How Much Does it Really Cost to Compete in Trading Card Games?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 июн 2024
- This is a topic that has been weighing on my mind for a while... so let's see the current state of competing!
Spreadsheet of all the math and decks used! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Pre-order Vanguard splits HERE :D Use code "FLARE" for a 5% discount!
www.50cards.shop/?ref=flare
Socials:
Twitter: / deckflare
Second Channel: / @scissoringgwen 
Игры
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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" 😂😂
TLDR digimon has gotten more expensive to change decks.
Digimon was more color based until recently so staples were very color locked but you could still move between decks in a color but now we’re getting more archetypal synergies and generic staples are played at lower quantities. Also alt arts tend to keep deck costs relatively lower.
How has the game gotten more expensive? I'm curious since I just opened the new set and I can see that we litterly have a "Save" archetype that can play rainbow basically.
But most of the pretty good cards are at common or uncommon, they only money cards are usually the level 6/7 cards that are usually run at 1-2 for bricking reasons.
@@KirTheBeetle it really isnt even now. Outside of very specific decks, most decks price is concentrated in a few cards. And ironically its usually because they are generic staples that work for multiple colors. Like Tai Kamiya being generic red support but greymon decks can summon him for free and he's a super old card from the very first set. Poster is tripping saying the game is getting worst its getting better due to being more archetypal since those cards are only good in that deck. Only a few decks like Beelzemon, Security Control, and Ulforceveedramon are close to being an exception and even that is chump change compared to other games.
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.
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.
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$.
Most of the expensive cards have been expensive for years or are likely to remain expensive due to their rarity or playability.
If you look at MTG, for example, how quickly cards lose their value just because they are no longer in the meta... Even the same goes for Yu-Gi-Oh!
I always love these kinds of in-depth analysis, plus this is a great resource for anyone trying to find a competitive scene to get into!
FAB is still fairly new albeit not the newest in the list, but so far there is no rotating cards and currently it's like yugioh where there is no rotation per say. and the bulk of the price are on equipment - see Fyendal's fighting spirit
Unrelated question, where should i be looking for local tournament scenes. Im in lower michigan, westland for a little more accuracy, and my closest stores have stopped vanguard since the pandemic. Im not opposed to a little more travel time, but i have idea how to find a place, or help startup a new scene.
Very good video! Of course, there’s definitely always more nuance to be given, but you definitely covered the essential aspects!
Interesting video. About flesh and blood, you have equipment cards and the actual deck itself. Equipment cards is where things get expensive, but something like a spring tunic can be used in a multitude of decks as it is a generic and isn't class restricted. Just wanted to highlight that nuance
He dont Use the cheapest version from the cards, IT Looks Like He use the spezial alternativ Art cards.
I have my tunic for 2 years now and dont rotate Out and i need only one for All my Decks xD Same for command and conquer and e-strike.
@@Cein91 according to TCGplayer, Michael Feng's deck, the winner of the protour, costs 1430$ for the cheapest version. goes to 39k$ if you use all the most expensive versions
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
Shoutout to Pokémon for actually being affordable for a regular human !!
Hey, did the Oldhim and Iyslander decks you evaluated both use Heart of Fyendal?
I'm curious because that card is like $500 or something bucks now and you can only ever run 1 copy in a deck.
It's also not a necessary card for high level play like Tunic is, but that's a whole nother discussion
Oop I learned how to read, checked the description and confirmed its not in the Iyslander deck
Since you did your research Battle Spirits has calmed down a lot. I built Siegwurm for about $120. The game is extremely affordable.
Very true. The only card that would be expensive in most decks is ice shield.
Funny enough, you can actually cut down the cost of pokemon even further. Precon decks are available in the form of League Battle Decks at the price of $30, and include a lot of the core cards you need for deck building and are in varrying archtypes and would need a few upgrades. The Mew Vmax deck has most of the cards and about half the mews and genesect and the post rotation Lugia tends to use stuff from the Single Strike Urshifu battle deck. Doesn't really help with most of the cards for lost box or Gardevoir though. Also, kinda curious why you chose the control box deck instead of something like Arceus Duraludon or Single Strike Urshifu/Inteleon as both those decks tend to rank higher.
I think, despite buy ins, the best investment for tcg is Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, and BSS. Atleast, at the moment, those 3 doesn't implement Set Rotation. Those 3 allow "mixing of color" as you call it, it might just hamper optimization and deck performance "at the moment".
Yugioh has a pseudo-rotation. Every ~6 months, Konami either powercreeps decks out of the meta or straight up bans cards so that the meta changes. It is by no means a safe investment.
