Actually ridiculous how pricey English VG has gotten, I always hear about it but didn't think it has gotten to that level. At least things will hopefully improve with both Messiah and Gandiva, and hopefully the FesBooster reprints tank prices as hard in English as they did here in Japan.
@@deckflare3770 Even without counting other upgrade cards like Mikani G1, cards like effect triggers would prevent Messiah deck being truly inexpensive rather than relatively "cheap". I would love to have another stride deck, but the costs of triggers actually prevented me doing so (hence why your "one nation only" tip works so much)
Festival isnt gonna suddenly tank cards that are spiked in price for a reason lol. That's not how marketing works 😂 The reprints are bare in a few, Gandiva is going to be expensive to build lol. Your predictions are very off.
D-Series power level from the start was very weak. Lesser restanding Vanguards, mostly Twin drives. Less card advantage. A lot of players were just not as interested. Compare it now looking at the top decks just in this video alone shows us the big difference in power level and it draws players in.
@@michaelbranchini9133 I find that with propper complete decks, Pokemon is on par with other TCGs. but it has probably the biggest drop offs if your trying to play with casually thrown together decks. When working properly, the utility cards (discarding and redrawing your hand sometimes multiple times a turn) really crank the pace up to fun levels. Decks that discard resources to dig for certain pokemon and evolutions that can then get back things you previous discarded can make for quite a satisfying game play loop for me. But nothing is perfect for everyone 🤷🏼
They have easy buy ins, as your cards could become Absolutely worthless after 2 years. Their cards are cheap because they have insane set Rotation practices. Especially if a new generation of pokemon games get announced, you might as well kiss your deck goodbye.
Without digging into the specifics of each game, I feel like this isn't the best way to ask "How much does it really cost to compete in TCGs?" because I don't think anyone is building all 5 of the top 5 decks at the same time for any of these card games. I can mainly speak on Vanguard and there's plenty of viability in Chronojet out of box at a fraction of the price. It's preconstructed to begin with, and the main thing screwing with it are effect triggers that have reprints on the way and Swirler which may not be an auto-include just because a lot of decks may run it. Whether Meta means popular, good, or both is a different discussion. Youthberk is a major outlier that skews the numbers a good bit (especially considering the competitive viability of the deck at the current moment) and Eva has been out since June 2022, so some of those cards still being viable in May 2023 aren't going to "cost" as much as buying them now or say a new Yugioh deck depending on how the ban list turns out every 4 months or so, or more specifically Minerva which came out in Feb 2023 and has all its support mostly in one box like the Digimon decks do. This data basically just shows which games have the strongest overlap of good cards more than anything, which is a good argument that I apply to Brandt Gate. If more people only bought their single playset of anythng they wanted without feeling compelled to buy for each deck separately, I'd be curious to see what the market would look like. Nevertheless, to treat this as a primer for competing period is a little misleading.
The saddest part of this is, so far, CFV doing reprints hasn't reduced prices at all. It got shafted by people not opening many boxes of a few earlier sets and the PR distribution in the west and people just accepting the scalped prices, encouraging more people to buy in to CFV just to make a quick profit. I do think having "splashable cards" isn't necessarily a good indication of how cheap a game is...just use FaB as an example. I played that game for a bit but never had a competitive deck because it was prohibitively expensive to build one deck because of how awful its rarity system is. You cannot open boxes of FaB with a deck in mind and make any progress, you HAVE to spend $200 on a card you'll use once a game. Honestly the reason I main CFV is I can open a case and know what I'm getting, I don't think any of these other games have the guaranteed ratios that CFV does which makes me just...not want to buy a box. Spending $80 on a BSS box just to get absolutely nothing of any value is not a good feeling.
Festival Booster is the biggest reprint set Standard has had. The other reprints haven't been nearly as direct as Festival Booster which hasn't come out in English yet. The effort is being made and that should at least be acknowledged. Change takes time. Also all this video does for VG is show us that the game lacks a lot of overlap since the top 5 contains 4 of the 6 different nations.
@@blackfiresprout I didn't say we "praise them like gods", but we also shouldn't curse them as demons either. I'm saying these things take time. The very first thing they did was provide higher rarity options of the start deck cards. Seems pretty proactive to me. After that, they can't know what's going to be popular. No one can predict Tempest's price getting that high and since it's 1 card for 1 deck, it's not that high on the totem pole. If they added a tempest reprint to the current schedule, it wouldn't come out for another 6 months or so if not longer and by then the deck itself may not be meta and the price tag will have already dropped dramatically. People will complain that the slot the unnecessary Tempest reprint got could've gone to something more worthwhile at the time. Look at how often they're reprinting effect triggers and PGs. Those things are everywhere and while there's only 1 name on each of the triggers, the PGs aren't just in different rarities but also different versions with the same functions. Look at Bobalmine. It had an errata and now has 2 dedicated reprint slots. I'm curious to see what the festival booster reprint does for Bobalmine's price going forward but we won't get there until July. I'm not saying the company is perfect, but they've tried a lot of new things and I still believe that Bushiroad is still more responsive than Wizards or Konami though from what I hear Konami might be getting better about it, but it's not always going to be exactly what we want at all times and when it comes to prices ESPECIALLY in the US. Bushiroad has nothing to do with that and it would be fighting a losing battle to try to course correct the secondary market all the time. The reason Orfist is getting a deckset is because it's the main card that needs a reprint from festival Collection 2022 before Set 12 drops. Are we going to get everything we want exactly when or how we want it? No. Is Bushiroad perfect? No. They are human just like you and me. You can show compassion to the people behind the business because the business isn't just a logo. There's people there and with the effort they've shown, I can't just sit back and blame them for all our stress and concerns. The trial decks got expensive on the secondary market. The Tempests got expensive on the secondary market. Sealed product directly from Bushiroad through the sellers isn't as bad as the singles once markup happens. The boxes don't get expensive until the singles do. Bushiroad isn't gods. They're people. There's only so much they can do at any given time and the effort deserves acknowledgement without someone being called a boot licker, a sellout, or a stooge or even accused of praising them like gods.
@@blackfiresprout most of the most expensive cards haven't been out that long. It doesn't take praising them like gods to be considerate of the fact that this problem has only become a problem recently. Instead of adding to the fervor of the moment, why not try to think rationally for a change, acknowledge their shortcomings, but also show a little compassion and realize that efforts are being made above and beyond where the game started. They've tried a few different things, but at least they're willing to adapt.
Interesting video. About flesh and blood, you have equipment cards and the actual deck itself. Equipment cards is where things get expensive, but something like a spring tunic can be used in a multitude of decks as it is a generic and isn't class restricted. Just wanted to highlight that nuance
He dont Use the cheapest version from the cards, IT Looks Like He use the spezial alternativ Art cards. I have my tunic for 2 years now and dont rotate Out and i need only one for All my Decks xD Same for command and conquer and e-strike.
@@Cein91 according to TCGplayer, Michael Feng's deck, the winner of the protour, costs 1430$ for the cheapest version. goes to 39k$ if you use all the most expensive versions
Modern would've probably been the better format for Magic, since that's much more popular than MtG's Standard. Also worth noting is that in MtG, cards are only Standard-legal for a limited time.
Given that the video is more likely for people who are starting to get interested in becoming competitive, I would use Pioneer for a non-rotating format instead.
In Flesh and Blood's defense, there is no reason to have 3 Fyendal's Spring Tunics. It's an equipment piece that you can only use one of. That's another $460 off the total putting it at third. Other games might have something similar, would have been cool to see special cases.
I don't need more than 3 CAC or 3 e-strikes, and I think the guy isn't looking for the cheapest version... Like Channel Lake fridged alternative art. I have had my set of CAC, e-strike, and tunic for 2 years, and now they are twice as expensive (in there old Versions). 😂
He doesn't play all of the games so had to take a few liberties in trying to get a reasonable price for all of them. Also lets be real noone is building the 5 best decks at the same time. FaB might drop a place or two down the list but it is still very expensive.
its also worth noting that the difference between meta cards like tunic and their alternatives (Cross Strap/Blossom of Spring) arent crazy high. We arent talking pot of greed vs pot of extravagance here, the power levels are far closer. You can save tons by playing the budget versions of these cards and the difference can then be spent on stuff you actually need for your main deck or weapon.
Digimon is my main game. Yes you really don't have much opportunity to re use cards for decks. There are some exceptions like option cards but you hardly ever use full playsets anyways, Tamers can see overlap but there are also archetypal specific tamers that take priority, and Lv7 digimon which can typically evolve off at least 2 colors and are more generic in their effects. That said it is pretty darn cheap, and they aren't really stingy about printing pivotal cards at the highest rarities but instead its typically the lvl7s that are normally only ran at 2 or 3 copies. The latest set BT12 has its 2 secret rares at around $6/2 though this isn't the norm and has been reflected in the Super rare prices with things like Hunters Arresterdramon/Quartzmon at $9/5 or Beelze X at $6.
You could also see some major cost reductions in Dragonball depending on the meta and how dominant a color is. Secret Rare's in DBS are marked with a keyword that is only allowed 1 copy in a deck so if something is good across multiple decks in a color and that color is leading the pack then you can knock near $200 off by reusing that 1 card.
yeah BT12 is a bit of an outlier, because BT11 has some pricey cards, like Rina Shinomiya which you'd want to run a full playset of if you're playing Ulforce
@@MrMac1219 I wouldn't say to wish for no more secret rare tamers, just more so that theres a common or uncommon variant of it, because the SEC ones are nice to look at and it wouldn't be nice to exclude tamer cards completely from that slot. Just need to add a cheaper variant for people to pick up and play with.
Hard disagree. They print 4-ofs in secret rare and just screw over anyone trying to play a tier 2 o 3 deck. Ulforce had Rina in BT11, Imperial Virus had Fighter Mode in EX3, Beelzemon had Blast Mode in EX2, Musketeers had Beelstar in BT6. Sometimes secret rares suck (and that's a good thing), but they are absolutely not afraid to print something someone needs in multiples in Secret Rare if they don't have anything else to put in there.
