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.

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

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

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)

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

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💀💀💀

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I've always known this, and that's why I never played meta when I still played irl. Great video! Subbed!

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.

Funny how u can get thecheapest print of accesscode talker in ocg for like 2-3$ meanwhile u need around 60~100$ for accesscode in TCG

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

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.

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!

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.

Great video! 👍

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.

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.

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

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.

Great video 📹 👍 . It actually pretty annoying to be honest because then we are left with so many decks just wishing something gets support. Don't want to be just trying to buy the best de k just to compete..

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.

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

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

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

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)

Seeing that price chart kinda made me interested in pokemon ngl xD

Great video! I love YGO but honestly the prices are ridiculous. Luckily I have a group of friends that only duel with each other with banned cards so these decks are much more affordable. I would love to see the prices go down and have it be more accessible to new people

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

We needed this video

Wow, did not know about the ocg way of printing rares. When are we gonna get the grand convergence? I'd take the ocg rules too, I need that database

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...

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.

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.

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 KZfaqrs 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...

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

Also shortprinting in side-sets didnt start with THSF. Their predecessor sets, Hidden Arsenal all had short printing: Brionac/Trishula/Naturia Beast/Lavaval Chain i.e. the marquis chase cards were all 1-2 per case.

More people need to see this video... lol I love this game and have started playing again after 8+ years, and while I now have the resources - but no time as I'm older; the irony amirite - this game is STILL in no way, friendlier to newer players. I feel terrible for students or university kids trying to get into this on a budget, unless their parents have deep pockets to fund their hobby. (You could argue that they can work to fund their playing, but the reality is, you're probably not spending your entire pay on a children's card game... and if you are, regardless of what stage of life you're at, you may have a problem.) The only positives I've seen recently are the structure deck reprints, which have improved drastically over time.

I'll be real, this just popped up in my feed and it took me a solid five minutes to figure out this was from a year ago

great video... exactly my thoughts

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.

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

Very interesting!

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

I'M FUCKING SEETHING TRYING TO CONVINCE NEW FRIENDS TO PLAY FFSSS CAUSE OF THE PRICES😡😡😡😡

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.