@Sephyrias card never lost monetary value in Yu-Gi-Oh! Also, it's as if powecreep never happens to other card games. The difference is that the staples you invested for in Yu-Gi-Oh! can service you till you decide to quit. Effect Veiler was released almost one and a half decades ago, and all copies are still legally playable to this day. Konami also has a habit of giving legacy archetype needed support so if you're patient, decks that could be considered non viable yesterday can become meta today, with just some needed support. It's not a perfect system, true, but better than other set rotating card games that guaranteed your non foil cards are as good as toilet paper in two years.
@@bryanmerel "card never lost monetary value in Yu-Gi-Oh" eh? If you want a recent example: POTE Spright Elf. Was $25 in January 2023, then got banned in February, now it's $4.
@@sephyrias883 pokemon cards got rotated. Priced like a tissue paper.
@@sephyrias883 also, you speak as if other card games don't have a banlist ALONGSIDE THEIR SET ROTATION.
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
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.
Hey mate, what website do you use to find these top decks for each game?
A few things to note on Pokemon is the recent shake on meta with the rotation, battle decks that came out and the amazing job of reprinting staples and ofc the trainer toolbox.
On the other hand with Digimon, I'm amazed it is still one of the cheapest. One thing to note with the B.Wargreymon package is how that tribal works, you can argue it is 3 decks in one...As most of their base remains the same for Black/Red Wargreymon, Black Wargreymon and Gaiomon variants. Really just changes the top-end and 1-2 tamers.
Not super familiar with all these games except MtG and FaB, the issue with magic is that standard rotates, so that cost is going to be constantly reoccurring. Flesh and Blood however has the opposite issue, nearly all cards stay viable and never rotate out. Typically the more expensive cards in FaB are equipment (Tunic for example) is generic and can be used for any hero and doesn’t rotate out of play. So you buy 1 of them and your good to use it basically forever.
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
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.
On the Digimon Tcg ishue, is more like Yugioh where your deck gets support as time goes by getting rid of some old pieces but there are cards that still remain
In Beelzemon's example Ex2 impmon and Beelzemon, Bt2 Impmon, Death Slinger, Wizardmon promo and (sometimes) Bt10 Baalmon still remain after they have come out specially the first ones that have been around for a year
Greymon is also an example of this with Wargreymon X for example
So if you invest in a fan favorite deck you are garanteed support like the Hero situation
Cheers mate! Great video
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.
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.
Could you do the same for other formats?
Like Expanded/Premium/Legacy/Living Legends/Modern, etc.
Pioneer/V-Premium/Speed Duels
I thought about it! Only issue is that it would take an eternity to release a video... I'd much rather spend that time working on other stuff! I might compare premium vs standard in the future at the very least.
@deckflare3770 if you do, please don't leave out V-Premium.
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.
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.
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.
Would be great if you made a video comparing the average deck price of TCG and OCG decks for yugioh
I would love to see that.
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.
FYI your FaB prices is incorrect. Briar no longer runs Arcanite Skullcap, she's on Crown Of Providence instead, which runs a nice sweet $220 added to both prices.
To be fair, Skullcap is a valid choice. It's certainly not as good as crown of providence, but it is a fair choice in It's own right.
But yeah prices in Fab are bit extreme right now due to the generic core
I mean if we're building the best Briar deck, we don't bring Skullcap. The rest of the lists are trying to be the best.... It stands out that the Briar list is from 2022, that definitely older than should be in this video honestly.
@@profDEADPOOL fair, Briar probably should have been a Dromai list tbh
Damn now I Really wished we had a Digimon scene here, didn't know it was so much cheaper
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
Nice vid! Always wondered how expensive other card games were.
i would love if you do this as tri monthly's thing just to keep up with how fast things can change.Also why didn't you do one for MHA/UFS?
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.
Wow I’m glad your making videos again man this was great 🎉
Answer: A fuck ton of money
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).
Digimon actually does have some staples across its color system, it just happened to be that non of those staples (oddly enough) were relevant across any of the current meta decks right now. Weird, really.
Explain Minerva? Did you add it to the list due to its high valued cards in it? Is it Meta?
I really like your analysis however, magic is only for standard format and the common competitive formats are also Modern and Pioneer. Currently the Qualifiers are played in the Pioneer which the decks are averaging a bit higher than standard decks. Modern decks are closer $1000 to $2000 each. Often large tournaments will force their players to play mulitple formats including draft which are $15 each for paper events and closer to a $3 each online So practicing limited scales up as you play opposed to a large initial investment.
Holy crap I never realized how cheap pokemon was 👀
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'd love to see a video like this but more broken apart to compare the actual cost of the game instead of just competition. Maybe compare the top x amount of "staple" cards and maybe even add how many to add typically of those cards.
I dunno how reasonable it would be to make this but id watch the hell out of it
In this video are you doing lowers rarity for the cards or the highest? You just said minimum rarity cards.
