Konami's Price Inflation or Why Yugioh is So Expensive

[@mechanizedMytha]

honestly if they adopted the ocg rarity upgrade model (witch, mind you, was part of the tcg originally but got gutted later, think of super rares and ultimate rares) it would lead to overall more money by sheer volume of players buying product. not only are konami's practices predatory, they are idiotically inefficient.

[@StrawHatGamingg]

But people still buy it

[@mechanizedMytha]

@@StrawHatGamingg do they have a choice to play in person? most folks are literally out-costed off tournaments, can't afford to compete

[@beastyms]

I do wish yugioh would be cheaper. It would make it easier to then still play meta decks while spending money on my stupid rouge deck that I want at max rarity... :/

[@GuessWhatHappened1]

Mytha way aren't cards of the same rarity in the same set printed at the same ratios the same price?

[@mechanizedMytha]

@@GuessWhatHappened1 that's not my point, i'm just saying we're getting lotta worse value than the OCG

[@PaladinThunder02]

This is partly explains why so many competitive players (ycs topping) do not own their decks but rather they get sponsored to play at high level events by whales/card shops

[@four-en-tee]

That's really depressing to think about. I happen to really enjoy buying and owning physical decks, and the only reason i could feasibly get into Yugioh and start my collection last year was because Joe Biden literally gave everyone a thousand dollars with no strings attached, lol. If thats not indicative of the problem with the second hand market, idk what is.

[@Raz0rIG]

@@four-en-tee There's no such thing as free money with no strings attached. Gov doesn't give you free money, it simply steals money from you in the future and everyone else. If you know how money as a concept works and inflation you'd know that just printing money translates into stealing money from everyone in the economy. To illustrate this, imagine you're in a small community where there was only $100 total in the economic pool. Everyone who owns $1 owns 1/100th of the wealth of the entire economy, now if some shmuck gov official of that community just started saying they are going to make more money so that it increases to $200 dollars, well the prices will change to reflect that and now you're 50% less wealthy since your money relative to the economic pool is less of a ratio. So they are just stealing from you from a backhanded way, and your savings in your bank is now 50% less valuable relative to the amount of money in circulation. That's why inflation is always wrong and bad. Inflation isnt necessary nor is it good for the economy, just think logically about this instead of accepting what is the status quo. It's insane, how brain dead people are with the concept of money.

[@hieinh]

@@four-en-tee Trump gave you free money too

[@powerfulberry237]

@@hieinh after taking away more so we tend to ignore that clown and his followers

[@powerfulberry237]

Then be a competitive player You literally showed us how anyone can play this game for free with sponsors

[@infamousblight6281]

For all newer players, DONT BUY SEALED BUY THE SINGLES. Don’t buy sealed thinking it’s gonna be so much cheaper when you pull that secret rare, the odds of you pulling it are horrible

[@dat1ytcomment262]

Learning this with Walmart blisters rip lol

[@kaibeh]

I opened 3 boxes of burst of destin and actually made like $350 profit since I got three dpes and like 2 ecclesias lol

[@shendelzarescathach1674]

The issue with buying singles is being sold out

[@Danzroo]

@@shendelzarescathach1674 were are you looking lol

[@lewys9204]

What about albaz strike, shaddoll and salamangreat or dragon link sealed products that were and still are meta.

[@SloopYGO]

i mean this is part of why master duel is so popular, even if youre building a meta deck full of UR staples you dont need to pay any money (and you can always make multiple accs)

[@seekertosecrets]

Wish I could make a second account on my Swtich.

[@crossdaboss8914]

@@seekertosecrets you can you just make another account on the switch itself then use that account on master duel

[@Dinsho_]

I’m very glad that the ocg handles master duel. Don’t want to know how expensive everything would be if the tcg would be in charge

[@suisui5930]

@@Dinsho_ meanwhile TCG players: I rather spend 600$+ for brave engine and get fucked by mystic mine rather than playing against maxx C

[@powerfulberry237]

@@suisui5930 tcg players are special kinds of dumb

[@diamonddust4486]

Everything mentioned in this video us certainly frustrating, but the fact that OCG handles cards so much better makes every TCG problem infuriating.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

It's an issue I've been saying for years and it's good that people are finally starting to understand how much better the ocg is.

[@darkglass3011]

I would like to make the distinction that it is Konami of America (KOA) that's being anti-consumer. OCG land has better prices, better pull rates, still has Ghost and Ultimate rare cards for the collectors, AND their cards are made of a much more durable material so they last longer.

[@johnathanlemus5584]

And yet the playerbase still buys it. It’ll nerve change.

[@deanthelemur1716]

@@johnathanlemus5584 we dont have a choice

[@Goblin_Hands]

They do get better rarities, artworks, and products. Examples being we still don't have Blue-Eyes art with Kaiba or ultimate alternate from years ago, stuff like One For One is still hard to get Holo or other cards like Rokket Recharger, Galactic Spiral, Nebula Dragon, are all non Holo, some stuff like the First Darklord is Super Rare only (the boss of a deck full of secret rates), or the Branded/Despia cards get reprints other than the good ones, but other unplayable cards that nobody cares about get several Holo reprints. Ra Sphere Mode wasn't printed in the Marik set despite being the best Ra, Toon Kingdom wasn't in the Toon Chaos set, Magician's Souls took uncomfortably long for a reprint, we have gotten several Pot of Extravagances, but Prosperity has been the better card since before the first Extravagance. Common Ash is $30 now and feels pretty strange, as does gold lettered Toadally Awesome, which was passed up as the Ghost rare in the new set for 101. Harpie's Feather Duster is cheap in the OCG with really cool rarity's, like the Alternate art millennium or secret rare. We never got Millennium Rare, or KC Rare, or that fancy Prismatic Egyptian God Collector's set that came with the shiny sleeves and cases and special rare God cards, we didn't have Ghost Rares for a long time, just barely getting Ghost Blue-Eyes that the OCG had for like a decade, we still don't have Magi Magi, and stuff like Cherubini, Halq, Condemned Darklord, Minerva, Drascension etc were either $1000 prize cards or OCG only for 3+ years.

[@MultiJudgmentdragon]

@@deanthelemur1716 you have the choice to stop buying so thats a lame excuse its not like its food or essentials

[@MultiJudgmentdragon]

Not by choice, asia have better gambling laws and restrictions so they have to be more transparent about their products, we can only hope the west will someday implement these laws to

[@aquatrez]

I'd really like to see some influential members in the Yugioh community organize a boycott of buying the next set. Doesn't need to be everyone and it doesn't need to be forever, but I think it would make a statement and hopefully garner some media attention.

[@yoko_bby]

players and youtubers dont really buy boxes, i think it would need to be big vendors that boycot since that who these players get boxes from

[@kanehearth]

@@yoko_bby if people dont buy boxes from the vendors, then vendors wont buy more boxes, at least the majority.

[@yoko_bby]

@@kanehearth the problem with that is that the people taking the loss in that situation isnt konami but the stores. the vendors ordering already means konami got paid

[@kanehearth]

@@yoko_bby yes unfortunately at first it’ll be the vendors, and a lot of stores especially where I live have very few yugioh players buying from them already. It only takes a few sets selling poorly for vendors to start buying less and less, and with vendors already seeing less and less sales for yugioh it won’t be that big of a loss in the grand scheme of things. Dimension force is already seeing less sales than typical for new sets from what I’ve heard, so yugioh is already headed down this route, but we as a community can speed up this process and hopefully one day see Konami adjust the sets pull rate so yugioh can be cheaper to play. Sorry if my sentence are all over the place, I’m fucking tired lol.

[@kanehearth]

I would also like to add that yugioh does so poorly where I live that I can’t find a locals for yugioh that isn’t more than 4-5 hours away

[@HarmlessRealityBreaker]

Worst thing is, the common card pool is oftern times filled with so many useless cards that konami know are useless. Besides a few archtypes or reprints of old staples that were already power crept/new "staples" that came out powercrept.

[@GlennYarwood]

When you open a pack and every card is basically useless 🙄

[@justice8718]

Power crept decks can return from a few new cards.

[@dimman3607]

Yeah double down on that bro, opening gfp2h and finding cards like Mystical Sand and Sandwitch or Rare fish. Gtfo with those crap cards at least make them commons

[@cv_justice4774]

To be clear here , the Handtrap Staples (Ashe, Imperm, Belle, Veiller) for 150 bucks are the REPRINT prices, not the secret rare or max rarity version of these cards. The 150$ is the budget version for handtraps which is kinda hilarious

[@mrbubbles6468]

Your getting cheated out if your spending 150 on just those cards. That is not the correct price at all.

