I’m pretty sure I saw a PSA 10 1st Edition Stardust Dragon Ghost Rare go for 10K on Fanatics a few months back.
Those quarter century rares look nice!
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Shhh 
I’m currently getting back to my Yu-Gi-Oh rarity collection, so don’t increase the prices please. 
In all seriousness though, I think most have already been said by others.
For me, in my youth Pokémon has always been about collecting the TCG cards and watching the cartoon/anime; whereas Yu-Gi-Oh has always been about playing the game (both online and irl).
Nowadays, Pokémon is still about collecting (all kind of different collection goals), whereas for Yu-Gi-Oh I’m only collecting the Yu-Gi-Oh rarities. I also feel that in terms of collection goals, there are more goals to choose from in the Pokémon TCG. For Yu-Gi-Oh, the only two very popular collection goals I’ve seen more than once are all the Xyz Number Monsters and all Ghost Rare cards. And of course just collecting some of the early sets (e.g. LOB 1st ed. Wavy) or misprints/errors/filler cards.
Still, even though Yu-Gi-Oh is still much less popular than Pokémon, their prices are defintely rising as well, and have been for years. Especially for modern cards, as well as misprints/errors. Heck, I’ve bought a recently released Yu-Gi-Oh card for 2k USD just last month for my Yu-Gi-Oh rarity collection (a Pink 20th 25th Secret Rare for anyone wondering, which is exclusive for the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Dark Magician Girl.. 
).
But in general, the prices are luckily still way lower than Pokémon, and they’ll likely remain lagging behind forever, since they’re not only released later than the Pokémon TCG, but are also less popular for the various reasons already named in this thread.
Greetz,
Quuador
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I think Yu-Gi-Oh isn’t really popular/stonking for a fair few reasons -
Visually, the cards have a lot going against them. The cards are physically smaller, they don’t do full arts so the art box is even smaller again, and the characters are a lot more intricate and over-designed. All of this on top of each other means the art is a lot harder to make out at a glance, which makes it less striking, less desirable, less stonkable. In its current state, Yu-Gi-Oh could never create a Moonbreon.
The characters are nerdier. Pokémon is closer to Disney, whereas Yu-Gi-Oh is closer to Warhammer. This let Pokémon characters permeate into the mainstream with infinitely more success, success which still socially continues to this day. Imagine someone wearing a Gengar tee, and another person wearing a Red Eyes Black Dragon tee, I think it’s a lot easier to position a Pokémon social media presence as ‘cool’.
Yu-Gi-Oh reprints to hell. Very few of their cards are in any way distinct or special, this is awful for collecting. I just thought of a pretty popular character I remember from the OG anime - Baby Dragon. (Correct me if I’m wrong Yu-Gi-Oh collectors) but I just took a little look and it looks like there has only ever been one single TCG artwork printed for Baby Dragon? How the hell is anybody supposed to care about collecting the cards when all they have to collect for their favourite character is some different tiny numerical codes on the card and maybe a different foil if they’re lucky. Compare that to the variety you would get collecting Charmander in Pokémon. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be Charmander, the collecting experience for a top 1% most famous Yu-Gi-Oh monster like Baby Dragon is worse than the collecting experience for some bottom 1% Pokémon like Sawk (sorry Sawk fans).
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Pokemon characters have broad appeal. It’s easy to understand why people would like a cute yellow rodent or a fire breathing dragon. People love animals.
Liking Dark Magician Girl is going to get you the side eye from everyone.
YGO reprints to demand for what ever meta shifts come swinging and when ever archetypes get legacy support so old school stuff will always be impacted regardless in terms of collectability. for example Blue Eyes recent got a new structure deck that made it semi-meta relevant again with it’s new support. personally idm all the reprint variants and foiling types Collector Rares and Ultimate Rares are my favourites.
I just collect Archetype designs I think that look cool and YGO being a lot cheaper and how they reprint puts 0 strain on the need to FOMO.
Since its majority player driven prices will always be dictated to current meta game, same for market shifts for older cards that work or beat the current meta as tech choices.
atleast it’s one of the least painful TCGs to collect in this modern TCG climates where everything gets speculated to oblivion when ever a new TCG is announced nowadays.
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Actually YGO has a constant flow of lore related cards so there is more than just Baby Dragon in terms of artwork, they are named different things card wise no different to Cameos in Pokemon. Channels like GoldenNova YuGiOh explain it really well. DuelLogs is also another great channel for references and game knowledge.
Branded/Albaz story arc is very popular and constantly gets products tied to it and extra cards here and there.
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No games
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No gud games
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I’m seeing 100k units sold on some of those games?
What were they closed betas???
I’m not sure which of my points this is in response to, but to me, cards requiring a 15 minute video explanation of what’s happening is surely more evidence of the franchise not being able to easily grab people back in like Pokémon can.
Imagine you take your friend who used to like both franchises but has been away for 20 years to a card show, their favourite characters were Charmander and Baby Dragon.
At one vendor table they see this card -
In 5 seconds they see cute, grumpy Charmander wants to chase Pidgey and they see how much the cards have developed artistically over the years.
At another table they see the same single Baby Dragon card that they already saw 20 years ago. The vendor has to tell them, sorry they never printed any other art for that character, but here let me show you a binder full of non-distinct Yu-Gi-Oh cards, while they desperately try to explain the lore behind them.
To me its no surprise at all why one is making a more successful comeback than the other.
