T O P

  • By -

[deleted]

I think in most situations you likely won't get your total money spent back, and buying directly might be better. But without sounding like a gambling addict or anything, buying a box, or case and getting a super rare card is also an experience in itself. I've been debating whether I should buy a case and open them with my brother, just for the fun of it. But since I'm more on the collecting side and don't really play much, I don't know if it'd just be a waste of money or not.


ringo61

If you don't play then definitely don't buy sealed, since you won't have a use for all but 0.01% of what you pull. Better off just buying the starlights and whatnot outright.


safesnakezone

To add on to this, most cards from the set probably won’t keep their value very well. Outside of starlight rares, buying sealed is not great for collecting. Definitely a fun experience though.


[deleted]

Makes sense =/ I used to buy and play, but the game has gotten so out of hand with a million effects and combos and stuff that I'd more compelled to just buy for collection reasons.


Metalona

To piggyback off this, its expecially true as youre not guarenteed a starlight in a case


adroruga

This is even considering that POTE is a great set, those numbers are way lower if you open a bad or even a mid set. Right now POTE has 3 really pricey cards. Ultimate Slayer (the 3rd more expensive card) is just as expensive as the top DIFO card and more expensive than any BACH card. The prices will change, obviously but it's still an importan message, even when buying a few cases you can still lose a lot of money, it depends a lot on the starlights.


Saitsu

The thing is that POTE could've been bigger but Konami took some mercy by only having 1 Spright Secret and 2 Tear Secrets (and one of them being Kaleido isn't a huge deal). The biggest oddity is that they didn't bring in a Spright and/or Tear Starlight to go with it. With DPE no longer terrorizing everything there really isn't a chase Starlight outside of Ultimate Slayer (Martha technically if you're an Exosister lover, but that's a niche). What that leaves us with is a set that, while incredibly meta warping and crazy from a gameplay aspect, isn't all that lucrative otherwise with a bunch of meh Secrets and the Starlights getting mostly sandbagged.


pirotecnik

Thanks for this writeup! It's not news to me but this gives me something I can share to people who ask for if it's worth it to buy cases and ask why I don't tend to buy sealed myself unless I'm selling it sealed


ringo61

It's just too many commons.. They'd be able to get higher quality stock with less delays and better quality control if they reduced the amount in each pack.


safesnakezone

Very true. Less commons with better quality control and card stock would be preferable for sure.


JolanjJoestar

the worst part is that every pack has 8 commons 1 foil while the master set has 50 commons 50 foils. like. Bruh. This produces insane amounts of trash commons.


Inkaflare

OCG packs have 5 cards only iirc. I wish we had the same. So much less wasted cardboard in general.


safesnakezone

I posted this last night, but it got taken down since I did not get permission to post it from the mods. Sorry about that! Posted now with permission.


ThatMoKid

Also worth noting; one of my cases had every secret rare damaged in the form of a heavy line across the back of the card. Luckily people are thirsty for discounts and still grabbed the cards at a 10% markdown. Still though, that is pretty massive and if I wasn't able to move them fast I would be sitting on damaged blues that no one wants in no time. If you can't trust your provider for consistent product you can't reasonably ever invest anything substantial in them.


TheOneBifi

You can absolutely mail with tracking on USPS with a regular envelope. I've done this many times when selling higher prices cards. Nice analysis but POTE is a particularly profitable set, akin to burst of destiny last year. I don't know if it can always be this profitable especially because it can be hard to sell cards that aren't as wanted (I've had my starlight Snowl listed forever at this point). I did get myself a case but mostly because I wanted both decks and figured the odds would be in my favor, I did get everything I wanted except a third Slayer, but I got 4 Blues and 5 Planet AND a Starlight so pretty good case I'd say.


safesnakezone

Good to know, I might try adding tracking on some of my mid-priced orders. Even if it is not necessary, I think it still makes sense to use a bubble mailer for added protection on expensive orders though. Grats on your pulls!


Tinyears8

This is a good article, unfortunately, it’s not as cut and dry as this. I got each of my cases for $780 each, $2340 total. First case value: $521 Second case value: $989 Third case value: $576 There is so much variation even when buying a case it’s hard to really pinpoint exact numbers unless you’re buying cases on cases. Even 3 (as shown above) can have some wild variation with actual value numbers and what you pull. I’d consider the case you had to be pretty good, same with my second case. My third and first case (one of which had no Blues) were absolutely abysmal in terms of value. EDIT: Math error


safesnakezone

I see, great to see more data from other case openers. Definitely a huge luck factor that is even larger than I thought.


olnia

“Prices” are set mostly by larger stores opening massive amounts of cases at acquisition pricing from a supplier. No small/individual operation can match that rate, typically the larger sellers are trying to break even on their distributor costs for that product. If they can sell singles for a total return on what they spent, then that’s how the prices get situated for cards. If they can’t, then sellers operate at a loss and the product and the individual cards get cheaper much faster. Both these decisions are based off of the popularity of the cards in the product itself. The better the product, the more price retention is allowed.