I would really like a follow-up for this where you look at the changes in top decks over time and look at the cost of continuing to compete in over a year. The results may be interesting.
A very nice vid. I agree with others that america market for vg does overprice cards bit too much while deck oversea can push prices down by good amount. Spending bit under 60 on first deck in pokmon did feel good and it being gardevoir
Even in Japan ive heard some folks complaining anout the price value of certain cards such as Regalis Piece, so you know that's an issue for your card game 👀
@@blackfiresprout I thought that price like chalice had reduced now, at start yeah it was mad price but I think chalice has now been reasonable and the new ones currently are not overpriced or should reduce in few weeks
For Magic the gathering specifically, it could have been reasonable to also include pioneer, modern (and maybe even legacy) separately, as there are lots of magic players that don't play that much standard, and also a lot of magic players that play multiple formats. I do agree with the decision to not use commander, as that is more of a casual multiplayer format in a video otherwise only featuring competitive 1v1 formats. As for duplicates, instead of collecting a full playset, I think the best way to do it would be to cound duplicates as extra copies beyond the highest number played in any of the 5 decks. So if there's a card played at 3, 2, 2, 1 in 4 of the decks and 4 is the maximum amount of copies, I would argue it's more accurate to say that you have 5 duplicates and not 4. Lastly, for the conclusions, I think the average of the top 5 (without subtracting for duplicates) is better than sum, as that more accurately represents the price a new player would have to pay for 1 new deck. And the average of the top 5 (after subtracting for duplicates) is also better than the sum, as this more accurately reflects how much it would cost to buy a new deck after you've gotten invested in the game.
Sorry, but I disagree. The video is about playing competitively. To do it in Magic, you must play standard, because there's no real coverage in the pro tour for other formats. I own only casual older decks (from before modern) so, I have no reason to praise standard. Still, from the perspective of the someone who wants to be a famous champion, only standard matters. Pauper and pioneer are jokes. They only exist to bring people to the stores. Specifically, people whom don't want to see their decks gone to waste after each rotation, neither want to spend too much to be able to play without getting bashed because they don't own a few costly key cards. But there are no relevant tournament for them. Modern is a way people who have more experience found to gloat over others because they have expensive decks. There's no reason for this format to be, as the reserved list ended in Mercadian Masques, well before the eighth edition when card appearance changed... so why the reason to pick card looks as an starting point? Wasn't the impossibility of reprinting the reason why "legacy sucks" for them? Vintage? Easier to see a flying saucer than an offline vintage match. Legacy is already rare as it is. Wizards broke the format to push the Modern nonsense, so they could still make money from staples that got sacked after the rotation. Now they're doing the same with pioneer, introducing over the Pro Tour. Besides Standard, the only other format that ever mattered was extended (T4). But it died so long ago, that I risk saying that most nowadays players weren't even players at the time.
i feel like if we consider all the popular and commonly played formats of any tcg, the pauper format in MTG would be considered the cheapest as it still does have a huge playerbase
Digimon player here! Yea, the game is fairly cheap to play (I quit ygo and switched to this instead lol). The lack of overlap for staples isn't that big of an issue since most staples for each color are both fairly cheap and accessible. Omnimon being expensive is a result of it kinda being this franchises biggest seller in general, so it gets a ton of stuff in high rarity. Beelzemon is a pretty self-contained deck (it generally sticks to its own lineup of cards) and chaosdramon price can kind of be associated with how the deck itself functions.
Your analysis of DBS is spot on. Well done! The nice thing is that there are a TON of rogue options that frequently top like the Yellow Set 1 Golden Frieza or Supreme Kai of time. Even Red Android 13 has topped a couple of times.
I want to say something about BattleSpirits: Absolute Ice Shield, in the Japanese version of the game, is STILL being heavily played, even though it's a VERY old card, and there are modern equivalents that people also like to use. Once you buy your Playset of Absolute Ice Shield, you can expect to still be using it for the next 5 to 10 years.
I think the flesh and blood list is artificially inflated; I don't need 3 tunics or more than 3 staples cards. There are probably multiple fables in there that don't necessarily need to be included - we've already lost important games because of them. Furthermore, flesh and blood is affordable in the sense that the cards rotate out of the meta quickly compared to ygo and mtg.
I knew D series would jump up in price gradually as meta decks get more and more RR and RRR cards to replace prior C and R staples but wow this really puts it into perspective. I think a huge culprit is how staple certain promo cards are and how they aren’t distributed well here in English. They need to just do alt rarity promos and put promos in actual sets. It’s getting tiring to see a great staple for your mediocre deck and it goes for $20 a copy simply because it’s a promo, especially as half the C cards in a given set are just bulk.
TCG Player secondary market for VG sucks, the price gouging is ridiculous in the US. Youthberk for example is nowhere near 700 euro or gbp by comparison. Decks like Eva and Overlord suffer in US pricing because of the Promo shitstorm bushiroad has refused to address and scalpers who push these ridiculously overpriced cards they have control over the supply of because it all gets printed and ground zero'd in Singapore. I would be fascinated to see a comparison for Eu/UK prices.
Something you have to consider for the eu cardmarket prices is that you pay a ton in shipping due to having to order from abroad. Besides that, 35€ per copy of Dragritter Halbe still isn't "cheap" either.
Digimon is super cheap because most of the money comes from the alternate arts. There are exceptions in the secret rare slot, so if any of those are meta the price shoots up, but that's often saved for either a super generic card that goes in a ton of decks or a super niche card maybe one deck uses. There's also a slow overlap as archetypes are becoming more prominent. The game started offf as generic goodstuff so powercreep made it so that new cards had to be better, but now that archetypes are a thing most of the prices are from random old cards getting really good. Wargreymon doesn't really have new card that goes over 15, but older cards drive up the price a ton. Honestly tho a full maxed out deck in digimon is crazy because alt arts are abound and are often like 2x times the price at least
Is it possible to do this type of video every 3 months or so. I want to see how meta shift change the ranking of the price. Especially English VG is getting set 10 soon. And yugioh had a constant change of meta. (the only 2 tcg I keep up).
Loved the video and the content you make overall, I´m always waiting for a banger of a video. Also, I really like how you try to make things in a budget for Vanguard because I always think you can play the game in a cheap way. P.S. Hope you make soon another video of premium on a budget
How did you get 100$ for Lost Box? But to be fair instead of control there should've been Arceus/Giratina which costs a bit more than control box. And you can only play 1 Radiant Pokemon per Deck so Radiant Greninja should've been on the duplicate list. It is very sad to see the state of vanguard standard right now. There is definetly something wrong when I could get steam maidens in premium cheaper than the average price of a standard deck. The two main reasons are the shitty promo distribution (especially for a european) which feeds everyone's fomo and the greedy set designs. We started with 10 RRRs per set and now 16. Ns and Rs are mostly unplayable or get replaced by Promos or RR / RRRs in the next set and good generics for a nation are mostly RR/RRR or are short printed Rs. And the Masque in Set 11 is the biggest joke of them all right before Dragon tree markers (imagine any game where a marker in a common slot is 5€. That's some serious konami shit)
I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT RADIANT GRENINJA LMAO. I got the lists from limitless and just some random topping deck. I also got control box instead of ArcTina from Azul’s last tier list video!
Great now try adjusting those prices without factoring in market inflation and decks would probably be slightly cheaper in cost than they are right now.
It's kind of unfortunate this analysis is done here when Youth is in meta for Vanguard, same for Overlord. If we wait a month, Youth and Overlord can easily be replaced by Messiah and Gandiva and that may knock like $500 off the price tag. I never understood why Tempest is still $70 to this date. To me Cairbre is from the same set, with the same rarity, and is used in way more decks but is a lot cheaper.
Because Youth is a major fan favorite. A lot of players want to build it. Cairbre can be replaced by budget options. Tempest is mandatory for the deck.
Another intresting factor id be curious about would be entry prices for the official tourdaments. Vanguard's official regional and higher tournaments are free entry most of the time. I know magic and digimon have a price to entey for store events but id be curious to know what they are for regionals and above.
Thanks for taking the time n effort to accumulate the data . Definitely an interesting video. I play dbs and would say outside the optional SCRs or the 1 of the deck, the price drops 100-300$ for a deck and would push dbs in the bottom 4 games of the list of most expensive. Just putting that out there.
Great video though if you wanted to go a step further you may have to look into different formats or rotations and how often they occur. You could do this video again in a few months or a years time and see how the decklists / staples have changed and whether old staples are still even viable and what costs there are to keep conpetitive.
I still remember the pro tour winning deck mono blue tempo during guilds of ravnica??? Or ravnica allegiance??? Was only around $70-80 and now almost all magic top decks are $150+ despite all the products WoTC are pushing, that just doesn't make sense
Its funny the 60-70% of vanguards cost is halbe and youthberk. With halbe being reprinted and youthberk probably gonna be replaced by gandiva, vanguards placing might be lower in the future. Hopefully
DBS is a bit of a weird spot because the price is driven up extremely high by the SCR of any given deck. Most of which do have budget options and won't compromise your build too hard. They are also able to be slotted into pretty much any deck of the same color which should lower the cost in the duplicate section.
For flesh and blood, you can reduce the total by another 565 dollars. Because the Oldhim deck list you used has Heart of Fyendal in it which is a completely optional card that doesn't really influence the playability of the deck, but since it's like a very rare collector card, its price is insane.
the list that won the PT also ran it. it doesnt seem like an "opt out" decision if youre buying to compete, which is the main point of the video. lots of these other tcgs could cut corners and replace cards to lower the deck price
@@TheTekloFoundry everyone that has ever talked or analyzed that specific decklist that i've seen so far has said that you can just replace that one with a different card, it's not mandatory. i don't think the comparison is fair, because other tcgs replacing cards to lower costs wouldn't lower it by this much cost wise, but the win rate would change a lot more. in the case of heart of fyendal, i am firmly convinced the cost changes a lot more while the winrate is not really affected at all. how many times has 1 or 2 extra points of life from heart of fyendal mattered in a tournament match versus how many times has it lost someone life due to the lack of block value?