[@cv_justice4774]

@@mrbubbles6468 absolutly depends when you bought them....even today you spend 15$ each for a copy of ashe. Year or two ago Imperm was above 20$ a copy too. But yeah today yif you just go for the budget version you can buy everything for maybe 60 to 80$

[@grafzeppelin4069]

@@mrbubbles6468 No, we're talking about the price on first printing, which is the correct price to use. The second Ash was printed, every player NEEDED a playset, or else you weren't playing the same game as the people who did buy it. Therefore, cards should always be judged on their secondary market price on first printing.

[@donavandavis7710]

​@GrafZeppelin a playset of ash was almost 300 on first print!

[@ChosenOne-il4bm]

its you people fault for not playing fun decks natually instead og blaming the compnay for you always wanting to win

[@ShockSlayer]

It's been a bit disheartening to get back into the game with friends via Master Duel (which is already a top heavy F2P model,) which sparks a genuine interest in all of us in getting back into the source material, only to find that it's extremely expensive to get anything built, be it staples or deck-specific required cards. My personal example is I've loved Dark Magician forever, and want to play with real cards not only because I have a lot of modern-enough cards, but also fun cards like Magikuriboh aren't even in Master Duel. But in anything resembling the current format, getting anything done with the deck without 3x Magicians' Souls and 3x Soul Servant is impossible, and I already can't reasonably drop that much, let alone generic staples and the extra deck stuff which could be banned anytime. This video does a great job of covering what's happening.

[@nightshard7651]

Honestly yugioh has always been expensive depending on the format but now it’s every format. Still it will never get as bad as dragon ruler format where the only two playable decks were over 1000 dollars

[@mechanizedMytha]

just give it some time, konami can and will do worse EDIT: well hello tier 0 format

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Truth

[@chrismiller3548]

@Thiago Silva only a few hundred is still ridiculous

[@conrase3520]

Just saying splight and Tearalaments 😂

[@four-en-tee]

Im just glad I bought into Evil Twins early before the waifu tax finally kicked in. I saved approximately 100 dollars by simply being an early adopter. Not sure what that means long-term though, but I dont plan on selling them anyways.

[@eduardowhiteknight6110]

I worked at a casino and I think all our gambling machines were made from Konami. So it's not really a surprise that they have this shady practice.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Please no bully my painting skills. I tried on those models even if Tigrus needs help.

[@RvBnerd618]

At least you know how to thin your paints. :3

[@juliansoria7733]

The worst part is how this is completelly different in OCG. In OCG, the highest rarity is actually Ultra Rare, while Secret, Ultimate and Collector/Parallel/whichever is the equivalent to Starlight are just an Alt Rarity. Fun fact, Super Rares and even some Rares can have said Alt Rarities. Not to mention the quality of the cards and the Ultimates are so beautiful. Meanwhile, TCG not only make Secrets the fucking highest rarity, but they have the guts to put Ultimates as OTS exclusive, forget about Ghost for years and turn them for a box set like Ghost from the Past, said box set also is house of cards that were originally Structure Deck in Japan but now they are box set, certain cards like Moonlight Leo Dancer are only present as Super while in Japan they have more rarities, and that's just naming a few of them, I haven't even mentioned "trivial" things like censoring cards or changing the text of Normal Monsters (Like Avram Mekk Knight), or worse like with Alubert and it's search effect for Despian cards, instead of Branded. And the worst part? PEOPLE STILL BUY THEM. In my case, I stopped, last thing I did buy from them was the binder of Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight and that was last year, prior to that after the ban of Electrumite and the limit of Servant of Endymion, I stopped supporting them. I would rather buy OCG products instead, and I encourage you to do the same if you want to collect or just play the game. Like, just look for a card you like that has an Ultimate version, and you see the differences for naming just one example. Excellent video by the way!

[@Sickness4daThickness]

There's around 1700 languages in the world and you my friend decided to speak the truth. The condescending way in how TCG treats the players is ridiculous, I've speak about it with my gf and even she gets like "then why are they still buying?". The only chance for us to make a change is to stop buying the crap they throw at us but so many players are way reluctant to do so, it boggles my mind.

[@andrewhunter596]

@@Sickness4daThickness my only guess is sunk cost fallacy. A lot of players (myself included) have bought into hype/meta relevant decks at least once in their life only to see their investment decrease in value due to reprints, or straight up banned or powercrept by konami. I think so many players are in denial of losing on their investment in the game and move on from it. I normally sell my meta decks early on to make back some of my money, even if it's only like 70%, but I've met players who hold onto a meta deck until it gets flat out banned or reprinted and tank simply because they couldn't accept selling the deck for less than what they spent and get stuck with a dead deck core.

[@JJSquirtle]

Everyone would be buying OCG cards if they were allowed at Konami of America-Sanctioned events (aside from Worlds)

[@theholy1191]

There's another part that you missed that I think is also extremely scummy and should count for bait-and-switch violations: Why the hell do upper Yugitubers seem to always get absolutely amazing pull rates? If I had to guess, is that for promotional reasons, they often get rigged boxes for cards that Konami knows people are gonna want and make sure that's in the box. This incentivizes people to go out and buy the product, only to make less than a sixth of their money back when the Yugitubers often make 10+ bucks more back off of 65+ dollar sets due to what can be described as godlike pulls, and in many cases, they often pull a shortprint that people want as well. My guess is this is why there has never been a boycott, Konami has been sucking up to the more influential people to keep them silent. Even worse, when they do speak up about this issue, or even called out for this scummy practice, they suddenly get blacklisted like Cimo did, and thus are refused the product and even get invitations revoked for simply having some concerns. This coming down would be a HUGE step forward but is also likely why we're still in this predatory mess.

[@umbertorossin5977]

I'm speaking as basically a complete ignorant of the yugituber world but I think that they just open a lot more packs and maybe edit the pulls so the video gets more exciting? I repeat that you most likely know a lot more about me about this topic but my first guess is that they just buy so many packs that it's almost guaranteed to get what would be a great pull for any normal player. Please feel free to correct me if anything I'm saying is blatantly wrong and they just open like one box instead.

[@luchotenks2310]

@@umbertorossin5977 Why can't both be true? Their konami sponsored videos can use the rigged boxes while their regular content is heavily edited instead.

[@umbertorossin5977]

@@luchotenks2310 I didn't know Konami sponsored some of their videos. I guess that may be the case

[@dionjones6300]

Cimoooooooo sometimes seems to be an outlier. Dzeef will shit on a box and still get a promo box 2 weeks later. Yes you are right

[@four-en-tee]

I mean, Dzeef has horrible pull rates, but i imagine that other Yugitubers just buy in bulk and record their reaction towards a good box opening (unless its one of those "i open boxes until i pull a ghost rare" videos that SamuraiX does, or is one of those early set opening videos).

[@misan4ik]

Me and my cousin started to play yugioh causaly again for the first time since 2004. I bought 2 modern ish decks from ebay, by individual buying Cards. It is ended up cheaper than buying box with boosters.

[@mrbubbles6468]

That holds true for every game

[@FinestRakuyo]

I feel it's also worth mentioning about the horrendous quality control as of late (i.e. Grand Creators and Dimension Force cases having clumped Collector Rares/Starlight Rares in the respective sets which translates into some cases getting way more than the average amount and other cases getting none of these variants at all). The Albaz Strikes structure deck is hands down the worst quality control I've seen with cards that are SEALED damaged from the get go with whitening/scuff marks.

[@jimmyha1898]

You forgot Ghosts from the Past ghost rares that were waxed and even dented straight from pack. Absolutely horrendous control.

[@jamesbn23]

Ghost from the past 2 conditions are absolute garbage, the best quality was back in early 2000 to 2013 and Konami stopped giving a shit.

[@JJSquirtle]

@@jamesbn23 Upperdeck Printing cards was so much better, I really wish that they never made those knock-offs

[@jamesbn23]

@@JJSquirtle yes and the Holo was good, now it just looks like cheap foil

[@MoskalMedia]

I've had quality control issues with the Cyber Strike structure deck, the Albaz structure deck, and my boxes The Grand Creators and Dimension Force. It's gotten noticeably bad.

[@mattyorshin]

This is why I don't play meta. I never spend over 20$ for a card

[@goldwalker5652]

Something that really frustrates me is that non archetype staples like droplets and prosperity are extremely expensive, when back in the day staples like pot of greed were rares and could reasonably be pulled by any kid who got a couple packs

[@ich3730]

remember when every starter deck came with a set of all the limited staples? ( pot, COH, dark hole, reborn, charity ). Now its considered "great" if a structure deck comes with a semi-decent handtrap

[@j0j0dartiste21]

@@ich3730 i wouldn't be surprised if the main reason Albaz is so popular right now it's because the structure deck is so good that people have so many lying around and they just go "well, what the hell" and device to just use it

[@four-en-tee]

@@j0j0dartiste21 I mean, it has a lot of good cards in it outside of the Branded cards. It had Scythe, Ghost Ogre, Called By, Scythe and Extravagence. Thats pretty decent.

