Alternative title: how to not get sponsored by Konami in 15 minutes Kudos to you my man, for putting viewers before big company

Biggest scam as a kid is buying cards from the flea market

Speaking of scaling and loose boosters.... I'm reminded of SimplyUnlucky's video where he got 100 loose packs of legendary duelist: magical hero. Only pulled 2 or 3 supers, no Ultras. Obviously scaled

Cimooo really puts his fans first when he makes videos like this that Konomi doesn't like. You've got to respect a man like that!

Very good advice! Scaling has got to be the lowest thing a seller can do. Really takes advantage of inexperienced buyers. Gotta watch out for those Facebook scammers too

My boy finally upgraded his microphone.

It's more "why you should prefer buying single cards rather than sealed products" than "never buy sealed products"

"Never buy sealed product!" "WTF why does Konami not like me?"

I have a friend that runs an arcade that also sells trading cards, and I specifically mentioned to them one year that a certain Pokemon set was mapped and to shuffle their booster boxes around, so no one walks in and immediately steals the good cards. I don't think he's ever stopped shuffling them.

Cimo: 0:35 Konami: "That's it. I don't care what Hideki says. We're sending in the rare hunters and sending this guy straight to the 'shadow realm.'"

Alternative Title: Five ways to swipe Yugioh cards.

Always the simple rule if you want to build a deck buy singles/structure decks. Want to have a bit of fun and got a bit of cash you don't mind burning buy a couple of packs/ a box.

I really think you should bring back the “an introduction to” Series. Its a great Series for everyone and there is alot of decks you Can cover rn 😄😄

I remember last time there was a mapped set, my locals would shuffle the packs before putting them out on display to avoid people from sniping the secret rare packs

Someone upgraded their microphone. Lol Trying to get that deep silky Yami Yugi voice, eh? Haha 😏

The best sealed product is something completely sealed: with the plastic wrap!

Sealed product is so much fun to open though. Especially Tins!

I've had the theft thing happen to me before, I was getting a starter deck Kaiba reprint at Walmart and didn't notice anything until I got home and opened it... It was entirely filled with Magic the Gathering land cards.

In short, just buy *singles*

Oh man the store owners weighing packs then selling singles, this makes so much sense when I was a kid we used to go to this store (used to be OTS for awhile) and me and my brother would get a pack each and we never pulled anything besides just a rare in every pack we brought there

I couldn’t just buy singles... I get far too much enjoyment from opening packs.

Cimo: "I'm already blacklisted so what else could they do to me ayylmao"

This happened when I was just getting into the game. Ordered 3 dinosaur structure decks on Amazon, all 3 were "sealed" Dino boxes but 2 of the 3 contained the ancient gear structure deck instead. Upon further inspection it was obvious the boxes had been opened and resealed with the Dino decks removed and the replacement decks inserted.

I remember buying two packs of Rising Rampage back in December 2019. At a Walmart. Thing is, I didn't know the packs were tampered with until I went back home. And I realized that one of the packs didn't have a foil card. Whoever ripped me off like that deserves to be sent to the Shadow Realm. So to end this story, I compensated my loss with RIRA's cover card.

I'd encourage people to buy sealed products for several reasons : - The thrill of opening packs - Adding more cards to the card pool, which means lowering the overall price of every card - Helping your local shop - You'll have more cards to trade, which means interracting with people, and making the community live I know that on the raw value you almost always loose when buying sealed, but overall, it helps the game and its community

Glad you made this video. If you're opening for fun, go ahead. If you're trying to get a particular card, goodness no.

and so Cimooo continues his heroic crusade to indirectly damage Konami's sales as much as possible.

Konami is definitely not inviting Cimo to events now...

It sucks though, I've never had my parents support when trying to play a TCG competitively. I've done countless decklists for Pokemon and Yugioh, priced out what it would cost to build them, and looked to get the cards. But my parents don't seem to understand buying single cards over sealed product. Like, *Yes mom that one card cost the same as an entire pack, but I am not guaranteed to get that card in the pack if i buy it. Buying the card outright is the cheapest way to build the deck I want.* But it never seems to make sense to them, they can't seem to justify in THEIR head why I would pay the same price for just 1 card than just buy a pack and get more cards for the same price. They think the number of cards is what's important and not the quality of the card from a gameplay standpoint. So I've never been able to play competitively because they make a huge deal about "Wasting money" if i buy singles over sealed.