@@Alcadeias90 you could say the same thing about shock vs dual lands for legacy, but you wouldnt run shocks at a high level legacy event if you were tuning your list to compete. the top players choose to run the card at the highest level events, clearly they believe its a core part of their deckbuilding.
@@TheTekloFoundry or they had a flex spot and they found that card to be cute. i'm sorry but unless you can provide clear extensive data on how much that card boosts winrate for the deck, i will never consider it anything but a cute flexing statement and a collector card.
Really cool video, appreciate it! Myself as a yugioh Player know how expensive this Game can be. But i also feel like it's getting is price of its popularity. As far as my current Knowledge goes yugioh and magic are the 2 most played games (not 100% sure but i think in total worldwide yugioh is Number 1 i think) This obviously can shoot up prices as well. But i never expected flesh and blood to be this crazy high
Uusually we buy 2-4 decks when competing. Also, knowing the average price of each top 5 deck and compare with the average price of each top 5 from other games may show us more about the entry point and the maintenance cost for the game. You can play cheap and buy a 270$ Minerva deck, 150$ Red deck wins, 55$ Ylvetal deck; 260$ Mathmech deck; or a 380$ Dash deck. In which case, premiation + gameplay/enjoyability may influence in your decision making: Pokemon > Prizes are amazing. You can even get a free internship to learn a new language, but it has a motionless playstyle; Vanguard > Not even worldwide, exclusive to Japan, with few badly distributed and manufactured exceptions that the company is doing out of a huuuuuge favor to the fans. Also, prizes are awful; MTG> good luck with Wizards of the Greed; Yugioh> Konami doesn't care about the overseas, only about how much money it can retrieve from the overseas. So, your game will be filled with raarity bumps, poorly designed banlists and overpriced products when compared to their japanese version. Also, you receive a playmat and a unique card from tournaments; FAB> Money, Money, Money, Money, Money, Monery, Money. You'll win prizes in both MONEY and cards, which can be traded for MONEY.
I remember when a bunch of MtG talking heads/pros tried to sell everyone on FaB being the player-focused, pro-consumer card game that would kill MtG. Then they proceed to have the most expensive game on the scene.
I think a big change that needs to happen for this “test” to make sense is the use of a non rotating format for Magic. The use of standard is a poor choice as it is one of the least played formats currently, either because of arena or the balancing issues in the recent past. The use of modern makes the most sense as it is the most played competitive format, but pioneer could be supplemented to do a “budget” format. I can appreciate what you are trying to do, however i believe this provides unrealistic expectations as standard rotates, meaning a person may need 3 $400 over the span of 3 years
I feel like Magic's standard being here over Pioneer or Modern is kinda weird. It makes the prices look way lower than they actually are for investing in any of the eternal formats that are more enjoyed
Very cool video, for calculating overlapping cards, I would say its best to simply only account for the deck with the most copies. For example, 1 deck uses 2 $40 cards, while the rest only use it once, you simply calculate as needing 2 of the card, rather than subtracting using each other individual card. In Fresh and Blood were the average after dupes was $434 even though only a single deck cost that much, meanwhile the rest were 2-3x the price. It makes it seem cheaper than it is for someone thinking of a single deck using your method, even though I understand the purpose was to showcase what owning the meta would cost.
Reprints are always gonna determine cost for deck building. MTG always have reprints and are accessible anywhere versus vanguard with very low places to even buy cards
You can do the same in some of the other games too. Probably not at major tournament level but still. Only an idiot would think a $20 deck will win you a national championship.
So while i do think this is interesting. One thing worth mentioning for CFV is that this is almost exclusively an America problem. Current Exchange rate is $1 = €0.90 Youthberk RevolForm: Tempest, for example is at the time of this post, $55 (€50.63) on TCGPlayer CardMarket (EUs TCGPlayer equivalent) however has Tempest for €25 ($27.16). I'd also be really curious to know how much Promo's impact CFV top 5 price range. While there are expensive staples (Inlet Pulse/Brainwash Swirler/etc) Promo's seem to be the West's biggest complaint interms of product distrobution.
Cutting duplicates beyond a playset to create an additional price point feels strange to me as I'm not sure what additional information it gives. If you are looking to compete competitively you will only be building one deck for any given event so it's not really a factor in the upfront cost of the game and what cards overlap between decks will shift drastically as the format changes so when you are building your next deck it's pretty likely that any 'investment' staple cards will have lost some of their value as the decks they support or counter are rotated out of the top 5 and may no longer be playable at all.
No sense comparison, why u have to value Top 5 deck, when u actually are gonna buy 1 of them, a comparison of the average cost of the 5 decks would be more correct...
Uusually we buy 2-4 decks when competing. Also, knowing the average price of each top 5 deck and compare with the average price of each top 5 from other games may show us more about the entry point and the maintenance cost for the game. You can play cheap and buy a 270$ Minerva deck, 150$ Red deck wins, 55$ Ylvetal deck; 260$ Mathmech deck; or a 380$ Dash deck. In which case, premiation + gameplay/enjoyability may influence in your decision making: Pokemon > Prizes are amazing. You can even get a free internship to learn a new language, but it has a motionless playstyle; Vanguard > Not even worldwide, exclusive to Japan, with few badly distributed and manufactured exceptions that the company is doing out of a huuuuuge favor to the fans. Also, prizes are awful; MTG> good luck with Wizards of the Greed; Yugioh> Konami doesn't care about the overseas, only about how much money it can retrieve from the overseas. So, your game will be filled with raarity bumps, poorly designed banlists and overpriced products when compared to their japanese version. Also, you receive a playmat and a unique card from tournaments; FAB> Money, Money, Money, Money, Money, Monery, Money. You'll win prizes in both MONEY and cards, which can be traded for MONEY.
One Piece has gotten even cheaper since this video lmao. Excellent game and insanely affordable. Also much more fun to play than ludicrously expensive games like FaB.
Digimon is in an interesting place in that archetypes are power creeping what used to be generic good cards. So you see plenty of new decks that are 80%-100% new. Hunters, for example, has absolutely no place for any old card, and only has 4 Super Rares and no Secret Rares, which is why it's so cheap. On the other hand, there are a few decks that still going to old support cards, and those tend to be the most expensive because we don't get reprints. If you happen to rely on, say, starter deck 1 cards like ST1 Greymon, there's no way around it.
CC only, based on adult heroes. It shouldn't matter too much since the most expensive parts of CC decks are also the most expensive part of blitz decks. Blitz does fair better since swag dad Oldhim rotated
Interestly for this too, is Pokemon is fresh off a cycle where we lost a bunch of cards in standard, but if this had been just a couple months ago I'm pretty sure it would have been much higher since almost every deck was playing the Arceus VStar EDIT: Pokemon could be even cheaper than that too, since we have precons that have a lot of these staples and one specifically for Mew VMax and if you buy that + some singles or a 2nd copy of the precon, you have a competitive deck for even cheaper than that
The Thesis of the video is more of getting into a game, but a bit deceptive of the longevity of how expensive each game is, with various powercreep, rotation and bannings. In pokemon to stay relevant I feel like I need to buy 1-2 new decks every 3 or so months at the highest level, which adds up very very quickly. Feels strange using standard MTG, I feel like you should have used Pioneer as a more base line, or used all major formats of MTG individually as each format has a player population as half these games (Standard, Modern, Commander, etc) Also by using Standard, you probably should have also used the Blitz format for Fab, making this teirlist a bit disingenuous. Also one of the reasons these cards are so expensive is they do not really rotate, and nearly every good card stays relevant for years. Dash and Oldhim have been relatively unchanged for over 2+ years
Not including dupes will favor games that run the most expensive cards in all 5 decks, and people arent usually out here buying all five decks. Its a much more honest approach to take the average of the top 5 decks at face value without removing the dupes.
@Green Heart kastira isnt even a 1k deck anymore. Prices have gone down and on average to make one it now costs around 600 usd at the time of writing. I guess this is because people are selling the cards in anticipation of a banlist so after the banlist drop it'll go to 700-800 probably.
As a flesh and blood player the main thing that I want to comment is that yes the game does have an incredibly high price floor on it and is probably the highest in any TCG but the prices of cards are as high as they are because every deck plays and shares a lot of the same cards and once you own those cards the prices of getting a new deck are much lower then basically every other game as well. The game also has a lot of cards that are considered more luxury cards and aren’t needed to actually play the decks in the game which in a lot of cases are the equipment cards in a deck, which also happen to be the most expensive cards. One of the big cards mentioned is Fyendal’s Spring Tunic. While the cards is very powerful and is very expensive because 70% of the decks play it when playing at a highly competitive level, if you just want to play the game you don’t have to have it by any means.
You don’t need to buy the most expensive cards if you just want to play any game? I’m really disappointed with flesh and blood. I have heard from several people the aim of F&B was to try to break the cycle of very expensive out of print cards, but it seems to have just joined in. 😢
@@Azubits The aim of FaB is to be the greatest card game on the market and to bring players together in the flesh and blood. The primary reprint set of the game History Pack is still in print and is a print to demand set. The game is a CCG at its core and is designed to appeal to collectors and players alike. It has it's growing pains because the game is exploding and is bigger then they every imagined but they are adjusting on the fly and are constantly communicating with their player base.
@@Kuzc0TV Honestly, that felt reasonable to me a year or two ago -- but as this video shows, the game just keeps getting more expensive, and is currently the most expensive. The Fyendal's Tunic is $100 more expensive than this time last year. They could easily chuck the same, or an equivalent power card, into another set. Has there been any action over the last 18 months about these expensive staple cards?
