely any different from Now, but even at locals would everyone play Kashtira, Labrinth or Vanquish. Deck variety would take a huge blow and creativity would basically die. Since no one wants to play in a tournament setting with a loosing Deck if everyone is playing the same shit. 2) Newer prints would be worthless: If, for example, Ashblossom would be a staple common in every Deck and every booster thats comming out, the card would be overused and become considered "worthless filler", to a point where there is no need to buy packs because you might just draw trash that you have lying around for the N-th time. The chances of drawin the card you want is dropping drastically and cards become even higher in demand. Not to mention that private seller have dead cards lying around like crazy if no one wants to buy them if everyone has an abundance of it. 3) Print Variaties: I agree that Konami should make more cards have higher value versions and lower value versions. They used to exist, with me having an Ultimate Rare "Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu" where in the same set there is also an Ultra Rare one. But similar to the overabundance of ashblossoms in the previous example, will the cheap versions of card be in such a high demand that they become expensive for the sake of "price and demand". Since basically no one wants to pay for an overpriced card IF they have the chance to buy a powerfull Meta Card for a cheaper pricetag. A PERFECT example of this, is the 25th Aniversary Pack. Staple cards like Nibiru and Baron become so easy to access, that sellers cannot handle the demand and raise the prices to a point where a "simple" super rare is getting to a price point of a "25th Aniversity Rare" card. I agree with all points you make, but Konami wont do shit, because they make a shitload of money from scalpers and sellers :/
Interesting to hear you mention prize cards at the end there. There's a card called "Duel Link Dragon, the Duel Dragon". This is a card which was in the OCG pack "Premium Pack 2019" and I can get a copy for about $10, including shipping. However in the TCG this was only ever released as a prize card. To get a copy of the TCG version I would have to pay about $1,250. This card isn't a match winner card and is tournament legal, so Konami should reprint this so people can actually obtain a copy of this card, if they want to.
Prize cards should by default be non official game legal anyway since its a nightmare if they end up good or even usable. they could then be the wacky card that would never be work for actual games like magic unsets
@@randomprotag9329 It depends on the card. The example above is just a regular card in the OCG and hasn't set the world on fire yet, though for cards such as the match winners I do agree with you on. It would be nice to get a copy of the card in English for a reasonable price to have in my collection, even if it's going to be banned for use in tournaments.
@@valvesofvalvino it does depend on the card best case senario its a completely useless card that nobody would ever use even for jankest of the jank decks, worst case is crush card. match winners are good prize cards cause its something that does not work for a tourney legal card. it makes playing them easier cause proxying is not an issue for a casual game using prize cards effect ot just treat X card as the prize cad.
I absolutely think they should start reprinting the most sought after/staple cards more often, because guess what? People will still buy them!! even in lower rarities, people would still buy it for the ability to simply play those cards!! having staples only at higher rarities prevents people that wanna play the game from actually entering the casual and competitive scenes because the price of the best cards is so exclusive. I’ve been trying to build some decks that i like that are not even meta or anything, and I’m taking such a long time just because the cards I need are so expensive even years after they’ve been released :((
As someone who poked their head back around the door when Master Duel came out, seeing the prices of bread-and-butter cards put paid to the notion of ever actually getting into the physical game again. I'm almost certain that, were there cheap or common versions of those cards included in Booster Packs, I'd've spent altogether too much money by now. I'm not a businessman or anything, there must be some reason they do this, but speaking for myself I ended up giving them less money.
95% of people who rip Pokémon packs don’t play the game. So the game has a ton of low rarity cards that do the same thing that most people don’t want into the secondary market. Also Pokémon has been printing more meta cards either into battle league decks ie(mew vmax and Miraidon) or collection boxes ie Charizard ex. The barrier of entry into the tcg is much lower in price compared to others.
One of my highschool friends spent 150 USD to get the 3 noble night boxes plus the staples he bought separate! Michael Desousa man he was a madlad still great guy!
I would agree for it would improve certain aspect obviously the entry cost. However, most meta decks and cards in the past pushed way past 100 and most persons didn’t have this level of dislike for it. Pot of Duality was over 100, Tour guide, judgment dragon, DAD, and many others. You could argue then they’re may not be much value in shops or investors in buying to resell but there should at least be sets like the rarity collection or features incorporated in current products to ease options.
Thank you so much for putting this out there dude. I'm stepping away from any consideration towards competitive play because of how Konami is distributing and printing sets. It is a total shit show when you look at games like Magic with their collectors sets and popper set booster boxes. Konami has really cultivated this market where there so many excess commons that can't find a home and rare cards are just insanely priced it's as bad and often worse than pokemon without the full art flavors. I really hope the company changes because this lack of oversight in distribution combined with power creep is going to shake off more players than ever. The 25th collectors set is practically irrelevant when sandwich between several bad districts sets. So I'm really hoping it changes.
I’ve only got 1 irl deck because of how expensive this card game is. I’m in Australia too, which seems to be such a barrier to access to people selling their decks and to stores like TCGPlayer (who doesn’t ship here). There are way to many financial and ease of access barriers to just getting into Yugioh.
If I could purchase a whole main deck for $30-$40 and an extra deck $10-20 I’d absolutely do it. But it’s too hard to do that. Buying packs is straight up gambling for what little you actually get and how many packs you’d realistically need to buy to build a deck.
But the set still needs to be good on average or we end up with sets like rising rampage and chaos impact that pumping more copies out didn't hurt the prices too much because it was cards like apo or I:p only or bust
The most I've spent on a card was $20 way back when Beelze was the hot new thing, and even that felt a little icky. I'd love a rarity collection every year, but the best solution to be able to have fun with a deck before it gets butchered by the banlist would be your multiple rarities solution
As many guys have mentioned before, the TCG should learn from the OCG to print multiple rarities so that the people can have the options to buy depending on their budget. Many good staples are pushed into only high rarity which really discourage people from optimizing their deck.
Printing the same card in different rarities in the same set can absolutely be a solution to cutting costs and make the game accessible. Of course there are people who use these rare cards as an investment of sorts… the cards with the higher rarity will still maintain its value, especially if the card has a different code. Take the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the DDS and the common version are identical in the eyes of the game, but from a collector’s perspective, the value differs. The same can said for the same card printed in different rarities in the same set.
