Why is the Digimon TCG expensive all of a sudden?

Here's my explanation for the increase in prices we've seen lately

[@evauq]

I think you only get 6 SRs in a EX booster box, rather than 7 in a BT, so it's actually worse. At least my case only had 6 SRs per box in Canada for ex6

[@Rallade13]

You're right, there are *only* 6 per EX! I was counting the box topper as an SR hit in my mind lol The actual expected number of boxes needed for a playset is actually 13.7 at that amount! That's *worse* than BT sets if you don't account for alts.

[@brenisback]

I do think alts are worth accounting for. Most alts are SRs and secrets I’m pretty sure, so having the extra alt hit never feels bad imo.

[@Rallade13]

​@@brenisback absolutely, the alts make a massive difference, especially when you have 3 per box. But to do a comparative analysis between sets you have to ignore them since the amount of alts that are SRs changes from set to set

[@deathseekergibbsy]

Yeah, but you get 3 alt arts in an EX box, with a chance for a secret

[@asianwingsauce]

Bandai just sucks in supporting their tcgs.

[@metis7534]

And Digimon in general tbh

[@TheMapleMerchant]

Facts

[@BenjiTCG]

It's important to note that Bandai is most definitely split into smaller work groups and assigns tasks respectfully. While card distribution seems to be problematic at times, the latest card designs provided in the starter decks as well as their Digimon Liberator project are an absolute win for the fans. So we really do have some good support, if you just yap hard enough

[@SmittyThePity]

This was a great analysis. I too was selling this game to friends as very cheap barrier for entry but not anymore. They really just need to print sets in waves after first release. It’s ridiculous stores have to put in orders 6 months out with barely any info on the set. ESPECIALLY after the train wreck that was rb01 & bt15.

[@TylerKhan]

You have to consider this is a Japanese company with no printing options in the U.S. logistics are absolutely a thing. Also that they are catching us up to Japan by December. That’s basically a set every month. Factor that, limited printing options and an increase in player base. Us being caught up with Japan will actually make printing sets easier for Bandai. It is also still an extremely cheap TCG. What are people going to quit and just pump more money into a TCG they already didn’t prefer?

[@bretbeebe4061]

Thank you for mathing it for us. I want so bad to keep playing, but the high prices and the poorly though out card effects leading to insane power creep is making it difficult.

[@Sudrabainsv2]

For me just buying a box from locals and then grabbing whatever few SR playsets i need on release still works. Prices adjust well after release so if you anticipate it quite a bit can be saved. Assuming you dont try to grab all or most of the SRs in sets. On positive cards now retain value more, how many of old SRs are basically bulk pre bt12?

[@bhammy131]

It doesn't help that some stores will literally open cases upon cases of sets and sell 50+ copies of cards for overinflated prices. (Crazy Nicks, Core, PPG) they are helping to limit product availability and essentially control the singles market with said overinflated prices.

[@Awesombynature]

You’ve just described what a vendor is ….

[@Riitje]

Honestly taking a big part of the fun out of the game for me. I've been with this game from the near beginning (missed out on the actual beginning due to Bandai not supplying some European countries well). If it goes on like this I might bail.

[@metarico3075]

The price of cards is the whole reason why I started to play to begin with! Seeing how much cheaper a box was compared to magic or one piece made me so happy, but now prices have gone up drastically :(

[@JoshuaPAMployee]

Wow they need to fix supply because SEC are pricing people out of the game with Mastemon having A TONE of Rogue variants because of that SEC price!

[@io-di4xw]

And not just secrets, but promos too! Crazy prizes.

[@shadowX50]

My though is that because they are planning on the global unification, they are printing stuff low stock so they can print put the next set more quickly. By next year, when everything is unified, they will have a more regular release schedule. Thats just me on hopium though.

[@Rallade13]

I'm here huffing the hopium too

[@nehuenmutiozabal6339]

I do agree with some of the coments that this might be Bandai testing the waters to see how much they can get away with but this just turns EX6 boxes into a loaded gun at the time of having to pull cards-specialy if you are that one player that got unlucky enogh to get their SR's replaced by UltimateChaosmon and it's alt art. What to do to fix the ishue? Me personaly would either reduce the number of rares per box to increase the SR ratio cause most of the times I saw people pull a Yellow Lucemon and Gate's one after the other pulling like 6-8 copies-Or just get rid of Alt arts so you can guarantee people can have 2 or each SR's without having to worry about shoortage like what is happening with Lilithmon or Barbamon where there's only 1 per box. This last one seem the better choice in my eyes cause most people that want alt arts wanna bling their decks or have higher value out of their pulls and in said case they could just put it into a special set or a binder set. This can help but unless bandai lowers the cost of the incoming sets it would create a problem for the average single's sellers

[@TylerKhan]

They aren’t testing anything. They are catching us up to Japan by December and print their cards overseas

[@vicsooth5338]

I started playing digimon as my secondary tcg, cause how cheap it was, now I dont really keep up with the meta, cause its way too expensive for me to justify it.