@Chris Jefferson Flesh and blood did just expand into the Japanese market, which is the main reason cited for increased cost in staples Furthermore, because Lss doesn't like to reprint cards in foils (no matter which foil treatment), people have moved in on the legendary equipment ( which is always printed only in foil in the sets it debuts in). History pack 1 also hasn't driven down prices and made affordable versions of the legendary cards as expected. ( like the fact that white boarder tunic is as expensive as black boarder printings is crazy)
@@MatthewCJoy how lol. If I have 2 different decks that require the same expensive staples I'm just gonna buy one playset and share it between the decks.
Missing Modern as the real MTG format to consider is huge, no one fucking plays Standard. Also your math on the average entry price (no duplicates) makes no sense, for example in Flesh and Blood, where you are saying the average deck costs $400 but that only buys you one out of the 5 decks, all the others being twice or thrice as much. Like sure, IF you _already_ have all the expensive staples then every _NEW_ deck costs about $400 to get. But whatever…
Also in general, no one except the ABSOLUTE top players (with teams and sponsors) would consider owning FIVE (5) completely different decks. If you are planning to _enter_ a new game, just the average matters.
Unrelated question, where should i be looking for local tournament scenes. Im in lower michigan, westland for a little more accuracy, and my closest stores have stopped vanguard since the pandemic. Im not opposed to a little more travel time, but i have idea how to find a place, or help startup a new scene.
Jesus Christ, Vanguard being that expensive despite being a niche game compared to the rest of the field makes no sense. Even spending money on FAB is worth it because competing gives you actual prize support - Vanguard only gives free trips to Japan to Champions in every BCS ONCE per year Bushi really needs to step up their game or players will be priced out of Vanguard eventually
@@RR-dy6lg Theyre literally doing nothing to help the secondary market, they're Rebpoted the game TWICE in the span of 3 years, & the game has been out for over 11 years with nothing but a niche community. They have dropped several of their IPs, Buddyfight, Dragonborne, Luck & Logic, etc. Stop justifying their minute actions because you're just enabling their poor behavior 💀
@@RR-dy6lg For years ive been trying to advocated Bushiroad's actions, hecc I was one of the very few people who explained to everyone what V format was & how to play when peoplewere stuck in limbo not knowing what Vanguard was or what to even do with it. Don't even get me started with their horrendous Road trip that did god awful to promote the game when they had to skip various stores or some wouldnt even get their stock until several weeks/months after the Initial set released.
@@RR-dy6lg If you think thats being rude you haven't seen the w.i.-k.-i page or d.i.s.-co.r-d 😂😂 Several times ive seen people get their ass chewed off for running their decks their way.
Amazing video! The only thing I feel is somewhat missed here is that YuGiOh's formats actually shift much much faster than any other card game and so while your snapshot of "the best deck" might've been accurate 2 weeks ago, it suddenly stops being accurate a week later. You might think this is because of banlists or set releases (and this definitely plays a huge role too, adding to this issue even more) but it goes far beyond that. A major YCS might happen where the pros started using strat X and thus everyone starts accounting for it in their side the week after. This makes it so you might go like "oh, staple 1 2 3 are this much, so this is how much yugioh costs" but it doesn't account for the fact that 2 weeks later, you had to buy new staples cuz the whole format shifted. (until you own every single staple lol...) The easiest example is Kurikara. Pre-YCS London it wasn't played all that much. Then we saw the card dominating and everyone started running 3 copies. The card shot from 15$ to 40$. One week everyone might be doing arise pass and you need kaijus, but the week after, everyone might do wide kash combos and now you need 3 nibiru... The list goes on and on, but essentially; snapshots are not a great way to fully capture YuGiOh's price. Keeping up with YuGiOh is almost a monthly subscription. If I wanted to play a top deck in Vanguard Premium, starting from last october, I'd be playing highlander premium, and in january I'd still be playing highlander premium and right now in may, I'm still playing highlander premium. Do it for YuGiOh and starting in october, I'm playing runick spright. Then in DABL I'm playing Tear Bystial. Then in MAMA I'm playing Ishizu Tear, then in PHHY post banlist I'm playing Kashtira. Then in CYAC post banlist (everyone hopes), you're playing SHS or something... You not only have been buying new staples every other week, but you've also bought a new deck every couple months. Other games won't necessarily have that issue quite as badly.
That makes sense! I play yugioh very casually so I’m not 100% on market shifts on it. All the knowledge I have meta wise is from you and calieffect 🤣 thanks for the kind words again 🙏
Valid Points. I dont know how fast other Games Shift, but Yugioh is definitely so fast to the Point i started building my collection around staples and Then buy/Sale the Deck i want to Play in circulation. Long terms, cheaper definitely, but high First Investment. Doesnt include collection purposes tho.
Yugioh also has a shift on Price "focus" over time. For a year or 2 the Konami will print very powerful, meta-defining staples that become insanely expensive, while archetypes overall are cheaper, followed by a similar span time where powerful, meta-defining archetypes are printed and reprints of those previous staples make them cheaper. Yugioh is at it's most expensive right in-between these phase where new powerful archetypes are released while newer staples haven't had time to have reprints.
This is really interesting! Great video to describe the differences in TCGs and what people are spending for the top meta decks. I saw a huge difference between what I've spent for Vanguard vs what I've spent for Pokémon. Pretty crazy!
Yeah! I've really noticed it since I've bought 5 decks in other games in the past month and it is still costing less than the average Vanguard deck LOL.
Loved the video! I would say the one thing would be good to do is keep the same type of format from game to game (which I know is hard to do). You mentioned it somewhat when discussing games like Digimon, Swartz, and even Flesh and Blood. But I think your analysis and something cool may be to do TCG rotating formats and non-rotating formats. For example, you compared Flesh and Blood Classic Constructed to Standard Magic. Flesh and Blood has a non-rotating format. So that X amount you spend on staples or generic cards will be everlasting, saving you more money in the future as you play the game competitively. Whereas in Magic those prices listed will have to be rebought eventually.
Interesting video! The Oldhim deck price looks very skewed tho, what decklist did you use for the pricing? The latest big tournament winning Oldhim (Micheal Feng) costs about 1080$, including a 1 of fabled card costing around 500$ (which is absolutely not vital to play). A realistic price for that deck would be between 500 and 600$.
Most of the expensive cards have been expensive for years or are likely to remain expensive due to their rarity or playability. If you look at MTG, for example, how quickly cards lose their value just because they are no longer in the meta... Even the same goes for Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yu-Gi-Oh is literally the worst card game ever... I've always wanted to start playing competitively but it's almost impossible with the insane prices of meta decks and now fast the meta changes....
Actually ridiculous how pricey English VG has gotten, I always hear about it but didn't think it has gotten to that level.
At least things will hopefully improve with both Messiah and Gandiva, and hopefully the FesBooster reprints tank prices as hard in English as they did here in Japan.
I'm hoping for that too! I'm really terrified Gandiva gets the price spikes. Messiah "should" stay cheap compared to what Jet was I would think.
Jet is really only pricey because of Swirler
Bushi’s ratios are the reason for it, it’s completely intentional on Bushi’s part to inflate the market
@@deckflare3770 Even without counting other upgrade cards like Mikani G1, cards like effect triggers would prevent Messiah deck being truly inexpensive rather than relatively "cheap". I would love to have another stride deck, but the costs of triggers actually prevented me doing so (hence why your "one nation only" tip works so much)
Festival isnt gonna suddenly tank cards that are spiked in price for a reason lol. That's not how marketing works 😂
The reprints are bare in a few, Gandiva is going to be expensive to build lol. Your predictions are very off.
It's kinda wild that when D-series first dropped, Standard Vanguard was the cheapest card game on the market. Now prices have gone up a LOT.
expensive promos love it
That's what happens when you barely reprint any cards & supply doesn't meet the demand.
Also more decks means more variety of playstyled
@@LightTCG that's what a card game is yes 😂
D-Series power level from the start was very weak. Lesser restanding Vanguards, mostly Twin drives. Less card advantage. A lot of players were just not as interested. Compare it now looking at the top decks just in this video alone shows us the big difference in power level and it draws players in.
Its pretty insane how cheap and affordable pokemon is
If only it was more fun…
@@michaelbranchini9133 I find that with propper complete decks, Pokemon is on par with other TCGs. but it has probably the biggest drop offs if your trying to play with casually thrown together decks.
When working properly, the utility cards (discarding and redrawing your hand sometimes multiple times a turn) really crank the pace up to fun levels.
Decks that discard resources to dig for certain pokemon and evolutions that can then get back things you previous discarded can make for quite a satisfying game play loop for me.
But nothing is perfect for everyone 🤷🏼
@Michael Branchini ehh I thought it was fun...
They have easy buy ins, as your cards could become Absolutely worthless after 2 years. Their cards are cheap because they have insane set Rotation practices. Especially if a new generation of pokemon games get announced, you might as well kiss your deck goodbye.
It’s because there is so much product cracked between competitors and collectors it’s easy to buy into
Without digging into the specifics of each game, I feel like this isn't the best way to ask "How much does it really cost to compete in TCGs?" because I don't think anyone is building all 5 of the top 5 decks at the same time for any of these card games.
I can mainly speak on Vanguard and there's plenty of viability in Chronojet out of box at a fraction of the price. It's preconstructed to begin with, and the main thing screwing with it are effect triggers that have reprints on the way and Swirler which may not be an auto-include just because a lot of decks may run it. Whether Meta means popular, good, or both is a different discussion.
Youthberk is a major outlier that skews the numbers a good bit (especially considering the competitive viability of the deck at the current moment) and Eva has been out since June 2022, so some of those cards still being viable in May 2023 aren't going to "cost" as much as buying them now or say a new Yugioh deck depending on how the ban list turns out every 4 months or so, or more specifically Minerva which came out in Feb 2023 and has all its support mostly in one box like the Digimon decks do.