[@shakeweller]

The problem is most of the people going to YCS have so much money that none of this matters. Some fly from Europe to NA just to lose X-3 in Swiss. As long as people whale on cards nothing will change.

[@vipersniperpiper6093]

The thing I hate the most about Yugioh is the it’s competitive scene has completely overtaken the entirety of yugioh. It’s basically impossible to play casually because of how obsessed the community is for the competitive. It’s to the point where you HAVE to get staples,for a LOCALS,not even in a ycs tournament or anything. Konami have always been wanting money for a while,they have panchinko machines,save file microtransactions in the newest metal gear game,been heavily focusing in other businesses for money,nft auctions for the anniversary of castlevania. Ffs,they have even blackmailed people who left Konami to make sure they never get in the game industry again. Thank god,I don’t play the tcg and only play master duel. Say what you will about it being less balanced then the tcg but at least I can make multiple decks FOR FREE,rather then wasting hundreds for a couple of cards. The most frustrating part is people making excuses for Konami doing some of this horrible shit. I have a lot of problems with yugioh’s community,Konami handling it and some other stuff but those might be rants for another time.

[@IYIosefu]

Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't have a real casual audience anymore. "Casual" these days is just mostly the same hardcore players playing non meta decks, but the goal is still to build the most competitive/optimized version of that deck with all the good staples. Yu-Gi-Oh has a huge problem with getting new players and alienating the old players who don't like the modern style of the game, so Konami is left milking the whales who have stuck with the game until they can.

[@KojaVukovic]

Facts, "hardcore" dudes ruined Yugioh for casuals. Its pretty much similar to how wrestling was ruined by bunch of smarks and is not mainstream anymore. Same goes to Yugioh word by word.

[@MEGASTRIX]

@@IYIosefu True. People tend to look at a card and say that its "TRASH" if it isnt borderline OP or close to being banned. Accumulate this thinking and casual decks are no longer a thing eventually.

[@IYIosefu]

@@MEGASTRIX It's really the rise of internet that made everything more competitive. "Playground Yu-Gi-Oh" is a derogatory term, but in reality, most people have fond memories of it. I played Yu-Gi-Oh all the time with a group during middle school, and we always knew there was a meta and didn't have the best cards/decks, but we didn't really care since there was no internet to costantly compare ourselfes with others, and everyone reserved the same low budget on the game anyway. That era is completely gone nowadays.

[@simonpetrikov3992]

@@IYIosefu yeah and most people are very competitive

[@davidsparling9631]

You did it. You put the EXACT reason I quit yugioh into one video. I live in one of the most LGS heavy areas in the world and only about 2 of them sell yugioh singles now... because they know they won't make money from buying them

[@BlackKaiserDrake]

I got a Duel Devestator from Walmart a while ago for 30-40 USD. That same box is now going for over 70 USD on TCGPlayer and Amazon. My main guess as to why this is happening? Ass Blassum is in DUDE as is Effect Veiler and Ghost Belle.

[@Lollbunzee]

I laughed when the 'abysmally bad secret rares' were introduced. The last two secrets I pulled just so happen to be Kosmochlor, and Sales Ban.

[@YaNoob1234]

I pulled kosmochlor the other day and I ate the card when I learned how much it was worth, gotta feed myself somehow 🤷‍♂️

[@MoskalMedia]

I got The Zombie Vampire and Sales Ban from my Battles of Chaos box. Sales Ban is, by far, the worst secret rare I've ever pulled from a box. I know Icejade isn't great competitively, but their artwork is beautiful at least. Sales Ban being a secret rare feels like a slap in the face!

[@vanesslifeygo]

Short prints are completely unethical. If they didn't restrain their policy, I'd have never bought a pack again in my life.

[@sharizart]

This is exactly why I stopped playing Yugioh, even if I love the game and have money. I was too young to realize about this being a scam, played between 2005-2012, and just one day I saw it, that no matter how much money you spend, you were just going to have to keep spending, they decide what you have to play.

[@trumpeter811]

Something else I think you forgot to mention is the impact of social media influencers on the game. They either generally act as if that $800 price of entry to have the staples isn't a big deal OR in some cases encourage buying out cards to scalp and screw over other players.Yes this isn't Konami themselves but when Konami does sponsor these people regularly u can't deny the impact these creators have for brushing over the accessibility of yugiohs price wall. Also we've seen with master duel Konami can make the game affordable and accessable, they just refuse to with there irl practices at least for the tcg.

[@Josh5698]

I like what they have done recently with the new structure deck release. Most of the cards in the product are meta relevant and it is very affordable. I am hoping this is the new standard for Konami's future structure deck releases.

[@angelo9024]

Yeah but they still cut good cards from the deck. In the OCG Albaz Strike had ice dragons prison and the cyberdark deck had lightning storm. Sure they didn’t cut all the meta staples out of these decks but they’re still not giving us everything because Konami is a greedy company.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Yep now just buy the 250$ extra deck

[@Josh5698]

@@MonkeyFightTCG at least you save money on the main deck so you have more money to waste on the extra😂

[@four-en-tee]

@@Josh5698 We shouldnt be having to spend this much period. Yugioh doesnt exactly have a cheaper official format of the TCG (unlike MTG, which has standard). Its because of this probably why a lot kids i knew growing up played MTG in high school. Its really easy to get into Standard. To "get into" Yugioh nowadays, you at the very least need modern staples like hand traps and shit on top of whatever deck you're wanting to play, or else you'll be at a severe disadvantage. In my case, I play Twins, so ideally it would benefit me to play either Droplet or Prosperity in my deck, but since they're unobtainable, I play Belle and Droll as well as a Mystic Mine + Generaider package and either play midrange or stall out my opponent until I'm sure that I have a solid shot at taking them out. Im sure people would hate playing against me casually due to this play style, but its whats affordable. Mine is stupidly cheap for whatever reason. Personally, I just hope we'll get Prosperity in a super rare print at some point.

[@lightning2279]

@@four-en-tee I can't blame you dude. You have to get what is affordable. Even if it is not always fun to play against.

[@Soilent1999]

It's why I stick to dueling book or master duel. Paper is just way too expensive to get into.

[@michaellambiri790]

Honestly you kind of nailed this. I perfectly agree yugioh is expensive like crazy nowadays due to Konami actively screwing over players in the TCG. Really the only thing I disagree with is that staples are necessary for locals. They really aren't provided your locals isn't crazy competitive. I've played budget decks and perfectly-optimized decks at locals and done well with both. Just depends on where you play. Doesn't justify TCG prices though. Not to mention OCG rarities look hella nice.

[@crossdaboss8914]

This is why I quit the game recently I have been a budget player and it feels like I can't even play on a budget anymore at my locals cause people spend 800+ on a deck and act like they are just the better player it really gets on my nerves to lose to those people

[@robindeknijff5769]

I still remember the high pure amount of dopamine my brain got when pulling 2 Engage from 1 box when I only bought the set for Vampire support I still have that box to never forget

[@dragon_shrine]

This is a very well made video on an issue that really need to be address, thank you for making it. It baffles me how the TCG side didn't choose to adopt the solution already implemented by the OCG side of the game.

[@ZackeroniAndCheese]

Short printing started way before Brionac. Crush Card Virus in Gold 2008 was severely short printed

[@hoshi314]

I Hard disagreed on whoever said YGO needed Set Rotation (the practice, not the card), i quit MTG standard because most of my green card got banned and the inevitability of all of my card going unusable except in Commander

[@slaytheminion]

I started 2 weeks ago with Yugioh again after a 10 year break. Nothing has changed, but i said to myself, i play it like back then in my childhood. Buying Packs, having fun with trading and playing decks i have fun with, even if they aren't meta... I'm building a Blackwings deck right now which was my absolute favorite deck back then. Sure, I won't win any tournament but thats not really my goal if i'm playing Yugioh...

[@erickkisreal9398]

just you wait for the upcoming support...

[@dragonMaster24921]

@James Barton-Johns this isn't exactly true every locals is different. Good example in my locals this past weeis was 9/25 (thats amall) people I saw were 9n despia. There was an adventure therioN ABC. Adventure phantom knight. That's just from a glance and the weakest despia player was still in top 8. Yes people play for fun. But fun is a nebulous term that can't really quantify where people get said fun from. So what might love having brain stumping games that require precise timing to beat. Whilst other just like despis. Or sword soul. Which just happens to be the best deck right now.