Cimoooooooo wow komoney is going to be mad at this one.

*1 Reason, why u HAVE TO BUY Sealed Product: It's hell of fun and joy to crack up packs by yourself!*

This is why I like you as a Yugituber. You always keep it real with us.

I love the mic upgrade Cimoooooooo! Even though I don’t agree with some of the sentiments shared in the video, I think it is really important to stay educated and informed when buying sealed product.

Man, Cimo is never getting invited to Konami's birthday party.

I once bought a box of soul fusion w no ultras or secrets. Be wary of buying cards online, it's a serious issue

I remember when ghost rares were a thing. It was impossible buying booster sets online at like amazon or ebay without getting shafted.

Cimo: Don't buy sealed product. Rev: Yu-gi-oh! from scratch.

First, NOTHING will ever beat the feeling of opening a box and not knowing what you will get. Second, all the 4 first reasons are eliminated just by finding a local game shop or a online seller you can trust. That way nothing to worry about. Third, we know the odds are nor in our favor. They never are with any company, especially Konami. Singles only if you are a regular player or go to tourneys.

10:44 Fact, when I bought the Eternity Code booster box back in June, I did acquire Accesscode Talker alongside Linkross and Girsu the Orcust Mekk-Knight.

Funny you talk about that cube thing. I bought one that had a Duelist Pack Kaiba pack and I pulled an ultimate rare Chaos Emperor Dragon from it. That day was godlike.

i just got the theft thing happened at a local target...fortunately i was able to get a full refund of my money...

In regards to #2 (Mapping): Even if it was an "accident", there's no such thing as accidental scamming. A scam's a scam. Other than that, thank you for being the Yu-Gi-Oh! hero we need, but not the one we deserve. Stratos would be proud.

Isnt it really fk awkward to bring a freaking scale into a shop and weightvthe products? xD

This was a perfect video to ad that tcg player affiliate link . And he didn't do it... Props cimoooooooo

Suspended e-mail from Konami soon :)

Great vid, I personally buy the specific cards I want online LoL the only reason I would buy a box or something in the store is for fun on a rare occasion

Whenever he starts talking I just notice his shirt I really want one

I'll admit it, you got me to stop needlessly buying boxes out of FOMO with this video thinking I'd be "saving money" later on.

Using the term "Sealed Product" seems incorrect for a majority of these examples as they do not apply to a Konami sealed booster boxes which is what sealed product is.. It's perfectly valid for why you should be wary about buying loose packs or unsealed product but the emphasis in this video is quite misleading...

I got 8 ETCO packs from Wal-Mart. I wanted an Accesscode Talker. I was disappointed when I didn't pull one. I pulled two :(

That last point you brought up, sadly, is precisely _why_ so many people (myself included) enjoy buying sealed product: That rush you get from beating the odds. Which is why I approach it with the same mindset I take to a casino. Use only money you can absolutely afford to lose, and accept that you're likely not going to win.

Packs being weighed really stresses me out when I’m debating buying vintage packs. 😓

Number 5 is a bit exaggerated since most people who buys packs don't just want 1 specific secret and isn't going to just buy 1 pack.

To be fair, when there are $200-300 cards like Pot of Extravagance that are core cards for certain decks, I'd rather try my luck with 50 packs than spending that much on one card.

Very informative video. I’m relatively new to Yugioh and it’s really a shame knowing that people will scale packs which in turn really hurts other people. I absolutely love opening up packs for the thrill and nostalgia, but am always wary because I know there are people out there who WILL scale or repackage these packs that I’m buying

Back when I played the game (when it was still enjoyable), I watched people scaling new packs on a regular basis, in front of the card shop owner. I also watched mapping being done by said same individuals. True, I learned the orders of where the higher rarities were placed, but the rarer cards were not placed in the same place, as with how you portrayed it. The rare cards appeared in the same slots, but it may be a secret at one point, or a super rare at another, just all in the same positions. Tampering and theft were a large problem around here, so a lot of places refused to allow touneys in their establishments after a short while. Went into WalMart at one point, bought what I trhought was a completely sealed tin, but turns out someone did what you described with it, opening it, then the packs, taking the rares out, and leaving the rest. All WM did was tape the individual packs shut, then re-shrink-wrapped the tin and put it back out. called the manager over when I realized what happened, and found out ALL of the tins had been done just the same.