This data basically just shows which games have the strongest overlap of good cards more than anything, which is a good argument that I apply to Brandt Gate. If more people only bought their single playset of anythng they wanted without feeling compelled to buy for each deck separately, I'd be curious to see what the market would look like. Nevertheless, to treat this as a primer for competing period is a little misleading.
The saddest part of this is, so far, CFV doing reprints hasn't reduced prices at all. It got shafted by people not opening many boxes of a few earlier sets and the PR distribution in the west and people just accepting the scalped prices, encouraging more people to buy in to CFV just to make a quick profit.
I do think having "splashable cards" isn't necessarily a good indication of how cheap a game is...just use FaB as an example. I played that game for a bit but never had a competitive deck because it was prohibitively expensive to build one deck because of how awful its rarity system is. You cannot open boxes of FaB with a deck in mind and make any progress, you HAVE to spend $200 on a card you'll use once a game.
Honestly the reason I main CFV is I can open a case and know what I'm getting, I don't think any of these other games have the guaranteed ratios that CFV does which makes me just...not want to buy a box. Spending $80 on a BSS box just to get absolutely nothing of any value is not a good feeling.
You clearly havent played enough card games if you think Vanguard is the only one with guaranteed ratios 😂😂
Festival Booster is the biggest reprint set Standard has had. The other reprints haven't been nearly as direct as Festival Booster which hasn't come out in English yet. The effort is being made and that should at least be acknowledged. Change takes time. Also all this video does for VG is show us that the game lacks a lot of overlap since the top 5 contains 4 of the 6 different nations.
@@AcePlaysTCGs The game has had plenty of time. We can't keep praising them like some gods 💀
@@blackfiresprout I didn't say we "praise them like gods", but we also shouldn't curse them as demons either. I'm saying these things take time. The very first thing they did was provide higher rarity options of the start deck cards. Seems pretty proactive to me. After that, they can't know what's going to be popular. No one can predict Tempest's price getting that high and since it's 1 card for 1 deck, it's not that high on the totem pole. If they added a tempest reprint to the current schedule, it wouldn't come out for another 6 months or so if not longer and by then the deck itself may not be meta and the price tag will have already dropped dramatically. People will complain that the slot the unnecessary Tempest reprint got could've gone to something more worthwhile at the time. Look at how often they're reprinting effect triggers and PGs. Those things are everywhere and while there's only 1 name on each of the triggers, the PGs aren't just in different rarities but also different versions with the same functions. Look at Bobalmine. It had an errata and now has 2 dedicated reprint slots. I'm curious to see what the festival booster reprint does for Bobalmine's price going forward but we won't get there until July.
I'm not saying the company is perfect, but they've tried a lot of new things and I still believe that Bushiroad is still more responsive than Wizards or Konami though from what I hear Konami might be getting better about it, but it's not always going to be exactly what we want at all times and when it comes to prices ESPECIALLY in the US. Bushiroad has nothing to do with that and it would be fighting a losing battle to try to course correct the secondary market all the time. The reason Orfist is getting a deckset is because it's the main card that needs a reprint from festival Collection 2022 before Set 12 drops.
Are we going to get everything we want exactly when or how we want it? No. Is Bushiroad perfect? No. They are human just like you and me. You can show compassion to the people behind the business because the business isn't just a logo. There's people there and with the effort they've shown, I can't just sit back and blame them for all our stress and concerns. The trial decks got expensive on the secondary market. The Tempests got expensive on the secondary market. Sealed product directly from Bushiroad through the sellers isn't as bad as the singles once markup happens. The boxes don't get expensive until the singles do. Bushiroad isn't gods. They're people. There's only so much they can do at any given time and the effort deserves acknowledgement without someone being called a boot licker, a sellout, or a stooge or even accused of praising them like gods.
@@blackfiresprout most of the most expensive cards haven't been out that long. It doesn't take praising them like gods to be considerate of the fact that this problem has only become a problem recently. Instead of adding to the fervor of the moment, why not try to think rationally for a change, acknowledge their shortcomings, but also show a little compassion and realize that efforts are being made above and beyond where the game started. They've tried a few different things, but at least they're willing to adapt.
This is one of those times I'm glad I play in SEA & EN Vanguard here is cheaper but depends on a person to person basis.
@@peacechan4500 That only applies in Singapore or Malaysia I think. We here in the Philippines can only play EN Vanguard.
Interesting video. About flesh and blood, you have equipment cards and the actual deck itself. Equipment cards is where things get expensive, but something like a spring tunic can be used in a multitude of decks as it is a generic and isn't class restricted. Just wanted to highlight that nuance
He dont Use the cheapest version from the cards, IT Looks Like He use the spezial alternativ Art cards.
I have my tunic for 2 years now and dont rotate Out and i need only one for All my Decks xD Same for command and conquer and e-strike.
@@Cein91 according to TCGplayer, Michael Feng's deck, the winner of the protour, costs 1430$ for the cheapest version. goes to 39k$ if you use all the most expensive versions
Modern would've probably been the better format for Magic, since that's much more popular than MtG's Standard. Also worth noting is that in MtG, cards are only Standard-legal for a limited time.
Given that the video is more likely for people who are starting to get interested in becoming competitive, I would use Pioneer for a non-rotating format instead.
I kinda would've like to see a graph for commander just to see how stupid it would look
In Flesh and Blood's defense, there is no reason to have 3 Fyendal's Spring Tunics. It's an equipment piece that you can only use one of. That's another $460 off the total putting it at third. Other games might have something similar, would have been cool to see special cases.
Came for this comment...
I don't need more than 3 CAC or 3 e-strikes, and I think the guy isn't looking for the cheapest version... Like Channel Lake fridged alternative art. I have had my set of CAC, e-strike, and tunic for 2 years, and now they are twice as expensive (in there old Versions). 😂
He doesn't play all of the games so had to take a few liberties in trying to get a reasonable price for all of them. Also lets be real noone is building the 5 best decks at the same time. FaB might drop a place or two down the list but it is still very expensive.
its also worth noting that the difference between meta cards like tunic and their alternatives (Cross Strap/Blossom of Spring) arent crazy high. We arent talking pot of greed vs pot of extravagance here, the power levels are far closer. You can save tons by playing the budget versions of these cards and the difference can then be spent on stuff you actually need for your main deck or weapon.
The 3 Fyendal are cards that are removed because they are duplicated in the decks. But I would still like to see the lists.
Digimon is my main game. Yes you really don't have much opportunity to re use cards for decks. There are some exceptions like option cards but you hardly ever use full playsets anyways, Tamers can see overlap but there are also archetypal specific tamers that take priority, and Lv7 digimon which can typically evolve off at least 2 colors and are more generic in their effects. That said it is pretty darn cheap, and they aren't really stingy about printing pivotal cards at the highest rarities but instead its typically the lvl7s that are normally only ran at 2 or 3 copies. The latest set BT12 has its 2 secret rares at around $6/2 though this isn't the norm and has been reflected in the Super rare prices with things like Hunters Arresterdramon/Quartzmon at $9/5 or Beelze X at $6.
You could also see some major cost reductions in Dragonball depending on the meta and how dominant a color is. Secret Rare's in DBS are marked with a keyword that is only allowed 1 copy in a deck so if something is good across multiple decks in a color and that color is leading the pack then you can knock near $200 off by reusing that 1 card.
yeah BT12 is a bit of an outlier, because BT11 has some pricey cards, like Rina Shinomiya which you'd want to run a full playset of if you're playing Ulforce
@@Vaeltis yeah hopefully they dont give us anymore Secret rare tamers, that one is definitely not player friendly.
@@MrMac1219 I wouldn't say to wish for no more secret rare tamers, just more so that theres a common or uncommon variant of it, because the SEC ones are nice to look at and it wouldn't be nice to exclude tamer cards completely from that slot. Just need to add a cheaper variant for people to pick up and play with.
Hard disagree. They print 4-ofs in secret rare and just screw over anyone trying to play a tier 2 o 3 deck. Ulforce had Rina in BT11, Imperial Virus had Fighter Mode in EX3, Beelzemon had Blast Mode in EX2, Musketeers had Beelstar in BT6.
Sometimes secret rares suck (and that's a good thing), but they are absolutely not afraid to print something someone needs in multiples in Secret Rare if they don't have anything else to put in there.
I would really like a follow-up for this where you look at the changes in top decks over time and look at the cost of continuing to compete in over a year. The results may be interesting.
A very nice vid. I agree with others that america market for vg does overprice cards bit too much while deck oversea can push prices down by good amount.
Spending bit under 60 on first deck in pokmon did feel good and it being gardevoir
Even in Japan ive heard some folks complaining anout the price value of certain cards such as Regalis Piece, so you know that's an issue for your card game 👀
@@blackfiresprout I thought that price like chalice had reduced now, at start yeah it was mad price but I think chalice has now been reasonable and the new ones currently are not overpriced or should reduce in few weeks
For Magic the gathering specifically, it could have been reasonable to also include pioneer, modern (and maybe even legacy) separately, as there are lots of magic players that don't play that much standard, and also a lot of magic players that play multiple formats.
I do agree with the decision to not use commander, as that is more of a casual multiplayer format in a video otherwise only featuring competitive 1v1 formats.
As for duplicates, instead of collecting a full playset, I think the best way to do it would be to cound duplicates as extra copies beyond the highest number played in any of the 5 decks. So if there's a card played at 3, 2, 2, 1 in 4 of the decks and 4 is the maximum amount of copies, I would argue it's more accurate to say that you have 5 duplicates and not 4.
Lastly, for the conclusions, I think the average of the top 5 (without subtracting for duplicates) is better than sum, as that more accurately represents the price a new player would have to pay for 1 new deck.
And the average of the top 5 (after subtracting for duplicates) is also better than the sum, as this more accurately reflects how much it would cost to buy a new deck after you've gotten invested in the game.
