It says a lot about the state of Pokemon cards that I'm so excited by a discount on old booster packs - but here we are. Sets both new and geriatric are nigh-on impossible to find right now, so some being available at a reasonable price is tantalising. What have we come to?
The discount in question is on a ready-to-play deck, yet that isn't the exciting bit. Rather, the things which caught my eye are the two booster packs that come with it. Alongside a 60-card Ampharos ex Battle Deck (which allows you to get right into one of the best card games), a Scarlet & Violet Temporal Forces and Paradox Rift booster are featured. This bundle is currently 18% less than normal, bringing it all down to £14.99 at Amazon instead of nearly £20.
I've spent a long time tracking Pokemon TCG prices and trends now, and the situation is just as dire regardless of whether you want to buy the First Partners Illustration Collection or you're hoping to buy Perfect Order, the upcoming expansion. Whether it's the sheer volume of demand, a lack of product, or (as is most likely), unscrupulous resellers who scoop up as much stock as they can before trying to shift it at absurd markups, the trading card game market is a disaster right now.
Will things improve? With any luck, yes. The Pokemon Company has acquired a major US distributor to meet "increasing expectations," and it's doing this apparently "reflects our long-term commitment to supporting the Pokemon community and the broader trading card ecosystem." We can but hope the situation is about to change, in other words.
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