Pricing of TCGs

 

As you know, there's like a global inflation going on around the world which makes me want to reduce the amount of card games I want to buy. This also led to this video "Credit to DeckFlare". Looking at this video, there were some obvious one which are expensive, that's why I don't play those games, and there are some that are cheaper than I thought. Not all TCG is in this list like BSS, FFTCG or Disney Lorcana, I do know FFTCG is kind of pricey because of the old staple cards that needs to be use, and Lorcana might be very expensive.

The surprising factor is Pokemon being the cheapest card game and also the big 3. I always thought it was expensive. But then again, I think the reason why I didn't play this game is rotation like MTG, where your decks will rotate out of the format after a while. For me who like to stick with one deck, I didn't feel like splashing money on new decks when the rotation is near.

I guess Fusion World is Bandai's cheapest card game, and this is not surprising. When I first played DBSCG before Masters and Fusion World was a thing, the game was pretty cheap to play. Now Masters became expensive which is why I dropped the game. It is also Bandai's first successful rebooted Card Game, everyone was iffy at first, thinking DBS would be a flop, but the game is going strong. In fact so strong that the game have become 2, and we also have an official simulator for the game. The main reason because DBS is global game, everything is released at the same time, the only delay if they can't reach certain countries on time. Not to mention it is Bandai's main card game, so they would have better supports. When it comes to tournament prizing, last time I remembered, the DBS tournaments had some cash prizing, I definitely take cash over card promos, since you can spend cash right away after winning. I am not sure if its the same for Fusion World, or if they have dropped this kind of prize.

Now I am not surprised that One Piece is cheaper than Digimon. Personally, Digimon is only expensive because of some main staples that are promos. If we can ignore promos, then One Piece and Digimon pricing are around the same, except lately, some SRs for Digimon are a lot pricier than I thought, which is why I've decided to focus on One Piece more than Digimon. One Piece doesn't need promos, although, unfortunately 1 of my build purple Kaido deck will be expensive to build as I need EB01 Bon Clay (the main staple for every ramp build) and OP07 Sanji. I am assuming Gundam will be between these 2, maybe more expensive than One Piece and cheaper than Digimon, or Gundam could be even more expensive than Digimon which I am hoping not, as I am looking to make Gundam my main card game, but judging that it is Gundam, the possibility can be quite high.

What I am disappointed is the state of VG. What the hell happened to VG? I swear it became even more expensive since I dropped the game for D series. They mentioned that they would "supposedly" focus on the game being cheap for D series. I don't see how the game would be cheap seeing it is high up in the list in terms of pricing. Then again, I am not surprised since Bushi is involved. If you look at Dear Days for example, not only the game is overpriced, but it doesn't have cross play. A game that doesn't have cross play, but cost a lot feels a lot more like a scam. Master Duel is free and have cross play function even though the company known as Konami. Although Konami in OCG is a lot different than Konami in TCG so this is a bit different than what we have for Bushi here, Bushi feels the same for both JP and EN format. I'm surprised the old VG was cheap to build compare what we have now, I guess back then Bushi only had Weiss Schwarz as a global release. Although the only downside was buying 4 TDs since some cards only had 1 copy in the deck.

I shouldn't be surprised that Flesh and Blood is more expensive than MTG considering that it was quite pricey when I first played the game. I guess now it surpassed MTG in terms of cost. I know is that these 2 I won't touch, although MTG Commander is not bad since we can only allow 1 copy in the deck except the manas, so building Commander deck can be cheaper if we are only aiming for 1 copy.

YGO is expensive, there's no alternative. Although the OCG format is a lot nicer than TCG as the pricing is cheap, and cards are easier to get. I don't know why TCG is a lot different in that way. For me, YGO is a game where I come and go, I only buy the cards if they support my Heroes and Synchrons deck. Otherwise, I won't really touch this game since getting the staples are pain with the pricing. I know it's only 3 copies, but sometime that 3 copies could end up 1 fully built One Piece deck or 2 if the deck you've made had cheap SRs and no SEC. I could play Master Duel and focus on the OCG format, but I am not a big fan of grinding. I know it would be worth it in the end when you get the cards you need, but that will still take time to do, and I don't have much time to do that.

Personally, I don't know how accurate is the video when it comes to TCG pricing, but at least it give us a guide in what games we could play. My budget is around $100-$150 for a competitive deck. Any more and I consider that deck expensive to build, especially during global inflation crisis. Well, I do spend some money on gacha games, and gunplas, that's also the reason why I don't want to spend too much on card games. I have my priorities. If Gundam TCG is expensive, then I would have to drop it and focus on solely on gunplas.