Sorry, but I disagree. The video is about playing competitively. To do it in Magic, you must play standard, because there's no real coverage in the pro tour for other formats. I own only casual older decks (from before modern) so, I have no reason to praise standard. Still, from the perspective of the someone who wants to be a famous champion, only standard matters.
Pauper and pioneer are jokes. They only exist to bring people to the stores. Specifically, people whom don't want to see their decks gone to waste after each rotation, neither want to spend too much to be able to play without getting bashed because they don't own a few costly key cards. But there are no relevant tournament for them.
Modern is a way people who have more experience found to gloat over others because they have expensive decks. There's no reason for this format to be, as the reserved list ended in Mercadian Masques, well before the eighth edition when card appearance changed... so why the reason to pick card looks as an starting point? Wasn't the impossibility of reprinting the reason why "legacy sucks" for them?
Vintage? Easier to see a flying saucer than an offline vintage match. Legacy is already rare as it is. Wizards broke the format to push the Modern nonsense, so they could still make money from staples that got sacked after the rotation. Now they're doing the same with pioneer, introducing over the Pro Tour.
Besides Standard, the only other format that ever mattered was extended (T4). But it died so long ago, that I risk saying that most nowadays players weren't even players at the time.
@@Neomalthusiano Last pro tour was Pioneer, next pro tour is modern, so I don't agree with the premise that you have to play standard.
i feel like if we consider all the popular and commonly played formats of any tcg, the pauper format in MTG would be considered the cheapest as it still does have a huge playerbase
Digimon player here! Yea, the game is fairly cheap to play (I quit ygo and switched to this instead lol). The lack of overlap for staples isn't that big of an issue since most staples for each color are both fairly cheap and accessible. Omnimon being expensive is a result of it kinda being this franchises biggest seller in general, so it gets a ton of stuff in high rarity. Beelzemon is a pretty self-contained deck (it generally sticks to its own lineup of cards) and chaosdramon price can kind of be associated with how the deck itself functions.
Would be interesting to see Force of Will into this list, I believe it's probably one of the healthiest second market I've seen on TCGs
Your analysis of DBS is spot on. Well done! The nice thing is that there are a TON of rogue options that frequently top like the Yellow Set 1 Golden Frieza or Supreme Kai of time. Even Red Android 13 has topped a couple of times.
I want to say something about BattleSpirits:
Absolute Ice Shield, in the Japanese version of the game, is STILL being heavily played, even though it's a VERY old card, and there are modern equivalents that people also like to use.
Once you buy your Playset of Absolute Ice Shield, you can expect to still be using it for the next 5 to 10 years.
Great job on the video! Going from Flesh and Blood to Bandai games overall has certainly been an eye opening experience
I think the flesh and blood list is artificially inflated; I don't need 3 tunics or more than 3 staples cards. There are probably multiple fables in there that don't necessarily need to be included - we've already lost important games because of them.
Furthermore, flesh and blood is affordable in the sense that the cards rotate out of the meta quickly compared to ygo and mtg.
I knew D series would jump up in price gradually as meta decks get more and more RR and RRR cards to replace prior C and R staples but wow this really puts it into perspective. I think a huge culprit is how staple certain promo cards are and how they aren’t distributed well here in English. They need to just do alt rarity promos and put promos in actual sets. It’s getting tiring to see a great staple for your mediocre deck and it goes for $20 a copy simply because it’s a promo, especially as half the C cards in a given set are just bulk.
I always love these kinds of in-depth analysis, plus this is a great resource for anyone trying to find a competitive scene to get into!
TCG Player secondary market for VG sucks, the price gouging is ridiculous in the US. Youthberk for example is nowhere near 700 euro or gbp by comparison. Decks like Eva and Overlord suffer in US pricing because of the Promo shitstorm bushiroad has refused to address and scalpers who push these ridiculously overpriced cards they have control over the supply of because it all gets printed and ground zero'd in Singapore.
I would be fascinated to see a comparison for Eu/UK prices.
Something you have to consider for the eu cardmarket prices is that you pay a ton in shipping due to having to order from abroad.
Besides that, 35€ per copy of Dragritter Halbe still isn't "cheap" either.
Nice vid! Would be interesting to see where SVE or Grand Archive fits into this list at some point.
I was thinking on doing this every once in a while! SVE, Grand Archive, and Elestrals I want to try to get on here in the future.
no wixoss representation :(
Digimon is super cheap because most of the money comes from the alternate arts. There are exceptions in the secret rare slot, so if any of those are meta the price shoots up, but that's often saved for either a super generic card that goes in a ton of decks or a super niche card maybe one deck uses. There's also a slow overlap as archetypes are becoming more prominent. The game started offf as generic goodstuff so powercreep made it so that new cards had to be better, but now that archetypes are a thing most of the prices are from random old cards getting really good. Wargreymon doesn't really have new card that goes over 15, but older cards drive up the price a ton.
Honestly tho a full maxed out deck in digimon is crazy because alt arts are abound and are often like 2x times the price at least
8:37 Extra points for putting Nino as the cover card. Great video, absolutely.
Look at "Pokémon Trading Card Game" man. So inspirational!
Nice vid! Always wondered how expensive other card games were.
Wish I watched this before I started YGO. But at least I am somewhat having fun 😂
Is it possible to do this type of video every 3 months or so. I want to see how meta shift change the ranking of the price. Especially English VG is getting set 10 soon. And yugioh had a constant change of meta. (the only 2 tcg I keep up).
As someone who recently got into Flesh and Blood, I definitely feel this
I hate how every deck builds use command and conquer and enlighten strike T_T
Loved the video and the content you make overall, I´m always waiting for a banger of a video. Also, I really like how you try to make things in a budget for Vanguard because I always think you can play the game in a cheap way.
P.S. Hope you make soon another video of premium on a budget
Not in D format you can't, you need to run certain cards to make your deck even playable.
Daaang
It's gotten even worse since I quit
Randomly reccomend to me. But i cant search this video again
How did you get 100$ for Lost Box? But to be fair instead of control there should've been Arceus/Giratina which costs a bit more than control box. And you can only play 1 Radiant Pokemon per Deck so Radiant Greninja should've been on the duplicate list.
It is very sad to see the state of vanguard standard right now. There is definetly something wrong when I could get steam maidens in premium cheaper than the average price of a standard deck. The two main reasons are the shitty promo distribution (especially for a european) which feeds everyone's fomo and the greedy set designs. We started with 10 RRRs per set and now 16. Ns and Rs are mostly unplayable or get replaced by Promos or RR / RRRs in the next set and good generics for a nation are mostly RR/RRR or are short printed Rs. And the Masque in Set 11 is the biggest joke of them all right before Dragon tree markers (imagine any game where a marker in a common slot is 5€. That's some serious konami shit)
I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT RADIANT GRENINJA LMAO. I got the lists from limitless and just some random topping deck. I also got control box instead of ArcTina from Azul’s last tier list video!
Great now try adjusting those prices without factoring in market inflation and decks would probably be slightly cheaper in cost than they are right now.
It kinda outrageous how cheap OCG compare to TCG for yugioh 😅😅
Explain Minerva? Did you add it to the list due to its high valued cards in it? Is it Meta?
It's kind of unfortunate this analysis is done here when Youth is in meta for Vanguard, same for Overlord.
If we wait a month, Youth and Overlord can easily be replaced by Messiah and Gandiva and that may knock like $500 off the price tag.
I never understood why Tempest is still $70 to this date. To me Cairbre is from the same set, with the same rarity, and is used in way more decks but is a lot cheaper.
Because Youth is a major fan favorite. A lot of players want to build it. Cairbre can be replaced by budget options. Tempest is mandatory for the deck.
Messiah & Gandiva will still be pricey
Another intresting factor id be curious about would be entry prices for the official tourdaments. Vanguard's official regional and higher tournaments are free entry most of the time. I know magic and digimon have a price to entey for store events but id be curious to know what they are for regionals and above.
Thanks for taking the time n effort to accumulate the data . Definitely an interesting video. I play dbs and would say outside the optional SCRs or the 1 of the deck, the price drops 100-300$ for a deck and would push dbs in the bottom 4 games of the list of most expensive. Just putting that out there.
Guys, give Digimon TCG a try. The brand is amazing and the game is too.
I like the game but there's too many of the same digimon plus One Piece TCG is just better Digimon
@@MatthewCJoy games literaly play almost the same lol
Elementaria Sanctitude goes to 1 copy in the deck.
Great video though if you wanted to go a step further you may have to look into different formats or rotations and how often they occur.
You could do this video again in a few months or a years time and see how the decklists / staples have changed and whether old staples are still even viable and what costs there are to keep conpetitive.
Side decks are a surprisingly large amount of money in yugioh, so there's that for it.
I still remember the pro tour winning deck mono blue tempo during guilds of ravnica??? Or ravnica allegiance??? Was only around $70-80 and now almost all magic top decks are $150+ despite all the products WoTC are pushing, that just doesn't make sense
Dam vg very expensive in dollars
Its funny the 60-70% of vanguards cost is halbe and youthberk.
With halbe being reprinted and youthberk probably gonna be replaced by gandiva, vanguards placing might be lower in the future. Hopefully
Gandiva is still gonna be pricey too 😂
DBS is a bit of a weird spot because the price is driven up extremely high by the SCR of any given deck. Most of which do have budget options and won't compromise your build too hard. They are also able to be slotted into pretty much any deck of the same color which should lower the cost in the duplicate section.
For flesh and blood, you can reduce the total by another 565 dollars. Because the Oldhim deck list you used has Heart of Fyendal in it which is a completely optional card that doesn't really influence the playability of the deck, but since it's like a very rare collector card, its price is insane.
the list that won the PT also ran it. it doesnt seem like an "opt out" decision if youre buying to compete, which is the main point of the video. lots of these other tcgs could cut corners and replace cards to lower the deck price
@@TheTekloFoundry everyone that has ever talked or analyzed that specific decklist that i've seen so far has said that you can just replace that one with a different card, it's not mandatory.
i don't think the comparison is fair, because other tcgs replacing cards to lower costs wouldn't lower it by this much cost wise, but the win rate would change a lot more.
in the case of heart of fyendal, i am firmly convinced the cost changes a lot more while the winrate is not really affected at all. how many times has 1 or 2 extra points of life from heart of fyendal mattered in a tournament match versus how many times has it lost someone life due to the lack of block value?