[@Eyeshield11721]

One year later and this video is still very relevant today. They just murdered the lower rarity cheaper top decks on the banlist so you’re forced to buy the more expensive and newer ones. Man, Komoney are a bunch of thieves.

[@MxSlfDstrct]

I'm not a YGO player, but I think that it's absolutely absurd that we as TCG players just accept the fact that comp decks cost hundreds of dollars in the first place. why does a deck of playing cards cost as much as a new game console and a stack of video games? utterly goddamn ridiculous. I started proxying all of my new magic cards at the start of the pandemic and I've never looked back. the "satisfaction" of having expensive cards in your collection is overwhelmingly outweighed by the pain of running into a money wall at your fucking weekly locals.

[@RvBnerd618]

I'm in the camp that Set Rotation isn't for every card game, and both Yu-Gi-Oh and Vanguard are one of them. The problem as you mentioned, is how Konami uses the ban list as a way to sell more products as apposed to try and make the game balanced. People want their cards to have value and to be able to use as much as possible, set rotation would work if those cards get reprinted, but sadly not every card that is perfectly fine gets this treatment in Magic and Pokemon. This is what brought me into Vanguard during the G Era, that game didn't prevented you from not playing any cards up until V Series, by making it so you either had to choose to play one of the other cards or can only have a limited amount of copies. Even still, I prefer Vanguard over Yu-Gi-Oh as not only is the game much more affordable, but Bushiroad's business practice has been better than Konami, if you were to look past having to reset the standard format twice in a short time. After watching this it makes me glad I'm not into the TCG anymore and won't anytime soon now that Master Duel is a game that you can still have success without investing too much into the game. So far my $80 has gotten me much further into MD than I would have in paper. The video game is far from perfect, but it is sad that it is the much more affordable way to play, and arguably not the best way to play, -The game for returning and newcomers. I've invested enough into the game, the prices on Gems is just not worth it unless they have a special sale, and even then it can all go to waste if you aren't careful with how you dismantle them for resources. So yeah, a lot to say about this children card game, sounds negative but I do still enjoy the game. It's too bad Konami is the Games Workshop of card games, up there with Wizards of the Coast too, which is a different topic for another time. Funny you've mentioned Warhammer, another game I had to get out of for different reasons other than that it was also expensive.

[@four-en-tee]

Whats funny is that shit like this nearly killed Vanguard (that, and having 20 non-mixable clans).

[@mrbubbles6468]

They did not really reset V format though. They still support it with side sets. Because when they first did G format they were going to have it be it’s own thing and people kicked up a storm. Which is why the next two times they changed format they announced all formats would get support.

[@mikhail7140]

Nekroz was the final format I played before I quit. I just couldn't justify using my $1200 Nekroz deck when I knew it was going to get hit on the ban list. It's sad to see the problem is even worse now. It's even more sad how Master Duel is cheaper than the paper game. Don't forget Sixth Sense was like a $40 common because it was short printed.

[@tenebrisdumplin4583]

I exclusively play Yu-Gi-Oh online because it's generally freemium games like master duel or duel links. I can jump in and play around with cool cards for minimal cost. If card costs were closer in line with a game like pokemon I'd seriously consider buying enough product to make a deck and head out to some locals, but I just don't have ~1,000 USD to blow on a potentially very volatile card game.

[@four-en-tee]

They really need to just legalize OCG prints at tournaments. We could still use the TCG card pool and rulings, and players with OCG cards in their decks would just play using solid sleeves that hide the backs of their cards. Bada bing, bada boom, problem solved. It'd make people who spent hundreds of dollars mad, but you cant make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Not to mention that it'd force Konami to make the TCG's sets affordable again.

[@healmachine5526]

@@four-en-tee why not print the cards ourselves.. all cards for everyone.

[@Quasartist]

In response to a good chunk of the comments, I think it's simply too late in the game for Yugioh to adopt a Set Rotation style of deck building and playing. The way things go are very odd, between reprints and new support for old sets. Take Shaddoll Schism for example. In the set it was released, is it just support for an older deck that Konami is throwing a bone, or does Schism inherently invite the entire Shaddoll card pool to be in current play despite being "rotated out?" You know what I mean? I suppose they could just release support for older cards exclusively in side sets to offset this, but I feel like there's a lot I'm oversimplifying and/or overlooking here. There's also the issue of general playability. Part of the beauty of Yugioh is that you can use any card from any time period in any deck if you want. Imagine you've been out of the game since ABC Dragon Buster was meta. You come back to locals, decide you wanna play, and whip out Ole Reliable and start making your plays. But you immediately get disqualified because you didn't bring "standard" cards since you've been out of the game for so long, and so you're either forced to not play that night or spend money you don't have or don't want to spend on new cards you don't know how to play with. Especially coupled with Konami's awful booster pack ratios, if they don't change the numbers while implementing this (all in theory, of course). I feel like this would leave a very bad taste in people's mouths and be detrimental to the game as a whole, even worse than when MR4 came out and destroyed the playability of MANY decks. As well as forcing people to spend more and more money at least 4 times a year with their quarterly core set release pattern they currently have. I also think that part of what makes Yugioh more approachable is the fact that anybody can go out and buy a couple of packs right now, and be certain that they can use their 15+ year old cards (ban list and new errata notwithstanding) with whatever they pull out of those packs. In order for a set rotation to work I think they would need to put in significantly more effort for each set, with many archetypes already fleshed out well enough to stand on their own (instead of releasing the base in one set then trickling a little more cards out with every core set) kind of like how MtG has 300+ card sets sometimes for standard play, but I just simply don't think Konami is able or willing. Keeping with the MtG comparisons for a second, it also has significantly more leeway because ~30% of every deck is just lands, while also allowing 4 copies per card instead of 3 so it's much easier to build a deck in the game's predetermined ongoing parameters. There would need to be strong cards in a myriad of strategies released, but also cards that offer counterplay to those strong cards so that no singular deck puts the whole meta in a chokehold until the set rotates out. But they know they can just design 4 or 5 absolutely busted cards, short print them or print them in Secret Rare, and make their money back tenfold off of people hunting for them specifically, while only adding 120 other, comparatively irrelevant cards to the game, so I seriously doubt on many fronts that Konami would even consider a set rotation format. The only way I see it becoming possible to any degree is if some kind of higher law enforcement stepped in and made some new law about gambling and such like you explain in the video.

[@Nomorehero07]

I got into master duel when it came out and I was hooked. So hooked that I got my first structure deck which is the OCG strike of albaz structure deck. I do agree with you there about how they should have used the rarity system of the OCG in the TCG so that card prices wouldn't be this bad. Thank goodness that the country I live in (Philippines) uses OCG cards for their tournaments.

[@tabmasterbeats]

Great video! I got back into Yugioh via Master Duel, and the price of the actual card game scared me off of playing IRL. I had no idea why they were priced like that, and I find it really interesting. Even the crappy less-than-rogue decks I like playing are too expensive to be worth it because of some surprisingly expensive subpar cards

[@mrbubbles6468]

The reason they are proced like that is because they are actual physical cards and most Decks that people like playing go through periods of not being reprinted. Oh and the cards don’t rotate out. So one time purchase.

[@grafzeppelin4069]

I just bought almost everything I need for a brand-new Tier 1 Pokemon deck (Gardevior ex) for under $50. The only things I didn't get were a playset of Battle VIP Pass ($8) which I had anyway, Sky Seal Stone ($6) which is optional (but conditionally useful), and Radiant Greninja ($8) which is getting a reprint in a "structure deck" in May. In total, less than $75, and that's WITH shipping and some "rarity bumps" I wanted because why not. Lugia VSTAR? Under $100. Miraidon ex / Regieleki VMAX? Under $150. An entire deck costs less than a SINGLE COPY at release of ONE of: - Pot of Prosperity - Lightning Storm - Ash Blossom - Forbidden Droplet - Accesscode Talker The comparable staple cards in Pokemon - PokeComm, Quick Ball, Evo Incense, Marnie, Ultra Ball, Prof's Research, Boss' Orders, Level Ball, Nest Ball, Path to the Peak, etc - are typically under $2 per copy at release, and only very rarely as high as $5. Even rarer one-of staples like Crobat V, Lumineon V, and Radiant Greninja are typically less than $10, even on their first printing. For many cards, even the "premium version" is cheap enough to play with. Give collectors something to collect, and it makes the game far more accessible to everyone. Yugioh (the TCG, not OCG) is a dead game walking, and it's only a matter of time before people realize it's Weekend at Yugi's, with Konami-sycophantic whales propping up its rotting corpse.