[@BBDudes]

I’m hoping this starts improving after unification but Bandai will not tolerate a Digimon fan feeling joy so not likely.

[@MrMac1219]

the supply problem is a bigger issue to me, I never buy to get full playsets of everything just a few deck but I do want to buy some boxes and that ain't happening when they are selling at almost $130 sometimes.

[@MichikoHoshi]

Thank you for explaining it so I didn't have to critically think about it. Hope they address this, I only got into the game recently and I really hot it becoming costly won't prevent my friends from getting into it too.

[@TheNutshaq]

It is pricing people out of the game. I only know a handful of people who can afford to play meta decks, and they preorder boxes and trade for the cards they need instead of buying singles because of the prices of SRs. I can really only afford to play budget decks now or decks that one of my friends gives to me (shoutout SomeNumbers). It’s very disheartening, especially since I was sold on this game as being cheap, and coming from yugioh that really enticed me

[@RuneRaged]

So, the way I look at things is this: If it's a Alt Art or some special variation of the card, then ok I can kinda understand why they get priced at $25 a copy or more let's say right But if it's just a regular SR that you know people need for the deck, then personally I don't think it needs to be $45 + shipping per 1 copy But at the same time, I'm also in a position where buying singles and boxes isn't exactly something I can always do

[@flare4488]

I started when the game first released and went hard up till around BT8, where I fell off to a more casual level. I then started going to locals again and getting more into the game around BT12 but that was short lived due to money. I have picked up the Online Simulator so that me and my friends can still play, but have recently been looking into picking up a few decks to go to locals again. But man, these prices are pretty wild. I really wanted to come back play 7 Demon Lords since I have always used purple decks, but it is far outside what I'm willing to pay right now. Royal Knights was expensive on release, but me and my friend split a few boxes and were able to build pull most of what we needed for that. That doesn't seem nearly as feasible now, and really deters me from opening boxes again. I still think the game overall is cheap, especially on a casual level. It just sucks cause opening packs is one of the most fun things about the hobby and the game is heavily skewed towards buying singles right now. And even then the top decks seem way more expensive compared to a year ago.

[@KryselITG]

Honestly, coming from a Vanguard and YGO background (and VERY briefly One Piece which can be almost as egregious as YGO), Digimon is definitely pretty affordable at the local level unless every single person is playing a meta deck. Still, id have to say Pokemon is the most affordable well-known TCG at the moment.

[@brenisback]

Tangentially related, but Something I’m considering lately is how many new decks there are. With the new SRs it doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to play more decks. So I personally might just try to sell or trade away SRs on decks I don’t plan to play more so than I would in the past. It might be part of the unification of sets fault was my initial thought but if there’s more SRs, that’d make sense as well.

[@IttarraOda]

Something to note here that can actually help, and maybe Bamco will heed or learn from is from the Pokemon TCG. See, something I realized is they handle both the competitive aspects and collector aspects quite well. For a simple $40 or so you get the deck that won the last major tournament, just straight up with 2 extra packs of the newest set. What this does is it makes it to where the Alt arts, and actual collectible cards will maintain/increase their value. But the standard cards will go down to roughly 10-20 cents a card depending, where the highest end card would be roughly $5 at most, no breaking the bank, gets new blood into the game, and gives it longevity to a point that there's still value in the shiniest of cardboards. AND they do 3 tiers of it for how serious you want to be about it going from a "draft" style to a 1:1 creation of the deck (I'm a YGO and Pokemon collector, shiny cardboard might as well be my glasses lol) EDIT: Great video btw, I'm not sure if you plan to do more indepth things like this for the Digimon TCG but I subbed in case you do :) keep up the great work ,

[@Rallade13]

Still trying to figure out the direction, but my personality skews analytical, so that's likely what I'm gonna make! Thanks for the kind words 😁

[@IttarraOda]

@@Rallade13 Everyone loves analytics except KZbinrs lmao

[@TheNinja4]

killed it for me. i wont be playing anymore sadly

[@digimike78]

One piece TCG killed all the momentum for so half the fans dropped it. Now the supply and demand to continue for the cards to get printed. They need to charge more cuz there's not as much demand and they don't have as much supply

[@Jotakumon]

This is the problem with another game, Universus. They've been having 15-20 URs (the equivalent of SRs) since the start of the game, and a few sets ago changed to 20+. URs are getting expensive, but also just harder to obtain. Which means that people are also less willing to part with cards they pull, which makes the singles market even worse. Some cards have become just completely unobtainable. Right now UVS is struggling to get new people in (gee I wonder why nobody wants to invest in a game where URs consistently range between £10-40). Yet their next set will have 30+ URs. Let's hope Bandai doesn't fall for the same trap of thinking that people buy more boxes just because there are more expensive cards in it.