Back in my day, there were only two secret rares per set

Big stores that sell trading cards in Germany usually put them behind a glass case with a key. That cuts out 100% of all theft.

All the local game stores:I am never going to financially recover from this

Yeah, the odds are never in my favor except that one time when I bought 6 of those reprint Metal Raiders packs and got Thousand Dragon and Gate Guardian in the first 2 packs I opened.

I remember I got scammed at my first regional tournament by one of the venders. I ended up quiting the game shortly after that

I think you and nym nym are creating a whole new yugioh draft format yourselves and I’m loving it

With new rarities like Starlight and Collector's Rare, that worth sometimes significantly more than the box itself, it can be worth the risk. And it's always good to buy at least one box of a new set. The thrill of pulling a valuable card is greater than just getting it individually, even if the odds aren't in your favor.

Buying singles is much more easier and faster than buying sealed products, Cimo thank you for teaching me how to save my money on those kind of scams.

I remember before I would buy singles that I would go to Walmart and spend anywhere from $40-80 on cards. So yeah. I was spending lots of the money on the packs. Sometimes I would buy boxes from Shops. Nowadays I’m happy to be buying them online

Short printing is why I don't buy sealed YGO product. Rarities should be evenly distributed. If you short print within a rarity, then you know a card is more desired than another and then boosters are tantamount to gambling. I mean, they already are basically gambling because in YGO you don't even have the excuse of "drafting" like in MTG, but short printing makes it even more apparent.

thought there was something wrong with my pc when the video went to black and white lol

My local game store always shuffled the packs in a fresh box of any booster set meant to sell single packs in order to insure that mapping was impossible and that everyone had a fair chance.

This is such a great video listen too every word folks this will save your wallets

Thanks for talking about those issues :) May help a lot of people!

Imagine having this knowledge as a kid and walking in walmart with a scale you either "borrowed" from school or your neighborhood dope dealer.

Long story short do not buy loose booster packs or the blister packs You will lose your money. I recommend buying special edition boxes and factor sealed booster boxes as it is the safest If it ain't got the Konami wrapping on it Don't buy it Vs risking Being scammed because you can't scale a sealed booster box Or a sealed special edition. If you wanna avoid this scummy stuff entirely just buy singles Then again Screw the secondary market I'm not paying your prices I'll take my chances If y'all got it cheap enough I give it a shot.

You never buy boosters/displays to draw specific cards other than maybe commons/rares. You buy those if you either just like some of the featured archetypes from that set, to expand your card collection or to gamble. If you want a specific high rarity card, its almost always cheaper to just buy it as a single. Also I would recommend only buying at shops you trust, for example the place where you go to play locals and know the owner/the person responsible for the cards stuff.

Hey Cimo, First of all a very good video, really good reasons not to buy sealed Konami products. I also want to say 2 things why you should not buy sealed Yugioh products. 1-) The Yugioh Displays (or even the Cases) are numbered. We do not know this for sure but the Displays ARE numbered. Let me give you an example how. Lets take a Case as an example. 1 Case 12 Displays. Thos Displays are segmented 4 parts. Part A: Has the best chase Secret Rares (S1 and S2) > This cards are Prismatic/Collector Rares (or call them what you want) Part B: Has some good Secret Rares (Lets say S3, S4, S5) Part C: Has the mediocre Secrets (S6, S7, S8) Part D: Hast the garbage Secret (S9, S10, S11, S12) Now the thing is in the Case You will get 1A, 2B, 3C and 6D Displays. Of course the Secrets on those Displays will be some kind of mixed but it is most likely you will (or can) get the exact same Displays if you buy 2 Displays separately which are from different Cases. So you as a single person will never have a chance of getting one of the better boxes because those boxes are reserved for the sponsors of Konami. Those people will open the boxes on network and show us: "Oh guYs lOoK, i aM So lUCky puLliNG tHoSe. THiS bOX is aMAziNg, yoU mUSt Buy iT so wORth, koNAMI gOOd". As i said those guys will get predetermined boxes from Konami. But when i as a single person (or even you) open 2 Boxes i will get the same garbage like in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7yUp71mrJ-7gaM.html (go to 8:28 i compared the secret rares from both displays which were exact the same). And this was the last time i bought a sealed Konami product. 2-) Lets take the Example from above. We will get from a Case guaranteed those Displays: 1A, 2B, 3C and 6D alltogether 12 Displays. The Wholesaler which are getting those Cases from Konami will open the Displays to sell the single cards. But they will open those Displays until they opened the Display A, which has the "Ten Thousand Dragon" for examle. The rest of those Displays in this Case will be sold as "Sealed" seperately. This means you will have 0% chance to get the "Collectors" or the "Best" card. After this case they will move on to the next Case and they will do the same procedure. Those wholesaler wont lose money, since they are also selling the singles for agood amount of prize. When they open the new Case and the Displays in it, they want to pull the "best" card as early as possible. Because it is better to pull those cards in the first Display than the last one, you get the idea. Best Regards A pissed of TCG Collector