[@hickknight]

Honestly, it's a missed opportunity for Konami to not clean house in the TCG by making it less expensive to play. I don't understand the logic at play here at all, considering what a success master duel is and seemingly continues to be. It's the perfect opportunity to bring in new players from master duel into the TCG and possibly sell more product. But no, the moment I want to try, so much of it is just so cost prohibitive. Even a budget deck easily costs upwards of 150-200 euros without side deck. It just baffles my mind as to why Konami thinks this is a great business practice. Although I hope the law doesn't catch up to TCGs being functionally gambling, i do hope some kind of law is made to prohibit how much singles cost or how boosters are constructed. I'm not smart enough to think of what needs to be done here, I just want games like these to be affordable, so more people can play them.

[@mrbubbles6468]

They think it’s good buisness because you technically only have to spend that amount of money once and you are good forever

[@Avalische]

years ago I wasn't really into TCG in general due to how confusing they were (shrimp brain then, slightly bigger shrimp brain now), thanks to Master Duel it actually taught me so much that I felt like I wanna really get into paper YGO.... only to find out the exact same dogmatika traptrix I love to use costs almost $800 and that's how I jumped into Vanguard OverDress, started with Kairi's trial deck to get the feel of the game and bought a cheap Wilista deck (thanks to your video) for less than $70, with the leftover I have I started slowly upgrading it with better cards from set 2

[@ich3730]

tbf playing traptrix in paper just makes people call FBI on u xD

[@floridaman6982]

Haha My friends and I have a banlist of $10. if a single card is more than that we aren’t playing it and its not allowed in the match. Makes things way more fun

[@dragonMaster24921]

Cool looks like I can't play any some necessary boss monsters like savage dragon for the deck intended. Or better yet hoe about those short printed cards like magicians souls' welp can't play dark magician now.

[@floridaman6982]

@@dragonMaster24921 NOPE no swingy staples or op engines, gotta be creative and use bad archtypes can’t net deck! I want to try draft format like team aps did but it’s hard to get the others on board

[@dragonMaster24921]

@@floridaman6982 yes... magician souls being OP. Totally

[@floridaman6982]

@@dragonMaster24921 ok lets focus on dark magican cards: sorry you like playing an anime deck which is one of the most notoriously expensive decks in yuigoh… that is rough and I feel your pain. Btw You are welcome to play however you like. I was mostly talking about “lightning storm, brave engine etc, verte (which is now banned) you know, the Topic of the video we are talking on. These cards most agree makes all the decks OP and samey and casual player are paywalled from the game.

[@dragonMaster24921]

@@floridaman6982 even then funny fact I can build pend magician scythe lock without spending over 10 dollars. Eldlich stun without using above 10 dollars. I gave you the most casual deck I could think of off the top of my head. You think I actually LIKE DM.

[@danielbanda5659]

As a yugioh collector and casual player I 100% agree with your claims. Yugioh in the TCG is way more ridiculously expensive compared to their OCG counterpart. I started collecting yugioh cards back in 2017 which is the year I stop playing meta all together because of the ridiculous card pool prices and devalues. I remembered I bought a set of DDS Dark Magician back then for almost $150 near mint per copy and now they’re over $1000. Meta staples typically don’t have more value for the collector because eventually they will get reprinted or the banlist hits it which makes it less valuable. My yugioh collection as it stands right now is worth almost $8,000 by itself and that’s from profit and years of investing highly vintage yugioh cards at their lowest price.

[@metaphobic]

Another issue i have close to that aspect is the fact the Konami keeps making new useless cards as opposed to reprinting cards that are hard to get. I've been meaning to build a Valkyrie deck for a long time but single copy of Ride of the valkyries is a massive $40, same for the other 2 three-offs. I'm not paying $360 for a casual deck.. It's real annoying to think of all the paper they waste making pack filler as opposed to reprinting essential pieces of older casual decks that aren't even meta. Talk about anti consumer...

[@animeking1357]

I agree. Stop printing useless cards and reprint the good shit.

[@otterfire4712]

Dragon Rulers were short printed back in the day. Rare copies of them (that was their rarity in their debut set) fetched for ~$6-10 each. For a Rare. I was playing budget Constellars at the time and my friend afforded to play the rogue Evilswarm during Dragon Ruler/Prophecy format, Mermails were still around, but they were rogue. Managed to pull a Blaster from one of the few packs I bought from that set, it's my favorite and I still have him with Sparks.

[@synergy4658]

I agreed with everything said here. As a new player, I'm VERY frustrated at both card prices, and power creep. I bought Halquifibrax for 80, and in just under a month, dropped to a couple of bucks. It honestly made me so angry that I didn't even want to touch my cards for a while. Then again, I pulled Baronne De Flur off one booster pack I bought at Walmart, then proceeded to sell it at my local card shop. That made me feel like I slapped Konami in the face lol

[@butterguardian7063]

I'm from a country where a price of a booster box can last me a month of food 💀. Seeing Konami's shitty marketing practice has made me go down the hole of oricas, cheap fun/non meta decks, and buying _valuable_ structure decks only💀💀💀

[@GURKENGOTT]

The powercreep isn't as bad as many people like to make it look like. Of course, Yugioh isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, but we didn't really have a significant power level increase since 2017.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Zoodiac > sky strikers > drytron > splight. I wish you were right but it's not a small amount of power creep.

[@GURKENGOTT]

I don't think that anything could top Zoodiac, except Splight. But at least Splight has big weaknesses against Droll and going second, Zoo didn't really have that.

[@HighImPoe]

I don’t mind paying money for cards. But when your cards bend and fold so easy right out of the pack it’s hard to want to buy anything new.

[@AlchemistKai]

6:14 This is now further proven seeing the most recent banlist. Banning Verte, Prank kids meow, and auroradon. Prank kids went from easily being a tier 3 or higher deck to being completely unusable by banning meow-mu (which was already limited to 1 before the ban) and by banning verte, DPE (a card that used to be in every deck that could use fusions and was a over $100 staple that was required to compete with other decks) dropped to around $30 and now the card barely sees play outside of strictly HERO decks Edit: Just finished the video. THIS MAN PREDICTED MEOW-MU BAN

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

I didn't it was out before hand. Although thanks for the complement

[@AlchemistKai]

@@MonkeyFightTCG ohh

[@alastoralex4828]

I started playing yugioh on febreary and it sucks to spend 400 dollars on a shitty deck and in order to make it more playable u have to pt on 400 more dollars, I personally dropped the idea of buying more cards on TCG advance format, I am actually looking forward to main speed duel.

[@kanehearth]

we should start a movement in the community to have konami structure sets like they do in the OCG. EDIT: my idea is to boycott products and try and get lots of bigger yugi tubers to speak out about this, and to try and get them on board.

[@erickkisreal9398]

the question is do yugioh players have enough self control to do the boycott?

[@kanehearth]

@@erickkisreal9398THATS SO FUCKING TRUE, AND I CAN BARELY HOLD IN THE URGE

[@kanehearth]

@@erickkisreal9398 I’m literally trying to get into digimon tcg to help cope

[@luchotenks2310]

@@erickkisreal9398 That's the real queation here. The battle is against what makes this predatory business practices possible: consummerism, not just Konami.

[@four-en-tee]

@@erickkisreal9398 No, they dont. The answer is to stop supporting them until they speak up more about it. They're ultimately the figure heads of the community, and they have enough sway in some cases to even influence future ban lists (its why Yata got off the list, MBT made his case for both it and Time Seal). Point being: If we can pressure them to be more vocal about this shit, things might get better and Konami might listen. Obviously its not a sure fire thing, but if we could explain to Konami how fixing this issue would convince more people to be willing to buy packs and boxes again, i feel like they would listen because then everyone would be happy. Konami would make more money from their product outside of sellers buying in bulk (since regular customers would want to start buying packs and boxes again, meaning that sellers would buy even more product), and Konami would still make shit loads of money. They could still do the short print secret rares and shit every now and then and still do occassional chase cards, but so long as a lower rarity print exists thats much more accessible, people wont really bitch about it. It would just take someone with a business background in the YGO community to explain why going back to the OCG pack model would benefit everyone.