8:37 Extra points for putting Nino as the cover card. Great video, absolutely.
I’ve played every game on here and would consider playing them again if I ever quit except flesh and blood. I started playing when it released, I made money playing the game but it’s the type of game that feels like it’s made for collectors and scalpers only. All the good cards are ridiculously priced and because they don’t print the cards enough to cheapen the values everything stays pretty expensive for a while. The game is also EXTREMELY difficult to only play casually as there isn’t many players that have a locals (thanks to game having the feeling of being made for collectors) if you have deep pockets and enjoy a challenging tcg it’s not bad . Surprised you didn’t put fftcg or Lorcana on here
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
Great video. Earned yourself a sub
For the time stamp you put white shorts instead of Weiss Shwartz also I don't really understand how you got your numbers on weiss. Cause the game is a lot cheaper than what you say it is. The list you placed for you Holo live deck has a sp vs a base rarity card. Which would make the deck 50-70 dollars cheaper. Also did you use tcg player or where did you base the prices off from. As well Touney lists where did you base the decks from?
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.
Vwry good analysis, good methodology.
The other big factor, which is difficult to quantify, is the stability of the meta game, that is, how often would you want to switch decks to remain competitive.
Perhaps looking at top decks over a longer period of time, at different times.
Wixoss is really affordable, especially if you're not playing white. Most of the value is in the alternate art cards, getting a playable deck at base rarity is pretty easy.
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 has some duplicates across decks. Veemon and Davis tamer will be used across Veemon armor, Imperialdramon and Ulforceveedramon decks. Then there are some basic stuff like the color memory boost cards.
Yeah... But none Of those are meta right now... And in bt8 when armor and imperial we're meta the price Of the davis and the jamming veemon were on the clouds
There's Also just alot of good generic tamer and option cards
Look at "Pokémon Trading Card Game" man. So inspirational!
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.
I still actively play 5 TCGs on that list (yes I know that's a bit excessive to be honest lol) notably FAB, Vanguard, 2 of the Bandai TCG (One Piece and Digimon) and Pokemon, I can give some thoughts from my view:
1) Flesh and Blood
You pretty much got it on point, the real gatekeeper from a fully tuned deck are the legendary equipments and the Big 3 Generic Majestics from the 1st set you mentioned (C&C, Art of War and EStrike) and yes, they can basically go into most decks and some heroes straight up needs them. Oldhim is the most expensive because he literally needs at least 4 Legendary equipments (2 L shields, 1 L helmet and 1 L armor) to be max tuned, however some other heroes can get away with much less legendary equipments as you can see, for example Dash only needs her own L armor, a generic L helmet and that's it, resulting in cheaper deck overall.
However, if you just wanna start playing with basic core decks and non-legendary equipments, the costs are actually far way more cheaper and you can most likely get away with under $150 but don't get me wrong, you definitely CAN still win games and weeklies with it due to the nature of the game. it is at the highest competitive level like ProTour or Calling that getting your deck fully tuned and paying that extra 1 grand really matter.
2) Vanguard
I don't play the EN version and so it's most likely caused by what others mentioned but the version I play is tad more affordable due to reprints and stuff. one thing I like from this TCG is that old archetypes will most likely get support and all nations are viable so you get to play what you like.
3) One Piece
I'm playing the JP version up to OP03 and OP04 soon so I can say that the game state right now is really really good. promos are straight up staple reprints and the exclusive ones are really easy to get and prize supports are amazing, a lot of people opening boxes and cartons so the low rarity cards are abundant and cheap, making decks really cheap as well.
Bandai straight up banhammered a problematic archetypes and the meta fairly varies now (with exception of purple and green kinda getting the short end of the stick but I hope they'll get more supports soon)
4) Digimon
Also playing the JP version and oh boy, I have so much gripes with the state of the game atm. The game is fairly cheap yes, but it is also the most rampant with power creep I have ever played. archetypes rarely lasted over 1-3 sets and main set usually brings a whole new archetype that's on different power level than previous set. any archetypes that lasted more than 3 sets are usually very dominant/near broken and most likely will get a banhammer when new set comes (which happened to Jesmon, Xros Hearts, Alphamon etc).
Not to mention staples rarely overlaps with each deck aside from like Memory Boost and memory tamers as new archetypes usually comes with their own suite of digimon and tamers to function, so it's almost always you're buying a full price when you're going for the new thing, probably ended up being more expensive than you think in the long run.
They also keep spamming some janky archetypes that virtually will never be competitive viable that wastes slot on a set, instead of giving support for old archetypes.