Ooh! Somewhere my experience with the back end of game production is useful! Technically, the "supply and demand" argument is correct. Konami prints a small supply of a high demand card, artificially inflating its price. Cards are super cheap to print. Not sure how much I'm allowed to say about the production of Dragon Dice, but even the most expensive dice (the special, large dice made in small batches in a separate location from the main dice, and released as as promo dice) cost $0.25/die to make. Packaging is pretty expensive, but based on quotes I recall, if SFR decided to make a card game, their packaging costs would be cut in half at worst. I think what Konami is doing is setting up sheets of cards to be printed, with a specific rarity distribution per sheet. What they seem to have decided is that they'd rather maximize the number of different cards per sheet rather than maximize the individual value of packs for non-collectors. Again pulling on my experience, a rare collectable (like TSR did with the Scalder and Frostwing boosters right before they went belly-up) will drive collectors to buy them as a collectable, while alienating people who want to actually play the game. When SFR bought the rights to Dragon Dice, the first thing they looked at was changing rarities to make the rarest dice more accessible, but they did not have the funds to have new molds required to make that change. Konami likely has a similar issue with reprinting cards, as reprints take up space that could go to new cards, but they can't just reprint specific cards from a particular set without also reprinting the other cards on that sheet. So they seem to have decided to wait and see which cards need reprinting, and when they have enough, they build another sheet. In my opinion, this is a terrible business practice, since Konami is choosing to spend more resources on developing pack fillers rather than making their game more accessible. If Konami wants to keep their printing methodology of maximizing the number of cards, the rarest cards should be something unimportant or deliberately bad to minimize their impact on the game. You can't tell me someone wouldn't want a ghost rare Bat (Yes, it's a real card in the OCG) any less than they would want a ghost rare of a good card. Alternatively, since Konami isn't good at predicting what cards will be powerful and cards are really cheap to make, especially in the quantity Konami probably deals with, they could just make fewer cards. Replace pack fillers with more common versions of rare cards, which will also save time and money on designing cards. Ultimately, Konami continues its current practices because it makes them more money. And unfortunately, they won't see a need to change their practices unless people start buying less of their product, which is probably not going to happen any time soon.
I absolutely agree, we should have the OCG rarity system we got a taste of in Rarity Collection. And until Konami can meet us halfway, there is something most of us can do very easily. Run proxies. As long as they're high quality enough, let 'em play at local games. If most don't feel like they NEED the tournament legal version, the supply won't get nuked from orbit. If a card is $30+, high demand, and the new hot thing, there should be no shame to not dropping hundreds of dollars to take part in the new set hype.
All we need Konami to do is just copy the OCG model. There is no thinking involved. The OCG has a proven model that satisfies the company, players and collectors. OCG sets print chase cards in multiple rarities as we saw in our Rarity Collection this year. The print quality is also immensely superior to our cards. Because quality is good, and people can get chase meta cards in easily accessible low rarities, players buy a lot of boxes and company makes money. Collectors are also happy because they can pull high rarity chase cards with good print quality, and the high rarity cards are not that expensive because each box has at least one luxury rarity. The OCG still has Ghost rares and ultimate rares in core sets. Everyone is happy. There is no excuse for Konami to not follow that model.
*_WANTED:_*_ More affordable Yu-Gi-Oh cards._
Hi as TCG seller pay for 100 $ cards will I say it one of BIG 3 now as a player who wants Yu-Gi-Oh as a child and still does? That's pretty expensive 😔 how U fix it Yu-Gi-Oh Just two competitive be cheap game and way to hard for new players it is physically impossible. Get in play in
Reprints will cut off prices
Fake looking God Cards with a chance at an useless vanilla, got it
I think they just need to have more secrets in a booster box. Right now there's only 2 secrets per box. There should be at least 4 or even 8 secrets per box so the odds of getting an SP or wanted is higher.
@@Carlos.Rivera Reprints usually come out after the archetype isn't as good as it was on release.
Unfortunately it's a Konami America issue. The OCG all the cards are printed in a lower rarity, then you have a chance to pull a higher rarity.
That's why OCG cards aren't legal in the TCG, because they don't want you to get the cheaper Japanese versions.
Ok, but who owns Konami America? What I mean is it's all one company and the american side has limited control. I think that OCG is just a testing ground for the TCG where they can make the real money. They print low rarity and high over there so everyone has access and can test for use then once they know what is the best cards then they can choose tha rarity they think is approprate. And the high rarity in the OCG is just for the whales over there. That's at least what I think happens and why.
@@josepharmstrong6852 wish things would be better anyway lol but yeah I guess that’s possible 💙we’ll see but I know it would be a good step if they changed that imo
@@josepharmstrong6852 Dont think that is the way it actually works in OCG.
The thing is in EU/NA there are 3 big TCGs. Magic, Pokemon and Yugioh.
In OCG there is a lot more. If they started to apply EU/NA rarity printings people would just switch games.
There is way more competetion in OCG. So they HAVE to make cards more affordable.
Does this excuse them from the practice we have? Oh hell nah.
@@josepharmstrong6852 Konami has game testers who play with these cards so they already know what are the better cards to bum up rarity in tcg
wasnt the reason becouse ocg cards are constructed differently (i dunno if they were slightly smaller or thinner) and therefore its like playing with different card sleeves, or marks on card sleeves
No Yu-Gi-Oh card costs $100 when you don't play Yu-Gi-Oh 🙃
Gottem
Totally agree. The worst part is that the OCG already does this right now, printing cards in lower and premiun rarities, and it just makes the game more afordable. I wish Konami would try to make the game affordable for everyone, I think having the lower rarities in sets would also help stores move product too. People would be more willing to open a box if you are likely to get 2 or so copies of the cards you need plus a chance of a super cool version of it.
The TCG used to have this model too. This isn't just an accident, they did it deliberately knowing exactly what would happen as a result. They did it because they knew that TCG players wouldn't care. They didn't do it in the OCG because they know Japanese consumers wouldn't have stood for it.
My MTG group allows proxies and printing. we all still buy packs and products. but it allows us to not be limited in deck building and even customise our cards. its great fun. and thats what we play card games for, fun
Same here. We use Yu Gi Oh and MTG proxies and we all have a great time.
Sadly, some online spaces (like MTG related subreddits) have been taken over by the companies that make the related game (Wizards of the Coast) and outright ban even the discussion of proxies.
Thankfully, as stated in the video, a lot of people are independently understanding that the use of proxies to help build the community is better in the short and long term
Although I think proxies are a wonderful thing, I also want to support my local game shop.
@@Andrew_the_Worthy_Shield I 100% agree. That's why we all still buy products. Though we don't have a LGS here unfortunately.
The secondary market pretty much makes proxies a must. Some mtg cards are so highly priced. Plus the collectors complained and had the reserve list become a thing.
I think the reason why that will never be a wide spread solution is Konami runs everything(and they ban proxies cause they want you buying cards).You don’t play in local events without it being Konamis rules. So if you want to use proxies, you basically need to play with friends. Yugioh as a whole is weirdly stuck to its corporate overlords. As someone who’s played lots of competitive Pokémon (online singles)and even dipped my toe in comp FPSs, the idea of the IP owner dictating formats or minutia about something as meaningless as proxies is just baffling to me. Like it’s just wild to me what the yugioh community puts up with, and how they just take it and don’t form their own tournament structure and their own ban lists separate from what Konami puts out.
Even if the TCG just printed the same card in multiple rarities in one set like the OCG it wouldn't be as much of a problem.
Exactly they could learn a thing or too like what they did in rarity collection if they did that with every set it be nice for the more budget players like for FUCKs sake SP has a super print in ocg like WTF Konami
Wait...they actually do that in the OCG? Why the fu....
@@SaintDorado Yep, ever secret rare gets a super rare printing in the same set in the OCG.
@@SaintDoradothats why SP only cost like $5 lol
A deck should cost a person about 50 to 100$.