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Adaptations of other games that were in the manga. Capsule Monsters and Dungeon Dice Monsters
The point was about monsters appearing on different artwork. YuGiOh does it in a different way essentially though lore related they have recently made more alternative artworks of popular monsters in recent years with stuff like Sky Striker/Albaz lore cards/popular staples like Infinite impermanence/Lightning Storm.
even older monsters appear on a lot of different cards with fun story lines related to cards like Tour guide to the Underworld. With cards like Mistaken Arrest or Mistake. Dai Grepher has a long story line of him jumping multiverses and dimensions etc.
Ofc Pokemon is easier to explain to a casual audience unless you are deep into lore of pokemon past the Pokedex and baseline of the main story. Even then the main story of pokemon has a lot of hidden details and nods and such but you wont be explaining it someone unless they care. No different to what happens to YGO lore.
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I’m with you on reprinting the same art over and over and over makes it hard to collect. Also still printing the original sets (although unlimited) is just not as simple for a casual collector to follow.
I’m a noob but I can’t tell the difference between new and vintage copies most of the time. It’s so frustrating
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Pokémon TCG does not have much lore in the cards … Connected artworks or references to other cards in artworks can be considered as “lore”. For example, Gloom (Aquapolis) & Gloom (Crown Zenith)
In Yu-Gi-Oh, some cards are connected each other in artworks and they tell you a story. For example, Rescue Animals … For example, the Rescue Hamster ended being lost into dimensions (shown in “Pendulum Hole”)
I learnt today that the Mistake card has an interesting story related with Coach Goblin & Giant Orc. Basically Coach Goblin trained Giant Orc to be a professional boxer. Coach Goblin takes Giant Orc to the Underworld for training … the student thought they were going for a walk (Tour Guide from the Underworld) … Everything goes wrong when the Giant Orc loses the bus because he got distracted buying an ice cream (Mistake) leaving his coach alone (Tardy Orc), the coach is attacked by a monster that takes him to other dimension (D. D. Crazy Beast) but the coach manages to dominate the monster (D. D. Trainer) … They ended returning to their own dimensions with others that were also lost into dimensions. (Premature Return)
This video explains it well (but it’s in Spanish)
It doesn’t suit me either that the prices of Yu-Gi-Oh cards increase … it’d make my goals much more difficult than they are already …
Actually it’s the 25th one (QCSR Special) … I’ve planned to get that card in the 3 different languages available … it’s going to be in several years, but I already have the goal defined. It’s likely that I’ll need help when I’ll search any of those cards (especially for Korean & S-Chinese) …
Meanwhile I’ll continue with Dark Magician Girl cards I can afford … mainly Portuguese cards (which are my priority regarding that goal)
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One thing that Pokemon does exceptionally well is create an ecosystem that naturally feeds people into card collecting. Anime, video games, apps, movies etc.
The same can’t be said about Yu-Gi-Oh (or any other IP) which is likely why Pokemon has a disproportionate level of success as a collectible.
I recently thought about getting back into Yu-Gi-Oh. I loved the anime as a kid and played the TCG for countless hours with friends yet I can only name three game pieces that I like and they are just that to me. Game pieces. Outside of playing the game I just don’t have much of a connection with it and I imagine many are similar.
I did pick up a red eyes black dragon but outside of that I’m not looking onto the next thing like I am with Pokemon.
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This is an ez one 
- pokemans while initially overhyped in the 90s proved it had lasting value outside of the cards themselves by focusing on its cute lovable characters and integrating into the casual audience
- ygos became super popular during pokeman’s dead period (mid - late 2000s) however by contrast they have no lasting appeal or nostalgia if u have never watched the anime (which i assume is the majority of america)
- ygo focused on the player base similar to magics rather than the collector base which is why the majority of its cards are worthless that cant be used in tournament play whereas pokemans even commons from 1st ed base can be worth hundreds to thousands in psa 10
- every casual can name lots of pokemans outside of pikachu, charizard and the kanto starters whereas almost no one can name any ygo beyond blue eyes white dragon, dark magician and exodia
- konami as a company is completely crap compared to nintendo/pokemon company they reprint everything under the sun and u cant tell the difference between a lot of the reprints without a 100 page ppt like the 10+ variants of the lob and sdk blue eyes
- when pokeman (rarely) reprints cards it is extremely easy to differentiate from the originals such as evolutions and the celebrations stamps
- pokemans is a juggernaut multimedia franchise with tons of ip outside of the games and cards, whereas ygo really just has the anime (which is dead) and the cards
- the pokeman video games have tons of value on their own, whether its loose, cib or sealed and was a staple on the game boy that every millennial has played growing up. in contrast the value of ygo games is completely tied to the value of the cards that come in them (remember almost all pokeman games dont even include cards) and they have no value either loose or cib and no one has even played them
theres prolly others that i missed that i cant think of atm
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As someone who has spoken loads about Yugioh on this forum for years, for me it comes down to a few factors: 1) the new printings and rarities they have been releasing are not exciting. I personally have not liked the card prints since they changed with BOSH in 2016. BOSH leads me to my next point 2) the guaranteed holo in every pack removed the chase aspect from packs. Starlights were too hard to get that unless you are a youtuber, no one is opening to chase them realistically. With no anime and boring rarities, the collectability of cards from 10 years ago is almost none. 3) I think they finally beat the dead horse dry. The ulti BWED from OTS pack is the only printing from recently of those old reliables that I can think of that people really want. The chibis were too little too late IMO. Komoney has shown no loyalty to high rarity cards and will make similar looking ones in no time. There is no incentive to buy new high rarity cards
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