If they increase the pull rates for expensive cards, these cards will stop being expensive.
Better pull rates = cheaper cards.
Back in the day people weren’t buying hundreds of packs, they were children who maybe bought a couple of packs a year and knew nothing about the “market”. They were happy to have a Ken Sugimori stock art on a sparkling background.
I personally think Scarlet/Violet is far better than Pokémon back in the day. The art is amazing – you can get illustrator rares fairly easily and these are some of the most beautiful and lovingly crafted cards that have ever been in the TCG.
I personally recommend buying not more than a couple of booster packs for every set and take time to appreciate the art – not only of the higher rarity levels, but the plan commons and uncommons. There’s so much good stuff out there.
I think lowering the price of cards would be a good thing. This is primarily a kids game anyway even though all of us are adults. Also rarity doesn’t necessarily determine value as we have discussed because some cards are more desired than others for artwork, sentimentality, character etc. So it’s really a combination of rarity and demand.
I don’t really think any modern cards should be selling for hundreds of dollars. That kind of craziness is probably not healthy for the hobby and for the average collector or kid. Sure special promos, trophy cards, or rare vintage cards absolutely will command extraordinary prices. But I don’t think these new cards should be. If they are then I don’t think they are common enough personally. If you have cards release within the past 6 months selling for $700 or even $200 that seems a little nutty to me. Print more! Make it easier for people to actually collect the entire set. Make this hobby less about the mania and more about collecting. Idk I suppose this part of my argument is just my opinion and I could see how a lot of people would disagree. But I think the hobby has largely become about chasing a small select few cards that are very hard to get and very expensive and I find that to be unfortunate.
I agree about the prices, that would indeed be very nice and that’s what I think the Japanese are definitely doing better (among many things). In fact the two-for-one campaign during covid (where they bundled Rebel Clash and Darkness Ablaze for the price of one pack) was the reason I re-entered the hobby.
I can’t really agree with the last part, though. The most expensive cards are easily not the only very desirable cards. For every Moonbrean there are a bunch of cards that are super affordable and also feature popular Pokémon with great artwork. And people do collect these cards – but naturally the expensive ones get all the social media attention.
Why are people chasing the hard-to-get cards? Because they want the challenge. They want to feel special owning a card that not everybody owns. Otherwise they would go for other cards. Alt arts are hard to pull, yes, but TPC has done a great job ever since VMAX Climax and the (re)introduction of CHRs/IRs/ARs to include fantastic cards that are actually fairly easy to pull.
If you check the prices for Scarlet/Violet or Paldea Evolved, you will notice that with alt arts gone there are indeed no cards over 100 USD in the English TCG and I personally doubt that even the 151 set will have cards in the >100 USD range. Check out all of the recent sets ever since Brillant Stars. The trainer gallery cards are amazing and not too hard to pull. Only some specific alt arts like Moonbreon/Lugia/Giratina are super expensive – but why reduce these sets to these few cards when there’s so much goodness out there? I personally think many of the best cards ever made for the TCG are the CHRs/IRs/AR cards in the 1-10 USD range.
Interesting most of the products I’ve been buying lately for english are sword and shield era products and the pull rates have been aweful.
I think with Japanese you typically get more than you have listed there. I have opened a Star Birth box and Dark Phantasma.
Star Birth had:
4x RR’s (V cards)
2x RRR’s (Vstar)
1x SR Trainer
1x HR Trainer
Dark Phantasma had:
4x RR’s (V cards)
2x RRR’s (Vstar)
1x K (Radiant)
1x SR (V)
3x CHR
So both boxes have been better than you mentioned and seems like that’s pretty common from what I see. Vstar Universe being a high class box is even better.
Yeah good point @DJGary even at double msrp you are still getting a better deal with Japanese. Seems like if English could make it a better deal and improve the card quality a little it could relieve some of the intense thirst in the market for Japanese cards.