Budget decks for kids or less fortunate people for around 30$
And print some ghost rare stuff for collectors.
dude, a deck should cost 30$ max, is just stupid how konami made us believe that those pieces of paper have so much monetary value
@@strangedogg5068 konami didnt do that the people did. If a box is 50 and a card comes in 1 in 4 boxes you can guarantee you get a card with the price of two boxes. People are willing to pay that, it is what it is.
@@strangedogg5068 well more than $30 I would give them that I don’t think any card alone should be worth more than like $10-$15 but I’d say in general every card should be like a dollar
Bro I'd take 200 max at least man its fucking insane how much you need for meta decks
@@brendalee1215 200 is crazy bro even if you’re getting money. It shouldn’t cost more than a regular video game, 100 is upper limit
I agree with the reprints should be done in almost every set. Just think about how many common Pot of Greeds and Change of Hearts we got back in teh day.
yea so like the common or super ash droll and imperm in the last few big products then what is your point.
@@josepharmstrong6852 his point is that those cards are YEARS old. The problem isn't reprinting really, it's printing, rarity and shortprinting
@@josepharmstrong6852 Those cheaper alternatives need to be available for new cards which is what OCG has, and many other card games makes important staples low rarity so you can get an abundance of them without breaking bank.
Hard agree. I've gotten to a point where I just refuse to play the game until the cards for a deck I want to make are all affordable via aggressive reprints like the recent collection set. If they just wind up totally unplayable even at a locals level by the time that happens, then I just ignore that specific deck and move on. It's gotten ridiculous. What I don't understand is that OCG has little checks and balances to even it out. Some really rare cards are given secondary lower rarities to make them more affordable. TCG doesn't do this. In fact, a lot of cards TCG knows damn well will be staples or very solid main deck considerations get obnoxious rarity bumps and short prints. Not exactly like people have oodlies of disposable income right now. If anything, it just encourages me to stay away from Konami product because you see how hostile the game is to a low spender right from that first experience trying to build your deck. They have to realize that this doesn't help them bring in new players.
Even with the Rarity collection, many of the supers are at £10+. So its still £30 for 3 prosperity, thats only 3 of your 40-60 cards......
It's so cool to hear from you that demand. I think konami should change their business model to acommodate a larger player base. It doesn't help putting all the staples and game-changing stuff restricted into the highest rarities as for that only shortens the player base and turns the second market into the only actual market
When the physical game prints over a billion dollars globally every year, I dont think they've much reason to change.
They've got a nice nest egg they're sitting on, and the game appears to be more popular than ever with the advent of YT/Twitch personalities.
@@dante9284 You are right that they may not change it because it's profitable. But many of those public figures are actually concerned by the pricegating into the physical game competitively because it mess with the whole franchise. We see a lot of local stores ending deals with YGO because of that, for example. Without those stores, many players can stop playing entirely and not going back, instead of going casual or online for a few years. The economical warp that benefits the company an insurmountable way for a few weeks are quite damaging for the game.
@asimhussain8716 we did for the past year and you know what happened? Stores either went out of business, or stopped doing yugioh all together cause they would lose thousands of dollars with each set release. The problem is if theres either no good cards in a set, or all the good cards are low rarity, then you quite literally remove the incentive to buy product in mass. If all I have to do to get eveything I need is to buy 2 or 3 boxes, then that means the rest of the product thats available will just sit on the shelves. And thats money down the drain for the stores.
@@asimhussain8716 youre aiming at the wrong source. The player base is what runs the game not konami. This game lives and dies with the players. When stores close, thats less players willing to play, or attend other locals or events. The less players thebless money goes into more stores, and if product continues to not sell, that discourages even more players from supporting their lgs store, and therefore more stores go out of business. Its a trickle effect. Affecting stores ultimately affects players in a negative way. Its not like it's for the greater good. What youre asking from the players is extremely unrealistic. To a large number of people this game is a form of escape from the real world. To a large number. Attending their Saturday/Sunday locals is the one thing they look forward to all week. They look forward to their favorite yugitubers, posting every other day. Yugitubers themselves look forward to the next juicy content that they can make for the player base playing a game they genuinely love to play. Im sorry bro but that sinical view in asking folks who love this game with their heart and soul to just give up, all because some cards cost a few extra bucks is not realistic at all
@@dante9284L take. They get their profits from distributors who supply stores. How much these sets actually sell isn't relevant unless they end up leaving stores and vendors with too much dead stock to deal with.
I would argue that reprints don’t work. At least, they don’t do enough. People should get to play with them BEFORE they get hit on a ban list or fall out of the meta. The only solution for that is to have them at multiple rarities in the core set. Otherwise it would need an immediate reprint and that would kill the value of the core set and screw people over
Konami does this to make money they make the cards super hard to get so that’s why the price is so high
Ask yourself why pokemon can do it and not suffer financial loss?
Cuz there modern game ain’t shit and all ages can play it at a competitive level
@@Zarakikenpachi69420 I just don’t see how they could be having financial losses selling literal cardboard
@@UTgohan except the OCG exists and they've been doing multiple rarities of a card within a single set for many years. Good ol konami USA is the sole reason these cards are so god dam expensive.
Not to mention the prizing at YCS events. If you're not only spending thousand(s) of dollars, testing for hours, having the talent and everything that comes into a top at an event... it's not worth the money alone
that problem is kinda a you problem, you see this buisness like.
most good or organized player get out of a ycs with more money then before and there is already travel costs and hotel included
If you can't afford the cards, thats on you. Go play fortnite.
@@lordsupernewton8888 found the konami glazer
@@N1GhtKnIGht
What are you talking about!? 😭😂.. There is no cash prize for winning s YCS. And you can't count the prize cards or other goodies as the cash prize because it's not Cash. It's not like the winner of a YCS is walking out with a 100k check
@@lordsupernewton8888
What are you talking about!? 😭😂.. There is no cash prize for winning s YCS. And you can't count the prize cards or other goodies as the cash prize because it's not Cash. It's not like the winner of a YCS is walking out with a 100k check
What you are talking about is how it works in the OCG.
Little Knight was a super, but also a secret and QCR. Secret rares over there are used as a rarity bump for lower rarity cards.
WANTED was also a regular rare over in the OCG so...
I love how the digimon tcg has alternate arts of the rarer cards and they end up being the expensive ones, but if just need a copy for a fairer price then there is the regular artwork version.
As a newly started Digimon TCG player, i absolutely LOVE this about the game!
I made a very good Beelzemon deck with 90€ in total that is competitively viable!
While in yugioh the Alternate art reprint tends to be cheaper than the original
Possible with pokémon too ❤
I pulled a Secret S:P Little Knight the weekend of release. I get Konami needs reasons to get people to buy packs, but cards should never be that expensive
Funny enough a new pokemon set comes out, then a couple chase cards also get a tin/ box promo a few weeks later and then a another card will get some promo 2 months after release. They don't have issues moving product.