Also my biggest gripe is Bandai seems to not care about JP version competitive scene anymore, Evolution Cup prize stays the same for a freaking 2 years, previous world championship are webcam events (lol), weeklies promos are utter trash and has near no value so there's no incentives to go into weeklies anymore. I kinda stopped playing right now and probably will only come back once the new mechanic arrives here with ACE cards and until they fixes the promos.
5) Pokemon
Pokemon is kinda the same vein as digimon but at least it's one of the Big 3 so competitive scene will always be really big. again no archetype rarely lasted more than few sets and if they do, they'll keep printing the hell out of the tech card that specifically shuts down that deck (looking at you Mew VMAX). If you wanna keep up with the highest competitive level, you'll most likely gonna have to keep buying new decks, however the staples overlaps more than Digimon so all the Balls, Professor Research, Radiant Greninja etc can go into a lot of your deck. so getting new decks isn't all that expensive once you gotten all the staples.
Sorry for the long post but hope at least it's a fun read haha.
I think the most sane way to approach Digimon is to know that you WILL buy a new deck every set, and decide if you want it to be all new (cheap) or old (and maybe start chasing down the old cards with time).
Anything else is setting up for disappointment. I already lived through that with Ulforce in BT11. They printed a 4-of staple as SEC, most of the old cards were powercrept by then, and it still autolost to BWG, smh.
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
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
Randomly reccomend to me. But i cant search this video again
Instead of the playset rule for the total, why not just take the max number used for any of the decks, so e.g. if a card is played at 2/1/0/0/0 across the decks it would be 2
Wish I watched this before I started YGO. But at least I am somewhat having fun 😂
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
The biggest thing is Battle spirit saga competitive wise has the biggest payout to competing competitively with them doing cash price tournaments
I think Fab night have them beat with a 1 mil prize pool.
I think mtg is at 1 mil now as well.
@@DJATOMICA95 magic stoped theres
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.
This needs to be a quarterly video. You got a sub 💪
This is pure misinformation, standart today is one os the least played formats of mtg and a tier 1 modern deck could cost 2k ou more easy. That being said, you don't need 3 Tunic's to play with one of the FAB tier decks, in fact you Just need 1 to all decks because you can't have more than one um your deck.
I would say modern would have been the thing to look at for magic, as its the most played competitively for MTG while everything els you mentioned would be the most played for the card games. So should have looked at modern instead, other than that awesome video !
Nobody buys 3 Fyendal's Spring Tunic 😂
I feel like a lot of the prices for the Digimom decks are high. Even a day after the vid was published the greymon deck is nowhere near 210.
Where does the Final Fantasy TCG fall on this? Also I’m curious where Lorcana will land once they start having competitive events.
Daaang
It's gotten even worse since I quit
So.. I've missed some content in vanguard the past two years.. Is standard so expensive cause it is finally more powerful than Premium? Haha
Awesome video
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!
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 😂
3:30 well, factoring rotation on that, you will be paying MORE on a long term.
Outside of competitive, I love you can make casual/playable decks in Yugioh for less than $100.
Makes it very beginner friendly & I introduced all my friends to easier formats to ease them into the game :)
No luck reliant stuff that just instantly makes them lose the game so its great & friendly between friends. Already made at least 40 decks for them.
i made Bujin deck. It sucked so bad i needed to buy more cards to fix it. it still sucks but way less. Also playing Tri Brigade and budget Branded.
Few days ago i finally got probably the best card Bujin deck can play: Number F0: Utopic Draco Future. They can combo to make 3 Xyz monsters, so why not?
@@greenheart5334 Coolio. Im more into Gx & 5d's stuff 👀
no wixoss representation :(
Uusually we buy 2-4 decks when competing. Also, knowing the average price of each top 5 deck and compare with the average price of each top 5 from other games may show us more about the entry point and the maintenance cost for the game.
You can play cheap and buy a 270$ 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.
Damn vanguard promo out here like "don't worry I'll gate keep" 😂.
👀👌
judging magic by the current standard is kind of an outlier, formats in magic balloon in price as they gain popularity and current standard has been hit by the double gut punch of the pandemic and magic messing around with organized play/protour/official tournament support. If you look at modern or pioneer as examples I think you'd see a more accurate picture of how much a deck costs.
For vanguard I somehow did build a good deck for about $30-$40
Your lexi deck is too cheap. She uses a head equipment that costs 240 and runs 3 codex of fraility which is a 50 follar card.
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.
Damn near spat my drink out at those VG prices. The difference between optimal/not optimal and playing a Keiter/Dark States vs not is staggering.
TIL: CFV is expensive (looking at you Youthberk). FAB is even more expensive for a game that's to be played irl.
Ppl who still think Vanguard is cheap are funny 👀
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
So ur saying I should keep playing and wait another year to see if I should get into vanguard again hahaha
Why is Dragonic overlord expensive?
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.