[@PaladinfffLeeroy]

At this point you'd have to buy the cards right away even at Sneakpeek prices because the rates of the pulls and the interest in the secondary market has not spiked up too high yet. I had hopes that King Regulus would drop from the initial €40 to €30. Wait 1 day. BOOM €66... Welp. Looked like I only bought one because I cannot afford this ridiculous bullshit. I compensated by buying two Lily Borea's because that was significantly cheaper at €14 a piece. Look at the price of her now. €34 minimum... I was lucky to pull 2 secret rares from the set out of two random packs and 1 secret rare during the Sneakpeek. The Sneak pull was Alba-Lenatus, which, honestly, held it's pre-release pricing decently. The other 2 secrets were, of course, Scareclaw Tri-Heart and Visas Starfrost... Which sit at €6,50 and €3,75 respectively. With only a rate of 2 secret rares in most boxes you would have expected them to be worth roughly the same. NOT. Because of fucking short printing. They say they do not short print in main sets anymore but I do not believe them. And if true the pull rate for secret rares makes sure the secrets will still be rare as phuck. Heck. Dimension Force has 1, I count: 1!!!, high-value secret rare. 3 mid-value secrets and 5 cheap-ass-fuck secrets that sometimes even drop below €5... Some of the good Ultra rares are worth more than the secret rares and ultra's have double the rate of pulling ~4 per box. (Yes, 4. Not between 6 and 8. Those numbers are fake. Every box I have seen opened had 3-5 ultra's). This shit is fucked up. It seems you have to be early with buying highly sought after cards in the presale these days instead of waiting for more stock to roll onto the card market. I count myself lucky to have bought Lily and Discodisco for much less than they are now. Or when I saw that dragonmaids came out. I bought them all on release day instantly for like €15 for Kitchens, which shot up to €30+ very quickly. I bought Chamber Dragonmaids for €10 a piece which then shot up to €90 because dragonlink was meta. The prices in this cardgame are fucked up. I wish Konami would print at least the staples in common or super rarity so that players on a lower budget could enter the game too. Prosperity? Super. Droplets? Super. That would make the metagame accessible to a lot more players. I recently picked up an entire deck core for Springans because I thought they looked cool and they have a unique gimmick. €7,50. seven. fucking. fifty. The entire deck, pretty much, without the staples, is cheaper than 1 handtrap. If the staples were all common/super I could afford to buy more of them so I do not have to switch between decks that I want to play. And you know they could damn well do this instead of printing garbage commons that will see no play whatsoever. I get that they want money and that they are one of the most greedy corporations out there. But I would love to see more consumer friendly practices. Though, the strange thing is, Konami is actually quite store friendly. One of my locals has almost never had any problems with Konami. In the mean time: Wizards of the Coast have brooms up their ass when it comes to stores while also pandering to the current trends by pretending to be part of the movements the trends are based one. LGBTQA+2S or however long they want to make their acronym is actively being preyed on by Wizards of the Coast for marketing. Luckily that is something Konami does not do... Yet.

[@eliascsjunior]

We, gay people, are really aware of these practices and we dont go spending recklessly on pink money grabbing products. We make some buzz due to the importance of representation, but we surely can different aggressive marketing from good practices.

[@four-en-tee]

Thats about how i felt waiting for Guardian Chimera to reach its low point before the sudden spike. I waited too long, and now its 45 dollars a copy.

[@megustaeltema]

I stopped from play yugioh when Komoney make a normal rare card like parallel exceed a SHORTPRINT EVEN A NORMAL RARE CARD IS SHORTPRINT

[@extremelyvividcardgames7890]

It's really sad.........I've wanted to get back into yugioh for ages even just casually, but all the decks I want to build like egyptian gods, cyber dragons, elemental heroes, ect (I am on OG from when it first came out) usually have 3+ cards with a $30+ price tag that require you to play 3 of to make the deck not brick. It just makes the barrier to entry extremely hard, especially if you're an adult with other expenses where you can't afford to prioritise spending $90 for a playset of 1 card.

[@dragonMaster24921]

Cydra can play without most staples... just get the ash and your good blind second then otk

[@Benjamin_w02]

Just wanted to say your videos are always so informative and well produced, love it! Thanks for using your platform to talk about issues like this, I’ve been trying to get people into the game but they’re often put off by the price hopefully one day Konami will take notice and we can have a much bigger and healthy community for this game

[@amazedalloy]

I wish they'd do away with random product all together. Instead of 100 card sets, cut the 40+ cards that are objectively terrible and sell the rest in something like the speed duel boxes

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Their are games that get rid of randomness alltogether that called ccgs instead of tcg. They have preset items in them but Most still end up super expensive from shaddy practices loke making players buy multiples of the products for complete sets.

[@jayheizu4844]

I've been on and off with YGO ever since the game came out but from my experience, the card game can be expensive and cheap too. It all depends on which route the player wants to take. From the top of my head, we have had cheap decks in the past that have won a regional like Ghostrick, Ninjas, Blue-eyes, Frog FTK/OTK, Final Countdown, chain burn and many more. Those decks I have mention may be some years apart, but they still top at an event. If YGO is too expensive for a player then take a break for a few formats and save your money for the right time to get back into the competitive scene. Keep a close eye on upcoming products that have staples in structure decks or reprints in specialty packs.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

It's become less and less cheap my friend. And there's a reason those decks are one off and not the norm.

[@Nephalem2002]

I quit competitive last year because of how expensive the game was getting. I only started winning once I started playing an expensive deck. We need secondary market control from a Legal standpoint. Force them to print every card at the same ratio and in multiple rarities.

[@four-en-tee]

Well not every card, but yes, the SR and maybe even some UR cards should have lower rarity equivalents in the set. Ideally, its better for draft play and it makes buying a box actually worth it. As it is rn, only sellers buy boxes.

[@Xenonfuji]

I really hate Konami and was once thrown out of my locals for basically saying "my deck is all ocg cards because it's cheaper. Either you let me use these cards, or you give me the TCG equivalents" they kicked me out and the konami bootlickers there started sending me threatening texts.

[@erickkisreal9398]

seriously? they started threatening to kill you in texts? if it wasn't a official event it should have been fine? Was your locals official?

[@Xenonfuji]

@@erickkisreal9398 killing? No. They threatened to beat me up if I ever showed up again

[@Xenonfuji]

Also yes my locals were official

[@Xenonfuji]

@James Barton-Johns you don't threaten someone over it when you aren't affected by it.

[@Xenonfuji]

Also of course they won't be happy with it. They wasted money on more expensive lower quality cards

[@LotusMaster58]

I've been trying to tell my buddies that boxes are a losing bet and this is a fucking fantastic video breakdown of why. Definitely earned my sub.

[@TheJumbaco]

Glad I found this in my suggested so soon! My friends and I have been getting back into card games, this being one, and have been buying some Ghosts 2 boxes for the fun of it. I've always had some idea in the back of my mind about why my openings in the past were so abysmal (rarely making back the worth of the box), but didn't think short printing applied to the foils as well; I had only seen that term tagged onto commons. I guess in the meantime it would be much smarter to avoid YGO cards and maybe focus more on Magic or Pokemon if I wanted return value, but pulling for fun will always be an itch to scratch haha. To tag onto the fun "conversation" you were having with that one guy in the comments, you clearly do understand how Konami is manipulating the markets to generate more revenue, aiming at those who essentially "whale" in a card game as some of us do in gacha games (I'm not innocent of that myself, ie Genshin). America has and always will be much of a more consumerism nation than any other, and Konami has taken notice and playing us like a fiddle.

[@legendsoflaughter3313]

Thanks for this. I'm frequently disappointed when I build a deck online, fall in love with it, and then look at card prices to see that I can't afford it because of X staple etc

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

I feel that. It's such a problem for bad rogue decks I like to build. Konami even prints bad decks like this too.

[@G-Man]

This was really good and informational. As an OG duelist I haven't been buying packs for this reason since it seems like a mere chance to get what I need for a deck nowadays. Great video man, keep it up

[@candaniel]

As a kid I was heavily into Yugioh, first the anime and then later the game itself. I collected cards & played against friends - it was a very nice time, I loved it so much. Due to randomly finding Master Duels, I started getting back into Yugioh a few weeks ago, and my old passion was rekindled. However, now I must say that there more I learn about the current state of the game, the more discouraged I feel. I don't like that something like otks are even possible now (the pacing is way too quick imo, a game shouldn't be decided in one turn), but maybe even more importantly, the pricing of this game is just absolutely ridiculous.

[@aterriblesliceoftoast]

The most frustrating thing is that there’s no real reason why we can’t have the OCG format of box layout. Pot of prosperity - why it’s not been printed as a super and a secret rare even though everyone would want it because it’s objectively the best pot card printed in recent years. Best part? Nobody thinks it’s a bad thing.

[@four-en-tee]

Because they're already knee deep in this shit, myself included (im just self aware enough to see that its still an issue). The sunk cost fallacy is a strong influence.