They don't have to reprint IMMEDIATELY after, but give it 3-4 months. Maybe after the next core set comes out, then a promo version of S.P. little knight or fenrir or triple tactics thrust. We shouldn't be waiting over a year for a heavily diluted reprint set with wonky pull ratios.
People who aren't gonna buy boxes WON'T. The people that want to play meta, will buy early on and get that accessibility, that already exists. Hell, once box prices fall, that makes some folks actually buy some sealed product. Again we see this with pokemon, with anime Duelist sets and deck build sets.
I don't think they understand that printing good cards as obtainable rarities would incentivize me to buy packs.
@@jtm94exactly but nope konami is gonna continue shooting themselves in the foot
@@jtm94 or you'd probably just buy the cards you want from the secondary market since it would still be cheaper and guaranteed.
@@PendBestDeck151 That would be a good response. Let the cards get hyped on release, and then a few months later when Konami has the data to just reprint those cards in a preconstructed product. Competitive players will always want the meta defining cards immediately so Konami will make their money on that and then have them ready for budget players while the cards are still relevant. Unfortunately Konami doesn't operate that way and instead uses OCG as playtesting and then gives the best performing cards rarity bumps. Like how Dark Armed Dragon was a rare in Japan but got bumped to a $300+ secret rare when it was ported over to the TCG. Same with S:P Little Knight being a super in the OCG.
Very happy to see Paul talking about this. As someone who was very excited for the Diabelstar engine, I can’t afford to drop $400 for three spells and 3 diabelstar. It’s just not feasible for me. I love the idea of different rarities (that Pokemon example was great!) so I can get a “less blinged out version” of a deck I actually want to play. I can understand cards that are hard to get/ collectors pieces being worth a decent amount, but cards needed to just play a deck being $100 a pop? That blows my mind.
Pick a different deck or save up.
If you were really excited about the wanted engine, you could've bought them when wanteds were 60 and be paying less than half of what they cost now.
Konami needs to copy Konami, ocg makes the rarity treatment similar to other games, just watch an unboxing of ocg and tcg agov AND man i feel sad (even for their chance of get ultimates in Main sets)
A little too late tbh. I personally tapped out from the paper yugioh and just gonna play virtual. The meta decks shouldn't cost 500+. This is gonna bite them on ass the coming soon.
You don’t even need to look to Pokémon for this example. The OCG does this with their sets and I:P has a super rare printing and is like $5, secret rare $25 and quarter century is like $100.
I think it cards had lower rarity cards that are easier to access it could help change the mentality of just buy singles, which seems like it would help stores sell more product
The most I have ever spent on a card was about $103 on a copy of the Magic card City of Traitors and just below that was $100 on a copy of Bayou. Those cards being on Magic's reserve list nearly guarantees no reprint unfortunately and brings up another rough topic that leans into why the casual Magic community is so lax about proxies now.
They should've learned from £20 magnamhuts that we'll still buy product for good super rares - they'd sell far more if the average pack had something you actually wanted in it, instead of having to hit one of the absurd cards to get the value out of the set
Yeah Mangahut was a $20 card last year.
I play two separate trading card games already, and even still Pokemon occasionally gets me to build a deck and go to locals for a few weeks to mess around with something due to the low barrier to entry. Most recently, it was a Dialga Vstar deck that cost me about $60 to build from scratch, and next up might be a Miraidon ex deck, since I'm a big fan of Raikou.
It's straight up just a bad player experience to have competitive staples total up to $500 plus dollars before you even START building the actual archetype you're thinking of trying out. Even if you go, "Eh, but you can just slot in different engines and have SOME efficacy, even if it's not optimal," you can't un-know that the meta engine is the best way to go for the deck you chose to build, and every game loss that comes down to the cards that you know you're missing will build up just a bit more resentment toward the game's business practices. I shunted over to Cardfight Vanguard around 2013, but I've been tempted to look at Yu Gi Oh a few times in a similar way that the Pokemon TCG has gotten me, but every single time I've been priced out of any desire to try again.
I agree I've been playing the Digimon tcg since it came out and I love that even most cards are less than 10$ even sec rare cards are like 20-30 max and the only expensive cards are the alt arts/ full arts which I think Yu-Gi-Oh has such good artists they could make beautiful full arts I would take a full art black rose over a starlight any day
Shadowverse Evolve also has relatively cheap cards. Even with the highest rarity versions of cards, nothing had a market price over $350 currently. That's even with a waifu collaboration set which released on the8th of this month. Given I did get 10 boxes because I was only having my friend teach me if I had a deck from the collab, but it was still a great surprise to pull the most expensive card in the set, while not realizing at first, it was most expensive in whole game too.
Due to some personal issues i hadnt been to my locals in a year, i ran into one of the main players who even judged at our nationals.
And my shock to find out, that everyone quit yugioh to play pokemon(and having fun) due to the prices just being too ridiculous for everyone to play top meta decks
Pricing has got really bad for me between Sinful and S:P. They're so vital to play competitively right now.
My locals have a lot of really good players who go to YCSs and Regionals etc. It's becoming demoralising turning up when I'm facing decks that cost £500 that I simply can't afford to compete with. Honestly feels embarrassing that I can't afford those cards. I'm a lower skill level anyway let alone being unable to afford the cards to play at a competitive level.
S:P is the most egregious to me. It is so unbelievably strong that it's a get out of jail free card for any deck. Literally paying £90 to have "the out" available at all times.
No disrespect, You said your niot very good and you can't afford the cards. Maybe find a new hobby, or play a deck that fits what you have.
@@lordsupernewton8888 imagine telling someone to play a different game if they can't afford good cards lmao. Trash take
L+ratio+think about what you said
@@michaeldymond741 We all have opinion's that's yours :). And i respect it.
I also said to find a deck that fits what he has, but L+whatever you said right,. Maybe read what i wrote and stop thinking it's all hate.
The different lower rarities solution sounds super viable for yugioh. Rarity wh0r3s will always do the most to get their secret rares anyway. It's not like konami will lose out on sales or anything. In fact, it might even increase sales.
I legit don't care about rarities. I mean it's nice when you get one, but I just wanna play the game with the best cards available.
@@WretchedPlebe Same. When I was still into yugioh I would always go for the lower rarities on staples. It just felt right.
It is viable, OCG already prove it since years
Having JUST learned about how the OCG prints stuff i'm left feeling super ripped off. Like the idea that a card game prints ALL cards at a common rarity and then has fancy versions of key cards is SUCH a lovely model. There is still money in the 1st and 2nd hand markets BUT it doesn't compromise the affordability and accessibility of the GAME itself.
It's sadly in inherent problem of a TCGs. The fact that they are a collectors thing in one aspect, but then also have a competetive scene. These two just don't mix well. At least not in the way that Konami is treating it. Honestly the competetive side if YGO should be completely free. That's what you need for a true competition. If you need 500$+ decks to compete, it is quite literally pay to win. Sure playing that deck still takes skill, but somebody with a 50$ deck is will never be able to beat top decks even if they are technically a better player. (what ever that means)
Shouts-out to yall, man!!! Truly enjoy the content as a guy who's really just getting back into Yugioh... I need help 😫 and I often get it here
you ask me no card should cost $10. Cards should come in common rarity from the get go and let the whales and collectors fight over the high rarities.
