Discussion Collecting PTCG Round 2 - help me understand modern cards

HangTenPikachu

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Round 1 began in 1999 - two sons 11 and 13, they were already MTG players and they took to Pokemon. They played, I collected - we did this pretty solid from the base set through Team Rocket, they got a little older and the market seemed flooded so we moved on.

The formula was pretty simple back then - 1st Edition came out followed by Unlimited. Pull rates for holo rares were about 1 in 3 booster packs so somewhere around 60-70 packs (or two boxes) you would have around 20 holos - trade the dupes for whatever you were missing and voila! you got a set.

Fast forward to 2020, with pandemic free time I was able to complete my WOTC Black Star promo set. Now I have pre-school grandkids and I want to turn them on to pack cracking & bindering. So about 10 days ago I started my research of modern cards, to me that's everything post WOTC. OMG there's too much out there! And now cards come in tins, ETB, even 3 card packs at the Dollar Store! So I have some questions:

1. Where can booster packs for an initial release of a new expansion be found? Please don't say Ebay, I'm talking brick and mortar and paying retail.

2. Who is the market? Are kids busting packs or are Millennials reliving their childhood?

3. Are cards still used for deck building - game play? Online playing and Go weren't around 20 years ago.

4. Can packs be weighed for secret / V / VMAX cards? Or do all packs weigh the same now?

5. Can a modern expansion set be collected? With all the ultra special cards with tough pull rates, it must take a lot of packs and/or money to buy to by them to complete a set.

I'll stop for now & wait for you to chime in :)
 

Martshmallow

Aspiring Trainer
Member
That's an interesting post on the PTCG. I also began way back then but I was 6-7. Getting new packs to open up and occasionally boxes/tins was the best experience, with a decent chance of getting a rare or ultra rare card, as you mentioned.

I don't play the TCG, but I collect them extensively, still having all my cards from day 1 (10,000 or so). Today, the odd time I'll buy packs, I am disappointed. Out of a 5 pack purchase, let's say, I get some Rare Non-Holo cards, but mostly Common/Uncommon, and 3/5 times I'll get a Rare Reverse-Holo card that I don't care much for. Out of 5 packs, I'll typically get one Rare Holo and maybe a Ultra Rare but I wouldn't say that happens even at a 1/20 rate.

All that said, I buy Singles online. I pick and chose the cards I want. I can buy all of the Holo-Rare cards from a set for $50-80, and even that is a stretch. As for Ultra rares, they're much pricier, but you know what you're getting for your $5/$10/$20 purchase. I feel like I would need to spend $100 in packs to get an Ultra Rare that may cost $2.79 as a single purchase.

So yea, gone is the exhilaration that comes with opening new packs, which dropped to 10 cards and are basically $6-7 CAD each.
It may be a different story for card players as they might get the cards they want/need in the Non-Holo or Reverse-Holo categories and care for them more than I would.
 

bbb888

Same user name as my Pokémon YouTube channel
Member
Round 1 began in 1999 - two sons 11 and 13, they were already MTG players and they took to Pokemon. They played, I collected - we did this pretty solid from the base set through Team Rocket, they got a little older and the market seemed flooded so we moved on.

The formula was pretty simple back then - 1st Edition came out followed by Unlimited. Pull rates for holo rares were about 1 in 3 booster packs so somewhere around 60-70 packs (or two boxes) you would have around 20 holos - trade the dupes for whatever you were missing and voila! you got a set.

Fast forward to 2020, with pandemic free time I was able to complete my WOTC Black Star promo set. Now I have pre-school grandkids and I want to turn them on to pack cracking & bindering. So about 10 days ago I started my research of modern cards, to me that's everything post WOTC. OMG there's too much out there! And now cards come in tins, ETB, even 3 card packs at the Dollar Store! So I have some questions:

1. Where can booster packs for an initial release of a new expansion be found? Please don't say Ebay, I'm talking brick and mortar and paying retail.

2. Who is the market? Are kids busting packs or are Millennials reliving their childhood?

3. Are cards still used for deck building - game play? Online playing and Go weren't around 20 years ago.

4. Can packs be weighed for secret / V / VMAX cards? Or do all packs weigh the same now?

5. Can a modern expansion set be collected? With all the ultra special cards with tough pull rates, it must take a lot of packs and/or money to buy to by them to complete a set.

I'll stop for now & wait for you to chime in :)

1) You can find packs at Walmart, Target, London Drugs, EB Games, Collectors Cache, DA Card World, Troll & Toad, and many local hobby shops.

2) The target market is anyone who likes Pokemon!

3) You can play with decks online, and that may be preferred due to this pandemic. You can also check the Pokemon website to see if they have official tournaments in real life in your area.

4) Any packs before the early XY series can be weighed. After Phantom Forces, packs are very difficult to weigh now because of different code cards. However, there are exceptions like Champions Path and Shining Legends. I actually explained this recently in another post.

5) Completing a modern set today is very challenging, imo. With all the rainbow rares, secret rares, and Charizards, you could spend $500+ just to complete 1 set. This is why I only complete sets that I really really really like (which is very few).
 
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