Discussion How TPCI can make better TCG products

[Nebby Baggington]

In my opinion, Pokemon TCG products have been on the decline for a while now. Every day the latest product news is another theme deck, more tins, another "premium" or GX collection box. TPCI has flooded the market with boxes filled with promos I can buy later on for much cheaper. It seems like the sole intention isn't to help the player, but to help the soccer mom buy more products for the kids at Target so their kids shut up for an hour. The only products in recent memory that actually help the player are the Battle Arena Decks and Elite Trainer Boxes. But even then, ETBs just contain packs, a $2 storage box, and some dice you can get later on. And sleeves. Gotta remember the low quality sleeves.

I'm sorry If I bored you with my rant about TPCI's products, and I don't even want to get started on promo card quality, but I would like to offer a way to "fix" it. Currently I also play Magic the Gathering, that one card game you see next to the Pokemon products, and I love how Wizards of the Coast handles Magic products. Of course a few Magic products are absolute trash, like Mystery boxes, but otherwise they have some great things you can purchase. The first product I want to go over are welcome decks. These aren't sold at big box stores like Walmart, but rather found, normally for free, at your local game store. Inside are two 30 card decks designed to battle against each other. Sounds a lot like a version of the Trainer Kits with Raichu and Lycanroc, or Pikachu and Suicune, except $10 less! What about Battle Arena Decks? Magic Duel decks offer the exact same thing, for way less than the cost of a Battle Arena Deck. I bought Mind V. Might, a Magic Duel Deck, for $15 comapred to the $30 I spent on Keldeo V. Rayquaza. Compared to ETBs, Magic Bundles/Fat Packs can be used to make a working, casual, Magic deck. And for the more casual players, there are deckbuilder's toolkits, which are non existent in Pokemon! But the thing is, Magic doesn't flood the market with new promos every week, instead they make much more well thought out products, like Archenemy: Nicol Bolas, which releases in a few days, which is a Magic game playable right out of the box, or Commander decks, High Power decks that can be used competitively.

Imagine if you can buy a Pokemon Product where you can open a box up and immediately right there is everything you need to start playing: Playsets of staple trainers, maybe some good, non GX/EX pokemon like Garb or Trevenant from Guardians Rising. While that may sound ridiculous to Pokemon players, this is normal for casual Magic the Gathering players. I'm not requesting that TPCI completely changes their product focus, but I do wish they could cater more to the player, not the collector, as players are what keep a card game alive.

But can Pokemon seriously fix how they package promo cards?

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

You always take a risk when buying things like this. They seem to make promos of relevant Pokemon and Charizard. It would be nice to buy a product full of staples to help the players (which is something I want to see) but a large amount of the product is for collectors. As for decks, TPC/i have never been good at making decks. The developers of Magic are involved in their game and know how it works, which is something I can't say for Pokemon. We have long droughts (with the more recent one being an entire era of the TCG) of not having answers to popular decks and odd decisions like reprinting Garbodor (kind of) without tool removal and Lysandre's Trump Card, which no TCG should ever make.

At this point, we have to accept that products are going to be a hit or miss. TPC/i seems to be getting more in touch with the player base so this could change.

 

[MorningSTAR1337]

On another note, there the factor that some of the staples include Pokemon cards that are usually Ultra Rare or higher. Some had made it in Tins like Volcanion, and I kinda expect Tapu Lele GX to get a tin later on (prolly around Burning Shadows if they keep up a 2 tins per pack format), the question becomes if they are willing to make such chase cards more commonplace and remove a reason to buy certain booster packs. And there is a balance problem. If one promotional card turned out to be a nessisary staple and was slapped on a Premium Collection box instead of a cheaper blister pack like normal blisters or pin collections, they would sell like hotcakes, but at the expense of making the card or collection even more expensive later on.

For example, how much money would say, a Shaymin-EX Premium Collection with 1 Roaring Skies Shaymin, 6 Boosters and some packs would o for during release. The card itself might be devalues, but the initial release might still easily run upwards of 70-100 dollars on the secondary market.

On a side note, Pokemon has been making crappy promo cards since the Ancient days of Mew. And some cards become chase cards not for any competitive value but because it tended to be akin to Charizard.

 

[Otaku]

It seems like the sole intention isn't to help the player, but to help the soccer mom buy more products for the kids at Target so their kids shut up for an hour.

This is how the Pokémon TCG makes its money, for the record. While such people tend to buy less than the competitive player or collector, both groups are so outnumbered that our collective purchases can't touch their collective purchases...

...at least that is my understanding, based on comments made by some WotC employees back when they controlled the game. I can't find those ancient posts (if they still exist, it would be in WotC's archived stuff), and even if I could, it ain't 2002 anymore (or whenever the comment was made). Yet from everything I can see, the evidence suggests this is still the case.

Wait, there's more! I'm not just... whatever the point I just made qualifies as (I'm trying not to just whine or lecture XP). I agree with the main premise that we need more releases better suited to the competitive player, especially the beginner competitive player, to reduce the hurdle of entering competitive play. I think there is a pretty straightforward solution and best of all it works for competitive and casual players! Of all places, it comes from what Yu-Gi-Oh! did... though only properly in their video game releases. Oh, and do it right, and they can please collectors as well.