I’m glad you brought up pokemon tcg in this vid. There’s definitely still a lot of meta cards in the game that can get expensive since you can play 4 copies of said cards but I honestly think Konami could learn a lot from what Pokemon are doing with their rarity pyramid. Having different rarities of the same card in a set definitely keeps costs low for players and also gives collectors something worth collecting
@@anthonymercado8126 if we’re talking vintage collecting then you’re right. In terms of the cost for competitive play Pokemon is cheaper. If you look back at some of the meta cards that’s been relevant in Yugioh it hasn’t been uncommon for a staple or a vital engine starter to cost you over 100 per copy, that card might have even been a 3 of too in your deck. To me that’s unacceptable.
Pokemon on the other hand (like I mentioned in my original comment) always for the most part has a common alternative that’s dirt cheap. Obviously it all depends on the player preferences weather you want to bling out and get the top rarity but in terms of been able to play on a competitive level Pokemon is so much cheaper
i been saying for years now... every secret rare should also be printed as an ultra, collectors, and starlight rares.... there shouldnt be 1 printing of meta relevant cards AT ALL
Locals and big tournaments should give the big cards out as prizes to incentivize people to show up
Not super unrealistic
Locals distribute the uncensored art versions of cards you get for spending X amount on product
I feel like that would have people act like their very lives are at stake with prizes like that, which would bring for a very unfriendly, if not outright toxic environment.
I feel like multiple rarities is something that would be amazing competitive or not I feel like cards like Horus and Diabellstar are interesting but you shouldn't pay an arm and a leg for cards that might be a small part of a deck. Not to mention $100 for just 1 copy of Seeker of sinful spoils is nuts makes it impossible if you wanted to play the lore pure or would be on a budget.
Completely agree. Personally I don't care about rarity. If I had common prints I would be happy. I was so Happy when I first got the dark magician girl with probably the first reprint that came out I got for $10 with a booster pack in a sealed package. It was common but the joy of having it in my hand👌 can't beat that. The whole pint in my opinion is to simply enjoy the game.
Absolutely this. While Age of Overlord was an amazing set, getting competitive cards should not cost so flipping much. Konami would stand to sell more product to people who would want more of the cards being more readily available from packs instead of letting people just buy singles...no?
An easy fix to this is to just make the secret rare chase cards also common in the set. They can even increase the secret rare pull rate if they wanted. That way no one can complain about prices since all important cards would be common. Then the collector market would also be happy because the rare rarities will still retain great value. What's funny us that if this were the case, then more people might actually be willing to buy product because you can actually get the cards you want by buying product. But because the cards you need are hard to pull it's just way more logical to just buy singles.
If you did a mass boycott of the cards you’d see Konami increase the printing so the price goes down.
Unfortunately if you don’t have standards for what you will pay, then you will pay a lot
The issue with both yugioh and also magic the gathering, is the competitive formats need either 3 copies or 4 copies of a card to play with. When cards cost even $15-20 each thats a $60-$80 playset for just 1 card. Yugioh boxes are cheaper than mtg boxes but have less cards per pack; both games have power creep issues with yugioh being way worse. But if singles cost nothing and boxes are $100 or nor for mtg $140-$160, then no one will buy sealed product and then singles will stay high again. Its an issue from konami and wotc, and they need to find a cost basis that makes sense and a print run that is more accurate that what has been happening.
I agree man. I love Rescue Ace and Mikanko, I spam them on DB and have so much fun playing them but realistically I wont be able to build them irl because I simply cant afford the Diabellstar engine. Its so frkking frustrating I capoiügnfmf,
idk, Konami should just print them and sell them as singles. Idkidk I just want to compete offline with decks I like the most but I simply cant
100% agree. The ultimsystem from thenGX era needs to return. I dropped $60 on a copy of thrust preorder and now I’m sick at how expensive that card got.
I'm perfectly fine with collector rarities having a higher price tag since they're meant for collectors (stuff like Starlights) but I think the main problem is when they decide to release a super powerful card like Little Knight or even the Diabellstar stuff but only make them available in a single higher rarity because then it just inflates the price even more of the card since they're just naturally rarer to pull. Like you said in the video, I feel like it'd be infinitely better if they kept the higher rarity versions of the cards but just made lower rarities in the same set so cards are more accessible
You're not paying 100 bucks for a card. You are paying 100 bucks to avoid spending money on packs in the hope of getting that card.
The reason why these cards are worth that much is because the boxes themselves are expensive, so if you have to open, say, 2 boxes to get one copy of this card on average, then you will have to pay a fraction of that box price, in the case of really good cards, a rather large fraction.
Proxying is fun, I do it all the time; in fact I have made 6 decks from proxies: 2 decks completely from scratch, a Pippa deck and a Yu Gi Oh Variant of the Necron Commander deck for M:tG.
The most expensive part of the proxying has been the Dark Magician Girl sleeves.
I completely agree with you, Paul. Even though it's online only, this is why I love how Infintiy Wars (not marvel) does things. They officially support proxies. I think this might actually be what you are looking for (the business model at least. It's difficult to just let Yugioh go :P it's such a unique game).
I hope you will give it a quick look at least. It's worth more exposure than it's currently getting at least.
I think TCG should take a page out of OCG and offer multiple rarities of cards as they're released. I think starlight, ghost, and collector rares should be more expensive, as they're intended as collector pieces (first). A lot of expensive cards do end up getting reprinted anyway, but it takes a year or so (products like megatins and battle of legends) so they're just not as relevant as on release. Seems to me as it's designed this way to sell product first. (Also why are OCG box prices half the price of the same TCG counterparts, makes no sense)
This is a big issue in the TCG that the OCG has already solved by doing what was suggested, providing lower rarity versions of important cards for the competitive players and rarity bumps/alt arts for the collectors. And they can't hide their scummy practices anymore now that the internet allows news to carry over from region to region in a flash.
I think some cards can go for $100+ value, though it should be limited to higher rarity variants of cards as well as commemorative variants. One Piece the prints like this, though there are a couple cards that could be made more accessible as their age has led to a spike in their price, Starter deck 4 Queen and Starter deck 3 Love-Love Mellow are notable examples of this going for prices roughly equal to the initial price of their starter decks if not more now that the decks are out of print.
Konami wants people to buy as many packs as possible to drive sales with stupid rarities. Players will spend absurd amounts to play the "best of the best." The problem is power creep and a lack of variety of decks. If you have a tier 0 format, the cards that are essential to those engines will be expensive as hell. If you have MORE varieties of decks, it drives the price of all cards down because you dont NEED those specific cards if you can play something else thats actually viable. For now I'm sticking to master duel. I would never pay 1500 for a deck that might get hit by ban list or power crept in a month or two just to repeat the cycle because thats absurd. I dont need to buy a new gaming PC every few months for a new game so the whole "hobbies are expensive" thing is BS. Equipment SHOULD last.
Absolutely agree! I'd even go one step further and say a playset of cards should not cost over $100.