[@level3xfactor]

Damn, I was actually looking forward to playing Omnimon from the new set. He's my favorite Digimon 😢

[@Mekaizer]

Is sad because me snd some friend play digimon because is less expensive than other cards game, but now we have problem with find cards and the high price of singles cards... And buy a box is too much expensive in latam ... But well, at least i finish my machinedra and i would like finish my dukemon deck in bt17. I hope their price be more normal... Not like Mirei x'D

[@D.EN.A]

Won't lie I've been joking for a while now I've been pulling no alts or good SRs: Famine mode but this video's made me feel a little less insane about getting almost nothing every second time I win a locals. 😂😂 Really well put together! Enjoyed the way you presented the information 🎉

[@youropinionisinspired9954]

I started playing in bt10. I got 4 boxes and made my deckergremon, never needed singles. I always wanted a diaboromon deck so when the new set came out. I got 6 boxes hoping for at least 1 SR diaboromon.... Nothing. My locals had sold out over boosters and didn't get them back until last week. I can't afford 6 boxes every set let alone, 20 just for 1 card that no one else sells

[@shadowKunai]

I just trying to get into the game, and I just moved to the DC metro area. There doesn't seem to be much support for the game at all here. I've found 1 barely metro accessible shop that plays in Springfield. I'd love to play but the current deck prices for a tier 2 deck (mastemon) is wild epecially considering the next set is out in like 4 weeks. not sure if its worth getting in to If going to locals is so far out of travel and price range .

[@neiru1000]

To be fair Mastemon is one of the most expensive decks u could go for. They are way cheaper (and better) decks if u just want the most bang for ur buck. I hope u find a cool local shop to play at 😊

[@Rallade13]

So I'm assuming you're referring to Curio for Tuesdays? If not there's also AnimeTCG that we're trying to build up for wednesdays. There's a big (20+ weekly) group that plays at Gaming Giant on Fridays, but that store is more competitive. You can also try coming over to Spieda on Mondays. Tbf I'm only mentioning stuff on the VA side, where it looks like you're playing from. Also, there are cheaper decks to play, but since as I mentioned Maste is a fan favorite that's *also* subject to waifu tax, it's gonna be way more expensive than most things in tier 2

[@shadowKunai]

@@Rallade13 I just learned about AnimeTCG so I'll give there a try. I went to Gaming Giant once but I actually live in DC proper so its waaay too far to go to regularly. Hopefully the scene at Anime TCG kicks off since Curio is still kind of out of the way. Maste's waifu tax is bonkers tho. I'm looking at MirageGao for the time being.

[@DonaDagger]

That sucks. Yugioh is already expensive and I'd hope Digimon stayed low for me lol.

[@WyseWalker]

As a collector I hardly noticed a price jump. Players and especially meta players are gonna feel it more as I make it a point not to collect the latest set from the price hike from the meta game. However, I did notice the ratios dropping. What I do, or rather did, was purchase a box and fill out my collection through singles. After opening boxes from 14 onwards this became more expensive than just buying singles in terms of accessing higher rarity cards so I'm going to have to stop. What I found was I was spending around 75 to 100 on a box than even more than another 100 to finish a single set due to the price of higher raity cards. I assure previously this was not the case.

[@Rallade13]

Yeah, that definitely tracks

[@Benzinilinguine]

Man that one youtuber is gonna be so happy, who was it? PBG?

[@KenshinKura]

Dude I haven't seen booster packs since bt 14. It's getting annoying to keep up.

[@robertweaver9995]

Baindai just wants to create a ton of card games instead of focusing on just digimon and one piece if they focused on the 2 games they would be better of they now have battle spirits and now union arena 4 card games in total now maybe more i dont know but they really need to focus on digimon and one piece

[@GodShadowdeath]

The prices always jump when a box drops. My sec alt examon was $150 value on pull but now is $15

[@Rallade13]

Of course, but the question is also what price they settle at long term, we haven't ever had base rarity SRs at 20USD like this for so long

[@Feebletrash101]

I jumped ship a while ago to get into one piece TCG n well the community is bigger then Digimon sadly here at my local

[@crushingon]

Who's gonna tell him about 2.0 and 2.5?

[@ericv5435]

The price of digimon is expensive because there's lack of product. Why? Because bandai prints too many games.

[@mawile3037]

I pulled that Rapidmon X from a blister, first major pull and considering prices of EX6 I feel like I should sell But it's my first major win 😅 And I actually do like yellow deck play style but haven't played I keep trying to get my friends to play with but they not budging I basically bought a deck box display for Belzemon secret rare hunt, they're all getting a deck now lmao 😂 I could just resell them for 10 bucks considering I'm hunting a secret rare and will need 2/8 decks to get a decent deck build going

[@phorchybug3286]

We talking Pokemon GBA/DS expensive?