Man, I was super lucky back in the day that I was able to get decent pulls - all I bought was sealed product back during LOBE, Spell Ruler, etc. this is super sad that this is such an occurrence. If I started again now I'd almost definitely just buy the singles instead. Also - loving the progression series man, you've got a new subscriber in me! So interesting and nostalgic.

God i love the sound of his voice on this new mic 10/10

Cimo really gonna play that meme music huh

bro you had me freaking out. When the video went black and white i thought i went color blind or was having a stroke or something lol.

Awesome video cimo, this is a serious theme that has been bothering me especially since secret slayers, and now with the almost all secret dragma archetype. :(

Number 4: Fans of Little Kuriboh and his booster pack deckbuilding challenge series know exactly what this is like.

My best history for value per pack/box or whatever has been going to LGS that buy unsold blister packs from big-box stores and sell them on the cheap from the glass. My best value was back in 2009, I went to an LGS and bought 24 Force of the Breaker booster blisters for a total of $36. I ended up getting three Super Raiza the Storm Monarch, 1 Secret Volcanic Rocket, 1 CB Sapphire Pegasus (ultra), and an Ultimate Zeradias...and all of the regular rares and commons I needed to fill out an Abundance OTK deck. About three weeks later I traded the Ulti Zeradias for two tin Sapphire Pegasus (not the whole tins...just the pegasi) and a sealed Emperor of Darkness Structure deck (one of my YGO friends at the time would buy boxes of structure decks to get 3x the cards he wanted then have sealed product for trades and Ebay...it worked out pretty well for him). That is just the single best example, but go to your LGS and buy slightly out-of-date packs on the cheap for a decent sealed value...if they do it.

Cimoooooooo: *proceeds to scale & map Nyhmnim's virtual Labyrinth of Nightmare booster box* Also how fitting for the booster set on the thumbnail to be The Dark Illusion, because I vividly remember buying a pack of it at Walmart and it contained 8 cards and no foil 😵

I remember, as a young duelist, buying booster packs from the flea market near my house. I had good decks but nothing powerful. I was able to scale using just my hands and was pretty consistent with it. One week I pulled a Yata-Garasuand was super hyped about it. Two weeks later I pull another secret rare; Chaos Emperor Dragon-Envoy of the End. I got to work remaking my deck around those two cards and the result was a chaos control deck that turned me into the Number One Duelist at my school. That deck was so powerful, i was able to duel 2v1 and still win. I still have some of the cards from that deck including both secrets.

I remember buying like 40 packs (they came in pairs, so technically 20 sets) of LD: Ancient Millenium in hopes of getting the new Crystal Beast or Ancient Gear support. I got 1 Rainbow Bridge. Oh sure, I got like 3 playsets of Sapphire Pegasus and Relinquished, but the best I got out of that pack were Rainbow Bridge and a couple Bandit Keith cards. Best part, the cards I wanted were so short-printed, singles cost about $100 per playset. For CRYSTAL BEAST CARDS, because that deck is totally meta and worth that cost. Also, I remember one time I went to get one of the special box sets, and found a couple at Walmart had been opened and emptied already. What kind of desperate piece of shit do you have to be the steal cards like that? ESPECIALLY from a box set where most of the cards are the same in each set anyway. Best part, they just left the empty boxes there on the shelf, so anybody else could've bought them not knowing any better, got home to open it, and find nothing, and due to the nature of the product, I doubt they could've got their money back, so they would've spent $30-40 on an empty box all because some asshole just had to get some free cards. It was around the holidays too, so I could imagine somebody opening that present only to find it empty. As for "just buy singles," I got a reason not to jump on those: getting burnt by re-releases. Spent like $12 on a low-end Vanity's Fiend once. Not even 3 months later, a structure deck reprinted it. Matter of fact, the cards I mentioned before just got reprinted and burned the price gougers who wanted $30-50 each for those cards, so reprints aren't all bad. :)

Hi Cimoooo. Thanks for your videos!! Greetings from Costa Rica!!