I think Konami should drop the total number of cards in a set to 70 cards and just print every card in every rarity. It encourages each player to pick up a box of product because on average they will pull a play set of each card. I’m not touching a box of AGOV but I did pick up an S:P on TCG player. But if I knew the odds were in my favor to purchase sealed product that’s exactly what I would do. And as there are 70 cards in any one rarity the blinged out versions of the cards would naturally cost more in singles.
Few things:
1- Don't adopt the GX model as it was, the secrets were just as hard to get and did not come in Ultimate, the ideal model would be a mix of Battles Pack and Rarity collection, where EVERY card was a common and you got a starfoil of any card of the set in every pack, mix that with Rarity Collection giving us all the rarities and make the cooler ones harder to pull, but you can ALWAYS play the commons.
2 - Since we're probably not doing option 1 any time soon, I think the easiest solution for main sets is select the rarities in a different way, put the cards you need multiples of at a lower rarity and the 1-ofs at higher, so the Sinful Spoils package would look like this: WANTED at super, Diabellstar at ultra (since you use 1 to 3), Original at secret. We need more value at the super rare spots, those make sets super valuable since even single packs are worth buying, Darkwing Blast was kinda like this with most secrets being 1-ofs for their intended decks and having high value supers and a few important ultras.
3 - At the end of the day, every hobby has its cost, Yugioh should definitely not be this expensive, but since the game was based on a series where special cards were super rare and came with pride of ownership, the actual game mirrors that maybe a bit more than it should, players that regularly play at tournaments might just feel the weight of not being able to responsibly afford all the important cards (I know I do), but for a lot of casual players which are a big part of the game, having that one rare card that none of your friends have and won't go out of their way to afford is like having the one copy of Blue Eyes when there's only 3 in the world, it's kinda dumb but I remember my school days feeling that.
AGOV made me officially declare no more buying yugioh for me. I saw the card list, saw a good handful of cards that would have spiced up a few of my decks a little - nothing meta by any means, just slightly more functional at their non-meta goals - then I saw the prices. Hundreds of pounds just to put a fun new spin on my favourite deck, which by the way OCG players could get for a tenth of the cost - and which I could import from the other side of the world, including import duty, and still pay half the native cost. It's not just overpriced, it's an insult. I've been into Yugioh since GX, I've had a couple of dozen decks over the years, I've bought cards just for the sake of having them, I've designed my own custom cards and game modes, I've worked on the Yugioh minecraft mod... and despite all this I'm still not someone Konami wants as a customer, because Konami's target customers are people who will happily pay £80 for a single card.
They need to do a reprint set every 6 months to make meta relevant cards that are expensive more accessible to people. Once a year by the time a lot of the archetype cards get reprinted they have been power crept
Digimon does the same system you just spoke on and it hurts the game tremendously. If the cards are all hyper affordable it will hurt the game in the long run.
@@lordsupernewton8888 and how is that besides the value of cards lowering?
I’m so glad you always have something to say. I value your words a lot and you always have good takes. Keep up the good work.
Very much agreed there's a lot of decks I wanted to build but always held back by the price of point of certain cards and would end up not completing it. It ultimately made me give up on yugioh because I couldt pay for the cards I needed.
These are great points. I think everyone should have access to all cards for playability, and keep the hard to get rarity cards in the set for collectibility reasons. If we're spending 100 dollars on competitive cards, and not having the ability to compete without having them, we just have to HOPE that one day it'll get a reprint. The cost of the secret rarity or whatever it is should still have value, especially over the many years due to exclusivity. Maybe that's copium, but I think we could have more players interested and have a bigger market to get those said cards as a result! Then deck-building would have more of a strategy-based approach instead of a "can i afford this deck" approach.
Don't know why cards cost so much.. it's not like players are being/getting Cash prizes for winning a YCS or Regional. It's not like players have huge global sponsorships with Nike/Adidas/Puma , etc
I agree. I just pulled a $30 Garchomp, but I was able to get a bunch of $2 variants of the card so I could have the playset to play, and maintain the value in my binder.
They should just experiment with the next core set. Start introducing full art versions of cards, then make a common version and a super special full art one of a really desirable card. I am 100% sure it will sell like hotcakes like Age of Overlord is right now.
Also "You should have gotten the card earlier when it was half the price" It's a card game, not a stock market.
I completely agree that they should print more often and do lower rarities and higher rarities in the same set. I had to make the decision a couple of years ago to stop buying packs as I didn't have the budget to pull until I got what I needed unless I got lucky and got it in a few packs. I nowadays look at all the good cards in age of overload and have to tell myself that I won't pull the secrets and there is no point in buying the pack. If Konami wants my money from packs, then they'd need to make those cards accessible. If it was even super rares, you can bet that I would be pulling a dozen packs.
I totally agree, after the banlist i tried some alternatives to my tear shaddol deck and the most consistent one is playing the horus engine, and amset alone, running at three is worth 150 euros, 3 cards are worth the same as the rest of my deck alone and at no point we should get to that. I wish we would see the same approach as the ocg where cards are printed in common and premium rarities alike tbh
It's a vicious cycle, to be frank.
Konami hasn't supported the core and casual audiences in the West, just going for hardcore audience and so the majority of people buying product are hardcore players or sellers. As a result, sets are purchased almost exclusively for chase cards. Because sets are mainly purchased for chase cards, to turn a profit the chase cards need rarity bumps (remember the recent storeowners talking about stuff like Soulburning Volcano collecting dust in bargain bins not even a month out of its release?) If they don't do this, the product simply would not be selling enough to sustain the game. Because the strong cards need to be harder to get, the price goes up which makes players who could be the core audience get turned off from the high buy-in price to make even a rogue deck. Hence the cycle is reinforced.
The rarity bumping and short printing is a bad option but for the current state it's probably the only practical move for Konami to make, financially speaking.
Speed duel handled this topic very well. It focuses on all inclusive sets with random rarity upgrades from a wanted card pool. I think, the duel devestator box was a great concept for the TCG. Instead of the tins, they easily could release a similar set every holiday season, and they don´t have to be high rarity at all, this would sell so well without crashing high rarity cards. Imagine a product, that features common version of generic cards that are frequently played and are needed to dive into more competitive based gaming. So you´d buy structures for budget deck cores, booster sets for rarity upgrades + tech and new cards, and those boxes for your staples. Secondary market could be more regulated and controlled by konami.
I like the idea of having lower rarities and collector rarities so people can make competitive decks even if they arent flashy.
Those wanting to max rarity their deck CAN, but shouldn't be forced to.
It would kill the game. The game needs collectors and players. Collectors dont care about a card that has 3 different rarity. It works in pokemon because they have very unique full art cards. Unless yugioh wants to change the way they make cards it will never work.
Yeah, I know the feeling. Back during the Arc-V era of Yu-Gi-Oh, I picked up BA, not because it was a great deck but because I like what it was based off of (Dante's Inferno). At the time, three copies Dante Traveller set me back somewhere between $150 to &160. Now with reprints, he's cheaper but not a great deck. Do I regret purchasing it at the time? Maybe.