[@mathdarven5634]

This. When I hear a fake yugiboomer complaining about the game, I can easily counter them when they talk about the meta, powercreep, new summoning types, and how current YGO is about preventing your opponent to play (Yata lock has this exact goal and it's a deck from the early 2000's). But the pricing? Can't disagree, and don't want to. I love YGO, I'm having loads of fun in Master Duel and Duel Links, games that allow me to play the game in a more competitive format while still having a decent deck. Because unlike in TCG, I never spent a buck in these games and still managed to get a competitive deck in MD that some would call Rogue, but which is carrying me through Platine. It's nothing much, only a Plunder Patroll deck, that would cost me, if I buy only the cheapest card editions, 255.66€. Most of the 40 cards deck + 15 cards Extra Deck is quite affordable, except for 6 or 7 of said cards which represent 80% of this price by themselves. Said cards are staples: Lightning Storm, Ash Blossom, Forbidden Droplet... Cards that are what make this deck able to hunker down against some meta decks and deliver a swift OTK on the next turn, once I managed to disrupt my opponent a bit. My point is, that when one of my friend told me that YGO was expensive and that was one of the reason he didn't wanted to get into the game, I didn't even tried to change his mind. I knew he was right. People don't want to get into the game because of it, and now that Master Duel exist, I don't even see the point of buying the physical product anymore. Either buying packs for the opportunity to maybe get that one card I wanted or selling a kidney to get the staples I need on YGO card market, for the perspective of being able to play competitively IRL, is not worth it.

[@ich3730]

remember mech. chaser? remember when you had to buy a gameboy color game 3x to get a duster playset?

[@mathdarven5634]

@@ich3730 ... Alright, it was less expansive back in the days, except for some cards that needed to be obtained in some obscure ways. And don't remind me of crush card virus either, I know it was a tournament prize exclusive at first and was probably sold for a stupid amount of money too.

[@YugoShokan-t8w]

The fact I bought phoenix enforcer and predaplant and Destiny fusion for almost 200 dollars just for it to get banned the next week not only hurt but it discouraged me to a point where I’ll just stick to playing master duel.

[@RinaShinomiyaVal]

Verte got banned not the DPE Engine?

[@zerogamestudio]

Something i really hate about konami is the fact that is 2022 there are a tons of decks, archethype, styles o play and useful staples and still they only put effort in the decks they want to get money from. There are some archetypes that see release only to be completely and utterly bash bc konami want to make them really fucking unplayable or so fucking obnoxious that u cant even put a single handtrap in them bc they will die. Konami actively screw some good decks only to make duelist to buy that deck of one card combo that can playthroug 4 handtraps and u have to shut and let them play. Some decks can be good if konami put like 1 or 2 cards to make them a decent deck and some decks literally need a good amount of support to keep up w the modern game but when those decks recieve support, you can recieve 4 things: 1- A fucking god like card that is gonna be so generic that become a staple (verte anaconda, Electrumite, halquifibrax, auroradon) and the deck will never see it 2- the support is good and the deck see a fair amount of play again but still non meta (morphotronic) 3- The support is not enough to cover the problems of the deck in any aspect but at least make them playable for a fun match (ghostrick) 4- the Support is utterly trash and you only recieve a shittie middle finger in your face and the reminder that your deck is shit and you should change it or fucking play goat format like a kid and stop fucking complaining (magnet warriors/ice barrier/end of the world/vendread)

[@onionlamento]

Oi, I wouldn’t lump vendread with ice barrier ;(. Besides, it’s recent support actually fixed its two problems; getting a small vendread like revenants on board and searching all vendread s/t

[@ich3730]

ironically GOAT is only played by people who are like, 30 years removed from the word "kid" xD

[@Yous0147]

Thank you for this video, I'm genuinely glad that someone decided to cover this so well and thoroughly, I appreciate it very much since it's really one of the major aspects of Yugioh and card games in general that I truly hate.

[@maskofthedragon]

It really says a lot when YGO has reprints all the time and is still expensive as it is

[@mrbubbles6468]

Yes. That’s because people always buy the highest rarity versions of things. Or don’t actually try getting good with a cheap deck. People would rather spend money for a good easy to use deck than a good hard to use Deck

[@seekertosecrets]

12:39 That is true! Every time a new set comes out, Konami would either give the most influential people the packs for promotion or KZbinrs will buy the cases themselves. Then, it's on the FOMO train where it makes consumers buy a fraction or at least same amount of cases in order to fatten the company coffers. I have 2 boxes of Phantom Rage right in front of me and I didn't get the card I wanted out of it. All I wanted was 1 card. AA-Zeus and I didn't even get it. I got Alpha instead. I have not bought another box since then.

[@metaphobic]

I feel you so hard. I bought a box that contain the Evil Twins link monsters. I didnt get a single one, and ended up buying, them individually. I made that mistake again when the grand creators came out. All i wanted was to build an exorsisters deck... instead i got a bunch of inzector stuff which i didnt even know was in there. They're not even displayed on the box... never felt that betrayed...

[@AtlasNovack]

Part of the reason I left. Luckily I can get my kicks in master duel

[@elliottvaughn700]

I realize this is probably basic across the TCG board but I find it crass to not be able to put a HALFWAY DECENT deck together without buying multiple different products. Aside from the "structure deck 3 of" examples so many archetypes are spread out across different products to get an effective build of them...

[@segafreak2000]

Storytime. I originally stopped playing Yu-Gi-Oh around the time I was in 6th grade, which was around the earlier half of 2006, with GX being the newest thing at the time. We mostly played casually at school, barely anyone really knew about the meta stuff, and cards that actually were meta were kind of ignored often if they weren't super obviously powerful like Mirror Force, assuming we had access to them at all. Half of the time there were fake bootleg cards in the mix that we allowed anyways, because hey, we were living in the sticks of a region that was already left behind by the country I'm living in as is, so it's not like there were any sort of official tournaments even remotely nearby. People eventually stopped caring because the fad died out. Boosters were rarely bought before then, most of what we had access to either came from starter decks or because somebody happened to pick up a bunch of cards for cheap from a flea market (which is also where a decent chunk of the bootleg cards came from) Fast forward to January last year, the pandemic and isolation had been boring me, and I kind of remembered YGO by random chance as that game we used to play in school that was kind of fun even though we had no idea what we were doing. Figured, hey - maybe I can look into it again, and then quickly got into just watching videos of it thanks to KZbinrs like Cimo (+ the folks he was collaborating with, especially MBT) and TheDuelLogs. Started picking up some of the more modern nuances even if some of them still strike me as BS to this day (like the whole missing timing stuff and all the weird rulings you just have to know), but it was fun to watch, and for a moment I almost considered giving the game a try again. And yeah, that's when I ran into the mess of a state that the TCG is in while doing some research online. The pricing issues, and that this has been a problem for well over a decade when taking formats like Dragonrulers or TeleDad into account (so it was unlikely Konami would bother to change it). The short printing. The banlist as a tool to sell product. The gambling was already a concern of mine before doing the research, but I thought if it was just for a bit of casual fun, it might be okay to spend a little bit, but that whole information quickly left me very nauseous. I didn't even bother with Master Duel a year later because of just how wary I actually am of gachas and the really negative behavior they encourage from people with poor impulse control - with trading card games you'd need to find the product at least, so there's theoretically a point where you can't spend anymore even if you wanted to, but that's not quite the case for gachas where everything is digital. In the end, I never actually picked up any product even though I was perfectly willing to spend a bit for some casual fun in the beginning, simply because Konami's practices disgusted me that much. I know at least three smaller stores nearby where I live now that have casual tournaments every so often (I learned that from a friend who plays MtG there every so often), so there were actually people I could have played with. But yeah, with the way things currently stand, no shot. I keep watching videos from a few select creators (again - mostly TheDuelLogs, Cimo, MBT, sometimes MegaCapitalG because I find the historical videos on how the game developed during my absence to be fascinating), and know enough of the lingo to hold some semblance of conversations with active players, but that's about it. And I feel like I'm definitely not alone with this. People aren't dumb. Considering the kind of commitment a TCG can be, people do research beforehand and stumble across these issues. Or they don't even attempt to get into it because of the ruling nightmares and the games just becoming more complicated. That's not even including polarizing trends like whenever an FTK somehow becomes playable, or more modern phenomenoms like tons of negates on board. So hearing that YGO has a problem with getting new players on board doesn't surprise me at all - it's only natural with predatory practices like these, and those who stick around are those who have been there for a while (many staying through sunk cost fallacy). Those casual players that don't even try to get into it because of that? Chances are, Konami would make just as much money, if not even more, if they just made the game more accessible rather than just being blinded by the kind of short-sighted greed described in this video. But then again, they're not even remotely close to being the first company to fall into this pitfall...