No5: the odds are never in your favor: Buy on what you can see Not what excites you in the thought process of "possibly getting" something you always wanted

As a joke, i would never spend 1k+ on a 10k dragon, thank ya

So legit anecdote to the stealing stories: TL;DR somebody opened and resealed all 9 packs from a deluxe edition box after replacing all holo cards with commons from Starter Deck: YUGI. I was looking at Yugioh cards in a Walmart and I noticed a deluxe edition of uh... whatever the Shadoll set was... but anyway that box set, and I noticed that the Konami sealed wrap with the millennium eye was already removed. I was curious so I picked it up thinking maybe it was empty. It wasn’t empty. I took it to customer service to tell them about it. They had the manager check the video footage to prove it wasn’t me who tampered with the product, and then they opened the box up. All of the packs were still there, so I asked if I could see them before I bought it to make sure nothing fishy was up. Every single one of the packs had been cut open right behind the little fold in the back and had been resealed. Once they saw this, they knew they couldn’t sell the product so they let me open the packs to investigate and then leave the product with them. Every single holo card had been removed and replaced with a common card FROM THE ORIGINAL YUGI STARTER DECK. You’d go through one pack of 9 normal cards, then you’d get to the next and right after the rare you’d see Celtic Guardian. It was nuts. I couldn’t believe somebody would do that. I honestly feel like that’s even worse than just stealing the product. If you just take the whole thing then at least some kid can’t spend money only to get ripped off.

Seriously the feeling of opening a box and not making half your money back is really upsetting ...

Something else that can help avoid scams is to know what stores are licensed to carry Yu-Gi-Oh products. If you ever see Yu-Gi-Oh cards at something like dollar general, then they are absolutely repacks. Dollar general isn't licensed by Konami to sell first party Yu-Gi-Oh products. Vendors literally aren't allowed to sell actual Konami product to them. As far as I'm aware, the only stores that are actually allowed to sell Konami product are: Walmart Target Barnes and nobles Toys R us (RIP) GameStop And I think books-a-million still does? They did back in the day. Not sure about now. And of course, there may be some smaller regional chains that also carry them, but I don't know of any. Aside from these few examples, the only places you can buy original Yu-Gi-Oh packs is online vendors, and actual card shops.

This is why I tend to buy packs from Walmart or shops that don't sell singles. Walmart puts a strip inside the pack of the blister so they cannot be weighed correctly.

I worked at a Walmart and it frustrates me to see opened blister packs on the floor, in baskets or even in the freaking freezer. People will go to great lengths for a children's card game.

It's funny how some people scam others over a children's card game, it's like the most embarrassing thing to be caught doing! Imagine an adult in prison saying "I stole Yugioh cards".

Cimooooooo using kevin macleod music.....i never thought i would see that.

Watching this video after buying a couple of booster packs from a local store in Greece when I went there for holiday and pulling an Accesscode Talker.

It is insanely hard to find old yugioh packs that are not scaled. I got scammed by an ebay seller and had I not taken video proof would've lost quite as bit of money.

reminds me of that hunter x hunter ep where the guy breaks down scams, good info tho! didnt know about a few of these. ill add one to list : never bring a backpack or anything to a tournament, you will get robbed when a judge makes you put it on the floor (lap isnt good enough bc they are jerks) and people come up behind to "watch the game"

I agree with the first 4 points you mentioned, but I feel that noone on this planet could be stupid enough to plan on, for example, pull Accesscode Talker out of an Konami display, right? Like "Oh, the first display didn´t have it. Well, gotta have to pay another 60 bucks. Oh, sad story, another 60...and so on...600 bucks later...and on..."

i once bought sealed product at a walmart that was inside a plastic security case whoever sold it to walmart had already tampered with it an repacked it

In stores in my country, they have all sealed cards in glass containers under key (similar to jewels). This makes it impossible for most of the scams to happen. Also, the stores are all chains and no employee can temper or has the incentive to temper with the boxes.