@@Alcadeias90 you could say the same thing about shock vs dual lands for legacy, but you wouldnt run shocks at a high level legacy event if you were tuning your list to compete. the top players choose to run the card at the highest level events, clearly they believe its a core part of their deckbuilding.
@@TheTekloFoundry or they had a flex spot and they found that card to be cute. i'm sorry but unless you can provide clear extensive data on how much that card boosts winrate for the deck, i will never consider it anything but a cute flexing statement and a collector card.
@@Alcadeias90 michael hamilton has talked about the card multiple times, he believes it to be necessary in the bullander list
Really cool video, appreciate it!
Myself as a yugioh Player know how expensive this Game can be. But i also feel like it's getting is price of its popularity. As far as my current Knowledge goes yugioh and magic are the 2 most played games (not 100% sure but i think in total worldwide yugioh is Number 1 i think)
This obviously can shoot up prices as well.
But i never expected flesh and blood to be this crazy high
Uusually we buy 2-4 decks when competing. Also, knowing the average price of each top 5 deck and compare with the average price of each top 5 from other games may show us more about the entry point and the maintenance cost for the game.
You can play cheap and buy a 270$ Minerva deck, 150$ Red deck wins, 55$ Ylvetal deck; 260$ Mathmech deck; or a 380$ Dash deck.
In which case, premiation + gameplay/enjoyability may influence in your decision making: Pokemon > Prizes are amazing. You can even get a free internship to learn a new language, but it has a motionless playstyle; Vanguard > Not even worldwide, exclusive to Japan, with few badly distributed and manufactured exceptions that the company is doing out of a huuuuuge favor to the fans. Also, prizes are awful; MTG> good luck with Wizards of the Greed; Yugioh> Konami doesn't care about the overseas, only about how much money it can retrieve from the overseas. So, your game will be filled with raarity bumps, poorly designed banlists and overpriced products when compared to their japanese version. Also, you receive a playmat and a unique card from tournaments; FAB> Money, Money, Money, Money, Money, Monery, Money. You'll win prizes in both MONEY and cards, which can be traded for MONEY.
I remember when a bunch of MtG talking heads/pros tried to sell everyone on FaB being the player-focused, pro-consumer card game that would kill MtG. Then they proceed to have the most expensive game on the scene.
I think a big change that needs to happen for this “test” to make sense is the use of a non rotating format for Magic. The use of standard is a poor choice as it is one of the least played formats currently, either because of arena or the balancing issues in the recent past. The use of modern makes the most sense as it is the most played competitive format, but pioneer could be supplemented to do a “budget” format.
I can appreciate what you are trying to do, however i believe this provides unrealistic expectations as standard rotates, meaning a person may need 3 $400 over the span of 3 years
I feel like Magic's standard being here over Pioneer or Modern is kinda weird. It makes the prices look way lower than they actually are for investing in any of the eternal formats that are more enjoyed
I wish wotc would make mtg staples less rare or more available
Awesome video
Why is Dragonic overlord expensive?
Captain kid is NOT 55, also Law is a top deck and you didn't include it.
For vanguard I somehow did build a good deck for about $30-$40
Thanks for the banger tweet opportunity
You're welcome! You're gonna be saying "Watch the video for context" a lot LOL
It's already had to be said so often ughhhh
Man I’m glad I play Pokémon! LOL
Very cool video, for calculating overlapping cards, I would say its best to simply only account for the deck with the most copies. For example, 1 deck uses 2 $40 cards, while the rest only use it once, you simply calculate as needing 2 of the card, rather than subtracting using each other individual card. In Fresh and Blood were the average after dupes was $434 even though only a single deck cost that much, meanwhile the rest were 2-3x the price. It makes it seem cheaper than it is for someone thinking of a single deck using your method, even though I understand the purpose was to showcase what owning the meta would cost.
i love vanguard because its fun, its not that expensive and tournaments are free
D format says hi
Reprints are always gonna determine cost for deck building. MTG always have reprints and are accessible anywhere versus vanguard with very low places to even buy cards
Yea but in vanguard there is not powercreep like in other games, you can win with a 20$ deck easyyy
You can do the same in some of the other games too. Probably not at major tournament level but still. Only an idiot would think a $20 deck will win you a national championship.
great video, thank you for making it!
You should add Shadowverse evolve
What no Kryptic? Grand Archive? Sorcery? Lorcana?
...lorcana isnt even released yet
So while i do think this is interesting. One thing worth mentioning for CFV is that this is almost exclusively an America problem.
Current Exchange rate is $1 = €0.90
Youthberk RevolForm: Tempest, for example is at the time of this post, $55 (€50.63) on TCGPlayer
CardMarket (EUs TCGPlayer equivalent) however has Tempest for €25 ($27.16).
I'd also be really curious to know how much Promo's impact CFV top 5 price range. While there are expensive staples (Inlet Pulse/Brainwash Swirler/etc) Promo's seem to be the West's biggest complaint interms of product distrobution.
I'm pretty sure Vanguard would still be in the top 5 even if you use the european prices though.
Cutting duplicates beyond a playset to create an additional price point feels strange to me as I'm not sure what additional information it gives. If you are looking to compete competitively you will only be building one deck for any given event so it's not really a factor in the upfront cost of the game and what cards overlap between decks will shift drastically as the format changes so when you are building your next deck it's pretty likely that any 'investment' staple cards will have lost some of their value as the decks they support or counter are rotated out of the top 5 and may no longer be playable at all.
Ya it's literally pointless to include that
This is why I think all games should give us $$$ for winning not box's n mats or dumb videos games
this was so bad to get how much cost lol. One piece those green deck should be in the 100-120. and the stronger whitebeard should be same as zoro.
The out of focus background was super jarring.
Yugioh got cheap since last I checked.
No sense comparison, why u have to value Top 5 deck, when u actually are gonna buy 1 of them, a comparison of the average cost of the 5 decks would be more correct...
Uusually we buy 2-4 decks when competing. Also, knowing the average price of each top 5 deck and compare with the average price of each top 5 from other games may show us more about the entry point and the maintenance cost for the game.
You can play cheap and buy a 270$ Minerva deck, 150$ Red deck wins, 55$ Ylvetal deck; 260$ Mathmech deck; or a 380$ Dash deck.
In which case, premiation + gameplay/enjoyability may influence in your decision making: Pokemon > Prizes are amazing. You can even get a free internship to learn a new language, but it has a motionless playstyle; Vanguard > Not even worldwide, exclusive to Japan, with few badly distributed and manufactured exceptions that the company is doing out of a huuuuuge favor to the fans. Also, prizes are awful; MTG> good luck with Wizards of the Greed; Yugioh> Konami doesn't care about the overseas, only about how much money it can retrieve from the overseas. So, your game will be filled with raarity bumps, poorly designed banlists and overpriced products when compared to their japanese version. Also, you receive a playmat and a unique card from tournaments; FAB> Money, Money, Money, Money, Money, Monery, Money. You'll win prizes in both MONEY and cards, which can be traded for MONEY.
Yeah just take the number given and divide it by 5. There you go.
One Piece has gotten even cheaper since this video lmao. Excellent game and insanely affordable. Also much more fun to play than ludicrously expensive games like FaB.
Digimon is in an interesting place in that archetypes are power creeping what used to be generic good cards. So you see plenty of new decks that are 80%-100% new. Hunters, for example, has absolutely no place for any old card, and only has 4 Super Rares and no Secret Rares, which is why it's so cheap.
On the other hand, there are a few decks that still going to old support cards, and those tend to be the most expensive because we don't get reprints. If you happen to rely on, say, starter deck 1 cards like ST1 Greymon, there's no way around it.
Is this Blitz or CC for FAB? You dont even separate between formats
CC only, based on adult heroes. It shouldn't matter too much since the most expensive parts of CC decks are also the most expensive part of blitz decks. Blitz does fair better since swag dad Oldhim rotated
it's certainly an expensive hobby.
Interestly for this too, is Pokemon is fresh off a cycle where we lost a bunch of cards in standard, but if this had been just a couple months ago I'm pretty sure it would have been much higher since almost every deck was playing the Arceus VStar
EDIT: Pokemon could be even cheaper than that too, since we have precons that have a lot of these staples and one specifically for Mew VMax and if you buy that + some singles or a 2nd copy of the precon, you have a competitive deck for even cheaper than that
The Thesis of the video is more of getting into a game, but a bit deceptive of the longevity of how expensive each game is, with various powercreep, rotation and bannings. In pokemon to stay relevant I feel like I need to buy 1-2 new decks every 3 or so months at the highest level, which adds up very very quickly.
Feels strange using standard MTG, I feel like you should have used Pioneer as a more base line, or used all major formats of MTG individually as each format has a player population as half these games (Standard, Modern, Commander, etc)
Also by using Standard, you probably should have also used the Blitz format for Fab, making this teirlist a bit disingenuous.
Also one of the reasons these cards are so expensive is they do not really rotate, and nearly every good card stays relevant for years. Dash and Oldhim have been relatively unchanged for over 2+ years
Not including dupes will favor games that run the most expensive cards in all 5 decks, and people arent usually out here buying all five decks. Its a much more honest approach to take the average of the top 5 decks at face value without removing the dupes.
For Yu-gi-oh I'd say if you constantly want the tier 1/top deck it would cost about $1000 three times a year, so $3k a year.
you mean Kashtira? i didnt even see this shit in locals nor play it.
@Green Heart kastira isnt even a 1k deck anymore. Prices have gone down and on average to make one it now costs around 600 usd at the time of writing. I guess this is because people are selling the cards in anticipation of a banlist so after the banlist drop it'll go to 700-800 probably.