[@simonpetrikov3992]

I partake in yugioh events because of me being a very highly competitive person and I needed a reason to get out of my house so that’s why I didn’t play that often during the pandemic

[@cv_justice4774]

YGO is for children, the 30 years old children who growth with YGO back in 2000. Ofc do these guys (me included) buy YGO Cards, since most of us are working or are close to finished with university or stuff. So we can afford or childhood hobby

[@KrookTM]

honestly been trying to get into the game lately and jesus its expensive. like a copy of barronne i bought set me back WAY over my yugioh budget for this month. and thats just a single card in the deck

[@dragonMaster24921]

Why not buy your core and buy staples incrementally

[@snazzygagagigo524]

Most yugioh players are casual and not competitive, for good reason.

[@reiji_vt4262]

Very well explained. When the price of a single card can be upwards and more than a few boxes, you know you have a real problem. It doesn't look like this flow will change anytime soon from Konami but man I hope I'm wrong

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

To give a minor dispute to your average on the Digimon Secret Rares, the alternate artwork cards for those sets take up the same slot as the actual SEC rarity cards. For example, I ordered three boxes of the latest set ($240 total) and got one SEC Imperialdramon Paladin Mode, and 5 alt-art cards.

[@ExceedSC2]

The banlist pushing strategies out of the meta completely is something the community sorta pushes for though. I don't agree with it, but people tend to celebrate when the popular deck they've been seeing for over year is gone completely. This is seen in other games like League of Legends as well, but the problem in YGO is that players are investing a ton of money into these decks only for them to be unusable and tank in price.

[@501clonetrooper]

The reason i think the game is still going despite the high prices and hasnt crashed is that people are bored at home or want escapism. Stuff like vanguard and flesh & blood are too undersupported for people to get into. The issue is i think people are starting to shift away from physical due to gas prices. This is why duel links made more than the actual tcg and gachas are so common now.

[@mrbubbles6468]

If gas prices were an issue then you’d be seeing people not spend money digitally. But it’s outselling physical. It’s never been a price issue, it’s always been an ease of access issue. Digital card games are easier to get and play.

[@angelo9024]

Pricing is the reason why I don’t play the physical Yugioh tcg. Like why the fuck do I need to drop $90 to have a playset of ash when I could just spend that $90 on most other games and have a full deck or a core of a deck. My main game is digimon and the most expensive staples I’ve seen in the game cap out at $20 with only alt arts, secret rares, and waifu cards being more expensive.

[@hickknight]

The ironic thing is, ash blossom used to be a common from what I've heard. In the TCG. That's insane.

[@johnathanlemus5584]

@@hickknight from a structure deck but the card is such a mandatory 3 of, it’s price is still high.

[@sushipbestdeck8995]

You can get many deck cores for $90 or less but its the staples that are usually the expensive part

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Ash was first printed as a secret rare and was about $100 each. It then got reprinted into a 10$ structure deck and it's still super expensive

[@thomasbitmail7937]

I have been playing YGO since 2012, but only since 2014 in the meta with DUEA and The Secret Forces later in the format. I always found it nice to brag about cards being expensive to my friends, since a lot of them just "meh" away the whole card game sometimes for no reason. So i like to come back with, well look at mah boi Nekroz of Brionac, 120€ hehehe, you still think its a stupid card game for lil kidz?? 😄 But now as i am about to build my second deck irl since years and having a proper job, i still find this game waaay expensive. I like how you listed stuff and i am definitely on your side! We must get the OCG way ASAP. One thing that is even worse is the recent backlash with quality control. Like the Ghost Rares pull ratio is finally i can get behind, but the quality of the cards maaan... wtf. And the Starlight Rares some random guys pulled? Come on man, you expect me now to pay for those already expensive stuff?? Get your stuff together Konami! But the secondary market is off as well. Look at how much a common Ash Blossom from a Structure Deck!!! costs... 15€+ I mean the card is certainly good, but this is just waaay too much. I find myself lot of the times just unwilling to pay more than 10€ for a single card, and now stuff like these happen. Thank you for reading, have a great day!

[@MrPyth01]

i also remember when digimon tcg came out, i had interest in acquiring product to learn it and play, also because of nostalgia and art, too bad for me because it got instantly hoarded by scalpers and whales that came straight from yugioh trying to do the same they do in yugioh, that made me die a little inside, so i just decided to quit card games all together, virtual or physical once i opened my eyes

[@samuelhain2160]

I play OCG now. Even after shipping and import fees it's still significantly cheaper.

[@retro1reactive]

This video right here explains the #1 reason I just can't get back into the physical card game. Last time I played competitively was back at the 100th YCS in Long Beach. Since then I've only played on DB and YGOPro and even then it's very sparingly now.

[@four-en-tee]

I originally wrote a comment on this video suggesting that the best way to resolve this problem would be to introduce more homebrew formats (similar to stuff like commander in MTG), and while I think it would help circumvent the second-hand market issue by producing different metas based on the rules of those formats, it's still not exactly a solution for how to address ridiculous prices in modern Yugioh. Simply put: Konami should AT THE VERY LEAST change how pack ratios work if they aren't going to bring back SR meta staples similar to the OCG. For example, a MTG pack consists of 10 commons, 3 uncommons, and either a rare or mythic. Therefore, wouldn't it be fair if a normal Yugioh pack contained 3 commons, a rare or super rare, and then an ultra rare or secret rare? The only potential problem with that is that Konami will probably just flood packs with a bunch of garbage taking up additional ultra rare and secret rare slots to compensate, rather than giving people a greater chance to pull meta relevant cards from a single box. It may take Konami getting into legal troubles for this shit to finally come to an end.

[@four-en-tee]

Better yet: legalize OCG prints at Yugioh tournaments. You could still adhere to the TCG card pool and rulings, nothing would effectively change as far as the meta is concerned. And sure, people who invested tons of money into expensive TCG prints are gonna get burned, but you cant make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. And i'm making the mother of all omelettes here, Jack. On top of that, it'd force Konami to make the TCG more affordable again (since god knows they arent gonna fuck over the OCG players just so that they can further milk TCG players). "but you cant read the cards" And? I cant read the German print of Utopia Double that I own, but im still required to provide and explain its effect if asked. "but the backs are different" Then require sleeves with solid backs if you have any OCG prints in your deck.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

The reason you can't use ocg cards in tcg is ocg cards are diffrent sizes. They're closer to magic cards in size. If it where to be done it be an all or nothing kinda arrangement

[@four-en-tee]

@@MonkeyFightTCG No they're not? I own plenty of OCG prints (both japanese and korean), and they're the exact same dimensions as a TCG Yugioh card as far as length and width are concerned. Where'd you even hear that? None of the Yugioh cards i've ever bought, both TCG and OCG, have been the same size as a MTG or Pokemon card. All I've been told is that the quality of cardboard is better in the OCG than in the TCG, but I'm obviously not going to try and warp and bend my cards to test that theory. But other than that, you really can't tell the difference between the two unless you don't have any card sleeves since the backs of the cards are different where the Yugioh logo is (which is why I suggested making the sleeves mandatory if you're running both TCG and OCG prints in a deck).

[@RinaShinomiyaVal]

@@MonkeyFightTCG ? Not even true. TCG and OCG cards are the same size. Issue is quality differences make it obvious that the TCG cardstock sucks

[@four-en-tee]

@@MonkeyFightTCG I realized that legalizing OCG prints would probably completely crash the TCG market and would pretty much kill English sets. Well, back to the drawing board.

[@williehawkinsii4845]

Before the salamandgreat structure deck ash blossom was short printed in all 3 sets it came in. Can't remember the original set but the other 2 where Yu-Gi-Oh Kaiba collection and shadows of Valhalla, the latter of which I bought like five or seven boxes and only pulled one of her and somehow I got a blank card that probably would have been my second copy of it

[@cnssegura]

That is why I also go for popular cards while they're cheap, that way when it spikes I can sell it for double the price or more (reprints included, just depends on the rarity).

[@thelatinaxl]

I cannot appreciate you for shedding light into this topic which has been enfuriating me so much on the last few years.

[@Neptune8]

Digimon (at least at the locals I attend) is dead , the other locals I used to attend is also dead. My current main card game is Weiss Schwartz, but they aren’t any better on the pull rates or being all about the power creep and gambling aspects. It doesn’t help that they also never reprint sets. As of yesterday I just started looking at the prices for the cards to start playing paper yugi and I’m about to give it up cause I don’t remember this game being so expensive

[@Pattex_]

my magnet warriors waiting for the day block dragon returns