I remember pulling Behemoth the King of All Animals back in the day as an Ultimate Rare, before eventually finding a ghost rare Ancient Fairy Dragon, I'd never seen anything like them before compared to the other rarities that were available at the time, and it was a shame to see Konami just get rid of them from mainline booster boxes.
We currently live in the age where Konami doesn't have a foot in selling individual cards, but imagine if they did: a single card worth $100 on the third-party market would likely be even higher from Konami's "Duelist Store," but without having to worry about restocking it if it sells out because they directly print those very cards themselves instead of having anyone to buy them from.
This is why the Rarity Collection (despite its price) worked to a degree and why the Pokémon TCG introduced alternate artwork cards, having lots of important cards all reprinted in different rarities gives players a better chance of pulling the cards you need for your deck and the added chance to flaunt your harder to find versions - you can build a Pokémon deck with regular art cards and play just fine, while the full-art, illustration rare and secret rare versions are literally just the exact same cards that are just more difficult to find, so it's something you can flaunt your luck/money with, but everyone has the same chance of trying to pull one from a booster pack.
Some say excessive reprints could kill the market and the value of the cards but as Paul said, cards are meant to be played and if one of them gets cheaper and lose their value overtime due to reprints then so be it.
Back when i played in late teleDad format and the next format when DaD was semi limited there were quite a few cards you needed for competitive play what were well over $100. DaD alone hit over $500 a copy and you needed 2-3, crush card virus was $250-$300, judgment dragon was $300, charge of the light brigade was $120 a pop and ehren was also $80-$100 a pop and they werent limited back then. There has always been an aspect of competitive decks being very expensive. I know some of my friends couldnt even afford to get a top tier deck back then and it stopped them from playing. It is much better today than it used to be tho it seems. So thats always a plus.
Regarding 10:20 having reprints of powercrept/simple1for1 cards like MST, Ash, Veiler in every set as pack filler could also make them more draftable
Im fine with cool collectors cards being 100 dollars or more (even if my broke ass can’t afford it), like starlight rares and stuff. But normal cards should never cost that much. Needing to drop 300 on a playset for just one of the 4-5 expensive must-have meta cards that’ll go out of season in a few months is wild
yeah pricing is a big issue especially in mtg and yugioh. the fact that yugioh still has 3-4 different rarities of cards all of which are unique cards and the fact that a box has an extremely low amount of these makes it feel really bad when not only do you not pull the good secret/ghost card from your box but also realize that not only did you not pull it but now your almost guaranteed that you dont have a copy in the box depending on which rarity the card is. pokemon having the multiple rarities of the same card makes the game much more casual friendly and collector friendly as like you said you can go after the 60-100 dollar version of the card if your a collector but also just pickup an entire set for a couple dollars each for an actual deck is great.
I think the worst thing about Konami of America purposefully making these cards expensive is that they're leaving money on the table with their outdated business model. You can compare opening packs of cards to a claw machine/grabber machines. While claw machines in the West are universally laughed at as scams to rip you off while giving you very little or nothing, the Japanese use the business model of actually giving you actual good prizes after you spend x amount and still have no prize. Prize grabbers in Japan are thriving along with an arcade scene while everyone in the west still sees them as scams after decades. Konami's greed is literally losing them money in an age where yugioh popularity is booming.
I also feel like taking on pokemon's rarity system would be way more encouraging to buy sealed products because while you wont get the money card you will way more likely get playable versions of what you want while now it feels like why would I ever buy sealed when it's cheaper to just buy the secret rare instead of like 4 boxes to pull them
I've been adamant about reprinting everything in common like they do in japan so that households of all incomes can enjoy a fun game. Start a petition please
I do agree. Cardboard shouldnt be as expensive as it is right now. But there are some points that are worth considering:
1) Deck variaty: IF all cards would be accessible to every player at an affortabe price, there would only be Meta Decks playing. Which is barely any different from Now, but even at locals would everyone play Kashtira, Labrinth or Vanquish. Deck variety would take a huge blow and creativity would basically die. Since no one wants to play in a tournament setting with a loosing Deck if everyone is playing the same shit.
2) Newer prints would be worthless: If, for example, Ashblossom would be a staple common in every Deck and every booster thats comming out, the card would be overused and become considered "worthless filler", to a point where there is no need to buy packs because you might just draw trash that you have lying around for the N-th time. The chances of drawin the card you want is dropping drastically and cards become even higher in demand. Not to mention that private seller have dead cards lying around like crazy if no one wants to buy them if everyone has an abundance of it.
3) Print Variaties: I agree that Konami should make more cards have higher value versions and lower value versions. They used to exist, with me having an Ultimate Rare "Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu" where in the same set there is also an Ultra Rare one. But similar to the overabundance of ashblossoms in the previous example, will the cheap versions of card be in such a high demand that they become expensive for the sake of "price and demand". Since basically no one wants to pay for an overpriced card IF they have the chance to buy a powerfull Meta Card for a cheaper pricetag. A PERFECT example of this, is the 25th Aniversary Pack. Staple cards like Nibiru and Baron become so easy to access, that sellers cannot handle the demand and raise the prices to a point where a "simple" super rare is getting to a price point of a "25th Aniversity Rare" card.
I agree with all points you make, but Konami wont do shit, because they make a shitload of money from scalpers and sellers :/
Interesting to hear you mention prize cards at the end there. There's a card called "Duel Link Dragon, the Duel Dragon". This is a card which was in the OCG pack "Premium Pack 2019" and I can get a copy for about $10, including shipping. However in the TCG this was only ever released as a prize card. To get a copy of the TCG version I would have to pay about $1,250. This card isn't a match winner card and is tournament legal, so Konami should reprint this so people can actually obtain a copy of this card, if they want to.
Prize cards should by default be non official game legal anyway since its a nightmare if they end up good or even usable. they could then be the wacky card that would never be work for actual games like magic unsets
@@randomprotag9329 It depends on the card. The example above is just a regular card in the OCG and hasn't set the world on fire yet, though for cards such as the match winners I do agree with you on. It would be nice to get a copy of the card in English for a reasonable price to have in my collection, even if it's going to be banned for use in tournaments.
@@valvesofvalvino it does depend on the card best case senario its a completely useless card that nobody would ever use even for jankest of the jank decks, worst case is crush card. match winners are good prize cards cause its something that does not work for a tourney legal card. it makes playing them easier cause proxying is not an issue for a casual game using prize cards effect ot just treat X card as the prize cad.
I absolutely think they should start reprinting the most sought after/staple cards more often, because guess what? People will still buy them!! even in lower rarities, people would still buy it for the ability to simply play those cards!! having staples only at higher rarities prevents people that wanna play the game from actually entering the casual and competitive scenes because the price of the best cards is so exclusive. I’ve been trying to build some decks that i like that are not even meta or anything, and I’m taking such a long time just because the cards I need are so expensive even years after they’ve been released :((
As someone who poked their head back around the door when Master Duel came out, seeing the prices of bread-and-butter cards put paid to the notion of ever actually getting into the physical game again. I'm almost certain that, were there cheap or common versions of those cards included in Booster Packs, I'd've spent altogether too much money by now. I'm not a businessman or anything, there must be some reason they do this, but speaking for myself I ended up giving them less money.
