What if Pokemon was like Magic? Playability as Price

[scarecrowman88]

@zorloth

The high-end MTG market is driven less by playability than you might think. Alpha Underground Seas are several thousand dollars minimum while Revised Underground Seas, which have the exact same gameplay utility, are like $500. Since they are equally useful in play, the price gap is entirely a function of rarity and prestige. Using an Alpha Underground Sea in your EDH deck is like using a Ferrari to drive to the supermarket, whereas using a Revised Underground Sea is like using a Honda to drive to the supermarket. They’ll both get you to the supermarket, but you’ll look cooler in the Ferrari. Someone who buys a Ferrari solely to drive to the supermarket is buying it for the prestige and the ‘cool’ factor. Same thing with an Alpha Underground Sea. It’s not a matter of playability; it’s a matter of prestige. And the Alpha Underground Sea is prestigious precisely because it’s so rare. So I would argue that the price of playable Alpha cards isn’t driven by playability, but fundamentally by rarity.

This is exactly why Base set 2 is such an AMAZING and well-designed set… It combined all the staple cards from base and jungle and left out useless and worthless cards like the eevolutions, devolution spray and clefairy doll.

I have bought lots of cheap base set 2 cards to build all the vintage decks. Another cheap alternative is to buy Japanese versions.

[scarecrowman88]

@mtajaj32

@scarecrowman88

All the most valuable base set cards would be most of the trainers and double colorless energy. Rocket’s sneak attack would be the most valuable card in the Rocket set and The Rocket’s Trap would be the most valuable card from Gym Heroes. Ditto and Magmar would be the best cards from Fossil. Neo Discovery and Neo Revelation would be considered worthless sets since all those cards sucks more or less. Neo genesis would be the best set overall together with base set.

Mr. Magcargo would like a word with you.

Unfortunately for Magcargo this guy was the undisputed king of the neo era. Crobat and Kingdra from Neo Revelation were playable though.

[andrewvt36]

@scarecrowman88

@zorloth

The high-end MTG market is driven less by playability than you might think. Alpha Underground Seas are several thousand dollars minimum while Revised Underground Seas, which have the exact same gameplay utility, are like $500. Since they are equally useful in play, the price gap is entirely a function of rarity and prestige. Using an Alpha Underground Sea in your EDH deck is like using a Ferrari to drive to the supermarket, whereas using a Revised Underground Sea is like using a Honda to drive to the supermarket. They’ll both get you to the supermarket, but you’ll look cooler in the Ferrari. Someone who buys a Ferrari solely to drive to the supermarket is buying it for the prestige and the ‘cool’ factor. Same thing with an Alpha Underground Sea. It’s not a matter of playability; it’s a matter of prestige. And the Alpha Underground Sea is prestigious precisely because it’s so rare. So I would argue that the price of playable Alpha cards isn’t driven by playability, but fundamentally by rarity.

This is exactly why Base set 2 is such an AMAZING and well-designed set… It combined all the staple cards from base and jungle and left out useless and worthless cards like the eevolutions, devolution spray and clefairy doll.

I have bought lots of cheap base set 2 cards to build all the vintage decks. Another cheap alternative is to buy Japanese versions.

Whoa! So Base Set 2 actually has a use after all?? Lol, I kid, but that sounds exactly right in my mind. It’s basically the Revised / 4th Edition of Pokemon.

Please post pictures of some of those decks! They sound amazing!

Edit: After thinking about this, my mind is actually blown a little bit. What if the reason Base Set 2 is hated is exactly the reason it was designed: to be a reprint of all these cards with an emphasis on making them available to players cheaply?

[candle]

eek!

[kaldoverde]

For modern formats, you only need to go as far as Japan to get your answer. For the longest time Japan valued playability over collectability and still does. That’s why you often see Trainers in Japan being priced at 5x their English counterparts and most Pokemon at 10x less. If you look at Japanese marketplaces you will still notice the emphasis on playability.

Just opened mercari and this is what showed up in the first 5 listings:

From a western perspective that second listing is a bargain, and the first one is overpriced, whereas from a Japanese perspective it works the other way around.

[Alec]

I got into collecting from playing, and I’ve been building old decks since 2013 for the fun and nostalgia. I’m somewhere over 110 decks from the base-fossil through 2010 formats now, so I’d be loaded.

The hardest part is when playability and collectability intersect, because that makes a card really difficult to purchase and then shuffle. I need five Dark Gengar right now.

[explorer]

@andrewvt36

@smpratte

HitmonChansey (•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐■-■ / (⌐■_■) already have that value added! Their pops are the lowest because they were staple cards.

Honestly vintage tcg is so under optimized. I would love to build old decks and compete.

My friends built a “gauntlet” with constructed Magic decks from our favorite era. It would be awesome and an interesting experiment to throw together those decks for Pokémon. Any idea where to get old decklists?

jklaczpokemon.wordpress.com/

This is the bible of vintage competitive PTCG, you can sink HOURS into reading and analysing all of that.

The site’s tagline sums it up better than I could - “History, decks and strategies for formats from 1999 to 2013, written by 3-time World Champion Jason Klaczynski”