[@zihaozhang3714]

I think this is just a start to test the water, is like slowly boiling the player base from warm to hot to see if the player base can accept more expensive products. If the player base keep giving Bandai money and not act upon it, the most likely thing that is going to happen is Bandai will start acting like Konami. Just out of curiosity how different are our set ratio in comparison to JP?

[@Rallade13]

So I had to go watch a few Japanese box openings, they get 3 SR per box + 2 alt hits, with a 1/4 chance at a secret - which imo is worse, but you'd have to account for their smaller, cheaper boxes

[@flaccidpancake336]

​@@Rallade13 Its 4 SRs per box + 1 alt art, with that alt art also having a chance to be a SEC

[@Leonardovideogoes]

it had to be the villain of frontier, the meme of frontier having a killer the franchise is real

[@PatahrakPlays]

idk i felt the ratios changed with dimensional phase... and i kinda stopped after that

[@Rallade13]

@@PatahrakPlays they did change the ratios just for BT11, and backtracked the changes the next set until BT14

[@finalsmash9607]

Bro you get 6 sr’s in ex, not 7, so that’s 6/12 which is ridiculous

[@sonicmaster047]

But it isnt though..most decks will set you back just over $100 with top tier decks with the best cards being a little over 3 to 400. Nothing compared to other card games where decks can easily cost you 500 to 1000.

[@Rallade13]

Expensive is just relative, right? like the price *has* gone up. Obviously, this is still one of the cheaper card games, but that's starting to not be one of the selling points.

[@sonicmaster047]

@@Rallade13 that is true unfortunately.

[@hahathatsgreat2]

As a Yu-Gi-Oh refugee, get out before you get too invested.

[@TylerKhan]

Love the video! Also we have to consider the print the cards for the U.S. overseas. Logistics is a gigantic factor in this. Not only that but we are getting caught up to Japan by December. Printing is rough right now because they can’t focus on reprinting a set when the next comes out a month later. Once we are caught up with Japan, printing the cards for us will be easier

[@Rallade13]

yeah, that's definitely part of what I meant by "printing capacity", I really hope it gets better

[@TylerKhan]

@@Rallade13 same here! I’m hoping next year’s sets and maybe December’s will be a well printed set. If they do the. Prices are going to drop a lot again

[@TheNecromanerXIII]

Bandai Namco is one of the _absolute_ _dumbest_ companies out there. I'm a Gundam fan and I've seen how their incompetence has killed the potential of perfectly good games.

[@imposifle9792]

is it worth getting into this? ive been having fun playing online and i want to check out locals but now im nervous

[@pug8714]

Its super fun and personally worth it. Still more affordable than than most tcgs

[@Rallade13]

@@imposifle9792 definitely worth it! I addressed it in another comment about how this still remains one of the cheaper TCGs

[@shaboygars5288]

I think it's our fault, playing "META" do we want to die like Yugi ?

[@krisnayosep7121]

bound to happen

[@pug8714]

I just hope theyll stop making secret rares necessary for decks as a 4 of

[@Hector-zd8pe]

The reason that the game is so expensive is the waifu tax

[@winwitli1798]

Very well researched!

[@Blast112]

Yes I'm so annoyed about it!!

[@madsvigan2898]

I argue digimon still isnt that expensive tbh. Imperialdramon, yes the New paildramon is expensive, but for a budget player the ST paildramon can do the job too. And for the New ex set, like bandai needs to sell boxes, otherwise we wont see more digimon, so ofcourse they make a key card of a wanted deck Harder to get. But theres still cheap options. 3 great Angels arent a bad deck, and its rather cheap. Ragnalordmon have shown its a solid rouge option, because Meta decks going to struggle against a wall that isnt effected by digimons on the oppenents turn, and doesnt trigger security effects in their own turn.

[@graveyardshifttcg1278]

thank god i left in bt 13

[@Yootoobeeboop]

First 😎

[@Borfborfle]

Second 😎

[@ThePetrifiedkit]

I actually prefer the change in supers as someone who doesn’t need a set of everything means it causes more trading and personal interactions

[@pug8714]

Also means that trading is way harder. People need their playsets

[@ikyiAlter]

Quit

[@cbbblue8348]

Digimon franchise is already a joke, it keep rebooting every 4-5 years and i genuinely feel bad for every digimon fans that still following it.

[@MJ-oi6ul]

If they dont ban magnax the game is dead anyways

[@pug8714]

Very large over exaggeration

[@LoyalistViral]

Glad i quit this game

[@pug8714]

It's really not the worst. Its still miles more affordable than most tcgs