Stop paying pre release prices lol
As a flesh and blood player the main thing that I want to comment is that yes the game does have an incredibly high price floor on it and is probably the highest in any TCG
but the prices of cards are as high as they are because every deck plays and shares a lot of the same cards and once you own those cards the prices of getting a new deck are much lower then basically every other game as well.
The game also has a lot of cards that are considered more luxury cards and aren’t needed to actually play the decks in the game which in a lot of cases are the equipment cards in a deck, which also happen to be the most expensive cards. One of the big cards mentioned is Fyendal’s Spring Tunic. While the cards is very powerful and is very expensive because 70% of the decks play it when playing at a highly competitive level, if you just want to play the game you don’t have to have it by any means.
You don’t need to buy the most expensive cards if you just want to play any game?
I’m really disappointed with flesh and blood. I have heard from several people the aim of F&B was to try to break the cycle of very expensive out of print cards, but it seems to have just joined in. 😢
@@Azubits The aim of FaB is to be the greatest card game on the market and to bring players together in the flesh and blood. The primary reprint set of the game History Pack is still in print and is a print to demand set. The game is a CCG at its core and is designed to appeal to collectors and players alike. It has it's growing pains because the game is exploding and is bigger then they every imagined but they are adjusting on the fly and are constantly communicating with their player base.
@@Kuzc0TV Honestly, that felt reasonable to me a year or two ago -- but as this video shows, the game just keeps getting more expensive, and is currently the most expensive. The Fyendal's Tunic is $100 more expensive than this time last year. They could easily chuck the same, or an equivalent power card, into another set. Has there been any action over the last 18 months about these expensive staple cards?
@Chris Jefferson Flesh and blood did just expand into the Japanese market, which is the main reason cited for increased cost in staples
Furthermore, because Lss doesn't like to reprint cards in foils (no matter which foil treatment), people have moved in on the legendary equipment ( which is always printed only in foil in the sets it debuts in).
History pack 1 also hasn't driven down prices and made affordable versions of the legendary cards as expected. ( like the fact that white boarder tunic is as expensive as black boarder printings is crazy)
The same can be said for all the other games too. I would wager that FaB would still be the most expensive.
This is misleading thou even if your trying to be competitive you aren’t buying the whole meta
Like at most I have seen people buy 3 at most normally it’s just 2 of the top decks that can deal with each others counters
I showed averages and rankings before and after cutting dupes. I’m a little unsure how to make it less misleading 🫠
@@deckflare3770 not including duplicates is as misleading as you can be lol
@@MatthewCJoy how lol. If I have 2 different decks that require the same expensive staples I'm just gonna buy one playset and share it between the decks.
Missing Modern as the real MTG format to consider is huge, no one fucking plays Standard. Also your math on the average entry price (no duplicates) makes no sense, for example in Flesh and Blood, where you are saying the average deck costs $400 but that only buys you one out of the 5 decks, all the others being twice or thrice as much. Like sure, IF you _already_ have all the expensive staples then every _NEW_ deck costs about $400 to get. But whatever…
Also in general, no one except the ABSOLUTE top players (with teams and sponsors) would consider owning FIVE (5) completely different decks. If you are planning to _enter_ a new game, just the average matters.
Flesh and blood is going to have such a sick PvE i hope.
Now I can point to this video when I try to tell people that my spending $200 a year to have every single card in hearthstone is actually very cheap
Came from Joshua Schmidt to leave a like :)
Unrelated question, where should i be looking for local tournament scenes. Im in lower michigan, westland for a little more accuracy, and my closest stores have stopped vanguard since the pandemic. Im not opposed to a little more travel time, but i have idea how to find a place, or help startup a new scene.
very interesting video! funny enough i left Yugioh for vanguard because i thought it was too expensive
The irony 👀
@@blackfiresprout it is very ironic. but I'm not looking back, tons of gameplay and product issues I don't want to deal with anymore
@@yoko_bby honestly i just have fun playing & collecting for both o.o
No need for me get all stressed over childrens cards 😂
Jesus Christ, Vanguard being that expensive despite being a niche game compared to the rest of the field makes no sense.
Even spending money on FAB is worth it because competing gives you actual prize support - Vanguard only gives free trips to Japan to Champions in every BCS ONCE per year
Bushi really needs to step up their game or players will be priced out of Vanguard eventually
Nope, people will just keep sucking Bushi's toes & putting them on a high Pedestal.
That's why they're allowed to get away with this crap 💀
@@RR-dy6lg Theyre literally doing nothing to help the secondary market, they're Rebpoted the game TWICE in the span of 3 years, & the game has been out for over 11 years with nothing but a niche community.
They have dropped several of their IPs, Buddyfight, Dragonborne, Luck & Logic, etc.
Stop justifying their minute actions because you're just enabling their poor behavior 💀
@@RR-dy6lg Now if you have nothing better to contribute to the topic i'd consider you just keep your mouth quiet.
@@RR-dy6lg For years ive been trying to advocated Bushiroad's actions, hecc I was one of the very few people who explained to everyone what V format was & how to play when peoplewere stuck in limbo not knowing what Vanguard was or what to even do with it.
Don't even get me started with their horrendous Road trip that did god awful to promote the game when they had to skip various stores or some wouldnt even get their stock until several weeks/months after the Initial set released.
@@RR-dy6lg If you think thats being rude you haven't seen the w.i.-k.-i page or d.i.s.-co.r-d 😂😂
Several times ive seen people get their ass chewed off for running their decks their way.
Amazing video! The only thing I feel is somewhat missed here is that YuGiOh's formats actually shift much much faster than any other card game and so while your snapshot of "the best deck" might've been accurate 2 weeks ago, it suddenly stops being accurate a week later. You might think this is because of banlists or set releases (and this definitely plays a huge role too, adding to this issue even more) but it goes far beyond that. A major YCS might happen where the pros started using strat X and thus everyone starts accounting for it in their side the week after.
This makes it so you might go like "oh, staple 1 2 3 are this much, so this is how much yugioh costs" but it doesn't account for the fact that 2 weeks later, you had to buy new staples cuz the whole format shifted. (until you own every single staple lol...) The easiest example is Kurikara. Pre-YCS London it wasn't played all that much. Then we saw the card dominating and everyone started running 3 copies. The card shot from 15$ to 40$. One week everyone might be doing arise pass and you need kaijus, but the week after, everyone might do wide kash combos and now you need 3 nibiru... The list goes on and on, but essentially; snapshots are not a great way to fully capture YuGiOh's price. Keeping up with YuGiOh is almost a monthly subscription.
If I wanted to play a top deck in Vanguard Premium, starting from last october, I'd be playing highlander premium, and in january I'd still be playing highlander premium and right now in may, I'm still playing highlander premium. Do it for YuGiOh and starting in october, I'm playing runick spright. Then in DABL I'm playing Tear Bystial. Then in MAMA I'm playing Ishizu Tear, then in PHHY post banlist I'm playing Kashtira. Then in CYAC post banlist (everyone hopes), you're playing SHS or something... You not only have been buying new staples every other week, but you've also bought a new deck every couple months. Other games won't necessarily have that issue quite as badly.
That makes sense! I play yugioh very casually so I’m not 100% on market shifts on it. All the knowledge I have meta wise is from you and calieffect 🤣 thanks for the kind words again 🙏
Valid Points. I dont know how fast other Games Shift, but Yugioh is definitely so fast to the Point i started building my collection around staples and Then buy/Sale the Deck i want to Play in circulation. Long terms, cheaper definitely, but high First Investment. Doesnt include collection purposes tho.
@@deckflare3770 Not the Calieffect 💀
Yugioh also has a shift on Price "focus" over time. For a year or 2 the Konami will print very powerful, meta-defining staples that become insanely expensive, while archetypes overall are cheaper, followed by a similar span time where powerful, meta-defining archetypes are printed and reprints of those previous staples make them cheaper.
Yugioh is at it's most expensive right in-between these phase where new powerful archetypes are released while newer staples haven't had time to have reprints.
@@theyugijoker5856 This does mean it would be viable to have a follow up video accounting for this.
Shoutout to Pokémon for actually being affordable for a regular human !!
This is really interesting! Great video to describe the differences in TCGs and what people are spending for the top meta decks. I saw a huge difference between what I've spent for Vanguard vs what I've spent for Pokémon. Pretty crazy!
Yeah! I've really noticed it since I've bought 5 decks in other games in the past month and it is still costing less than the average Vanguard deck LOL.
@@deckflare3770 And people will still say Vanguard is "cheap" 😂😂
Loved the video! I would say the one thing would be good to do is keep the same type of format from game to game (which I know is hard to do). You mentioned it somewhat when discussing games like Digimon, Swartz, and even Flesh and Blood. But I think your analysis and something cool may be to do TCG rotating formats and non-rotating formats. For example, you compared Flesh and Blood Classic Constructed to Standard Magic. Flesh and Blood has a non-rotating format. So that X amount you spend on staples or generic cards will be everlasting, saving you more money in the future as you play the game competitively. Whereas in Magic those prices listed will have to be rebought eventually.
Digimon is easily the cheapest competitive game to get into
Interesting video! The Oldhim deck price looks very skewed tho, what decklist did you use for the pricing? The latest big tournament winning Oldhim (Micheal Feng) costs about 1080$, including a 1 of fabled card costing around 500$ (which is absolutely not vital to play). A realistic price for that deck would be between 500 and 600$.
Most of the expensive cards have been expensive for years or are likely to remain expensive due to their rarity or playability.
If you look at MTG, for example, how quickly cards lose their value just because they are no longer in the meta... Even the same goes for Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yu-Gi-Oh is literally the worst card game ever... I've always wanted to start playing competitively but it's almost impossible with the insane prices of meta decks and now fast the meta changes....
Clearly you never played Dragonborne or MLP