I think a lot more players would be willing to buy sealed product if they did this
The cards should be cheap and Konami make the money out of their tournaments rather than the cards themselves.
I bought my playset at 150$ now the playsets 300$
95% of people who rip Pokémon packs don’t play the game. So the game has a ton of low rarity cards that do the same thing that most people don’t want into the secondary market. Also Pokémon has been printing more meta cards either into battle league decks ie(mew vmax and Miraidon) or collection boxes ie Charizard ex. The barrier of entry into the tcg is much lower in price compared to others.
One of my highschool friends spent 150 USD to get the 3 noble night boxes plus the staples he bought separate! Michael Desousa man he was a madlad still great guy!
Thank you. Finally, someone else is preaching the same thing I have been saying for years.
is that a ravnica remastered mtg box in the background???
I would agree for it would improve certain aspect obviously the entry cost. However, most meta decks and cards in the past pushed way past 100 and most persons didn’t have this level of dislike for it. Pot of Duality was over 100, Tour guide, judgment dragon, DAD, and many others. You could argue then they’re may not be much value in shops or investors in buying to resell but there should at least be sets like the rarity collection or features incorporated in current products to ease options.
Thank you so much for putting this out there dude. I'm stepping away from any consideration towards competitive play because of how Konami is distributing and printing sets. It is a total shit show when you look at games like Magic with their collectors sets and popper set booster boxes. Konami has really cultivated this market where there so many excess commons that can't find a home and rare cards are just insanely priced it's as bad and often worse than pokemon without the full art flavors. I really hope the company changes because this lack of oversight in distribution combined with power creep is going to shake off more players than ever. The 25th collectors set is practically irrelevant when sandwich between several bad districts sets. So I'm really hoping it changes.
I’ve only got 1 irl deck because of how expensive this card game is. I’m in Australia too, which seems to be such a barrier to access to people selling their decks and to stores like TCGPlayer (who doesn’t ship here).
There are way to many financial and ease of access barriers to just getting into Yugioh.
If I could purchase a whole main deck for $30-$40 and an extra deck $10-20 I’d absolutely do it. But it’s too hard to do that.
Buying packs is straight up gambling for what little you actually get and how many packs you’d realistically need to buy to build a deck.
We need unlimited prints again not only first prints
But the set still needs to be good on average or we end up with sets like rising rampage and chaos impact that pumping more copies out didn't hurt the prices too much because it was cards like apo or I:p only or bust
Im fine with special editions of cards having high prices (foil/special arts), however the baseline cards should be affordable
The most I've spent on a card was $20 way back when Beelze was the hot new thing, and even that felt a little icky. I'd love a rarity collection every year, but the best solution to be able to have fun with a deck before it gets butchered by the banlist would be your multiple rarities solution
I agree with you. Not even SP Lil Knight should be $100. I think that you had that convo with a friend of mine at the convention.
Shouldve been like $7 tops for lower rsrity ver, like OCG one
As many guys have mentioned before, the TCG should learn from the OCG to print multiple rarities so that the people can have the options to buy depending on their budget. Many good staples are pushed into only high rarity which really discourage people from optimizing their deck.
Printing the same card in different rarities in the same set can absolutely be a solution to cutting costs and make the game accessible.
Of course there are people who use these rare cards as an investment of sorts… the cards with the higher rarity will still maintain its value, especially if the card has a different code. Take the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the DDS and the common version are identical in the eyes of the game, but from a collector’s perspective, the value differs. The same can said for the same card printed in different rarities in the same set.
Ooh! Somewhere my experience with the back end of game production is useful!
Technically, the "supply and demand" argument is correct. Konami prints a small supply of a high demand card, artificially inflating its price. Cards are super cheap to print. Not sure how much I'm allowed to say about the production of Dragon Dice, but even the most expensive dice (the special, large dice made in small batches in a separate location from the main dice, and released as as promo dice) cost $0.25/die to make. Packaging is pretty expensive, but based on quotes I recall, if SFR decided to make a card game, their packaging costs would be cut in half at worst.
I think what Konami is doing is setting up sheets of cards to be printed, with a specific rarity distribution per sheet. What they seem to have decided is that they'd rather maximize the number of different cards per sheet rather than maximize the individual value of packs for non-collectors. Again pulling on my experience, a rare collectable (like TSR did with the Scalder and Frostwing boosters right before they went belly-up) will drive collectors to buy them as a collectable, while alienating people who want to actually play the game. When SFR bought the rights to Dragon Dice, the first thing they looked at was changing rarities to make the rarest dice more accessible, but they did not have the funds to have new molds required to make that change. Konami likely has a similar issue with reprinting cards, as reprints take up space that could go to new cards, but they can't just reprint specific cards from a particular set without also reprinting the other cards on that sheet. So they seem to have decided to wait and see which cards need reprinting, and when they have enough, they build another sheet. In my opinion, this is a terrible business practice, since Konami is choosing to spend more resources on developing pack fillers rather than making their game more accessible.
If Konami wants to keep their printing methodology of maximizing the number of cards, the rarest cards should be something unimportant or deliberately bad to minimize their impact on the game. You can't tell me someone wouldn't want a ghost rare Bat (Yes, it's a real card in the OCG) any less than they would want a ghost rare of a good card. Alternatively, since Konami isn't good at predicting what cards will be powerful and cards are really cheap to make, especially in the quantity Konami probably deals with, they could just make fewer cards. Replace pack fillers with more common versions of rare cards, which will also save time and money on designing cards.
Ultimately, Konami continues its current practices because it makes them more money. And unfortunately, they won't see a need to change their practices unless people start buying less of their product, which is probably not going to happen any time soon.
I absolutely agree, we should have the OCG rarity system we got a taste of in Rarity Collection. And until Konami can meet us halfway, there is something most of us can do very easily. Run proxies. As long as they're high quality enough, let 'em play at local games. If most don't feel like they NEED the tournament legal version, the supply won't get nuked from orbit. If a card is $30+, high demand, and the new hot thing, there should be no shame to not dropping hundreds of dollars to take part in the new set hype.
All we need Konami to do is just copy the OCG model. There is no thinking involved. The OCG has a proven model that satisfies the company, players and collectors. OCG sets print chase cards in multiple rarities as we saw in our Rarity Collection this year. The print quality is also immensely superior to our cards. Because quality is good, and people can get chase meta cards in easily accessible low rarities, players buy a lot of boxes and company makes money. Collectors are also happy because they can pull high rarity chase cards with good print quality, and the high rarity cards are not that expensive because each box has at least one luxury rarity. The OCG still has Ghost rares and ultimate rares in core sets. Everyone is happy. There is no excuse for Konami to not follow that model.
It’s a piece of card stock for Christs sake. Konami is literally printing these for dimes
As a magic player I pray that the YGO community fights against the secondary market apathy early - it's too late for us.
It doesnt help when konami makes bad sets that nobody wants to buy but have a card that virtually every deck needs