This post is long enough, I'll resist going into full detail. The less long version is it ties into the idea of how Battle Arena Decks are "better" than the usual starter decks. Other games have different tiers of preconstructed decks as well. One of them - Yu-Gi-Oh! - was smart enough to design them to be relatively balanced against each other for a few years. Specifically, I am talking about their Worldwide Structure Deck series. Unfortunately, I don't think they realized they should support tournaments featuring these decks, and they seemed to abandon the idea after a while. In some of the Yu-Gi-Oh video games, you'll find a character who will only battle you Structure Deck versus Structure Deck. I really enjoyed that mode, even after I had the cards to build competitive decks, because it gets the pacing for that game down much better.

I propose a similar kind of "Structure Deck" for Pokémon; a series of regularly released decks, balanced against each other. Avoid too many cards built around "luck" in various forms (coin flips are the most obvious), and now we get a more chess-like setup. Instead of having to know hundreds of different cards that can be combined in various ways, you'll just need to learn each 60 card deck. YGO Structure decks were built around Attributes or Types, which for Pokémon would both be Types. The decks weren't competitive "as is", but often contained cards useful to both beginner and veteran alike. Throw in some new art and you've got something for collectors as well. The final step is to make it a recognized and fully supported format. It doesn't have to be used extensively, but make it something.

 

[MorningSTAR1337]

Would adding multiple prints of the same cards on boxes/tins be out of the question? That might allow primary-only buyers to get their staples more cheaply

 

[Nebby Baggington]

Would adding multiple prints of the same cards on boxes/tins be out of the question? That might allow primary-only buyers to get their staples more cheaply

That would be another option, despite the fact it would most likely drive up tin prices, unless they were to take out a pack or two. In fact that would be a much better solution. Pokemon could release boxes that have playsets of the cards, and maybe a few less packs.

This is how the Pokémon TCG makes its money, for the record. While such people tend to buy less than the competitive player or collector, both groups are so outnumbered that our collective purchases can't touch their collective purchases...

...at least that is my understanding, based on comments made by some WotC employees back when they controlled the game. I can't find those ancient posts (if they still exist, it would be in WotC's archived stuff), and even if I could, it ain't 2002 anymore (or whenever the comment was made). Yet from everything I can see, the evidence suggests this is still the case.

Wait, there's more! I'm not just... whatever the point I just made qualifies as (I'm trying not to just whine or lecture XP). I agree with the main premise that we need more releases better suited to the competitive player, especially the beginner competitive player, to reduce the hurdle of entering competitive play. I think there is a pretty straightforward solution and best of all it works for competitive and casual players! Of all places, it comes from what Yu-Gi-Oh! did... though only properly in their video game releases. Oh, and do it right, and they can please collectors as well.

This is long enough, so it ties into the idea of how Battle Arena Decks are "better" than the usual starter decks. Other games have different tiers of preconstructed decks as well. One of them - Yu-Gi-Oh! - was start enough to design them to be relatively balanced against each other for a few years. Specifically, I am talking about their Worldwide Structure Deck series. Unfortunately, I don't think they realized they should support tournaments featuring these decks, and they seemed to abandon the idea after a while. In some of the Yu-Gi-Oh video games, you'll find a character who will only battle you Structure Deck versus Structure Deck. I really enjoyed that mode, even after I had the cards to build competitive decks, because it gets the pacing for that game down much better.

I propose a similar kind of "Structure Deck" for Pokémon; a series of regularly released decks, balanced against each other. Avoid too many cards built around "luck" in various forms (coin flips are the most obvious), and now we get a more chess-like setup. Instead of having to know hundreds of different cards that can be combined in various ways, you'll just need to learn each 60 card deck. YGO Structure decks were built around Attributes or Types, which for Pokémon would both be Types. The decks weren't competitive "as is", but often contained cards useful to both beginner and veteran alike. Throw in some new art and you've got something for collectors as well. The final step is to make it a recognized and fully supported format. It doesn't have to be used extensively, but make it something.

It seems like this is kind of (and I mean kind of) what Pokemon is trying to do with both the Battle Arena Decks, and Legendary Battle Decks, except the problem is that the decks can't be used for competitive play, as the decks are built around the expanded format, and when you take a bad deck and expect it to do good in a format with Night March.... problems arise. These decks also don't feature different artwork, instead they just have some staple cards like Sycamore, Seeker, and N, and the occasional exclusive card, except for the latest Battle Arena deck with Alternate Sycamore and T Mail. I suppose that the Mega Powers collection did an OK job of appealing to collectors and players alike. $50 gets you some packs, the jumbo promo for those who like Jumbos, some full arts that were never printed, which appeals to collectors, and one of them sees a lot of play in Standard, Jolteon EX, which appeals to players!

You always take a risk when buying things like this. They seem to make promos of relevant Pokemon and Charizard. It would be nice to buy a product full of staples to help the players (which is something I want to see) but a large amount of the product is for collectors. As for decks, TPC/i have never been good at making decks. The developers of Magic are involved in their game and know how it works, which is something I can't say for Pokemon. We have long droughts (with the more recent one being an entire era of the TCG) of not having answers to popular decks and odd decisions like reprinting Garbodor (kind of) without tool removal and Lysandre's Trump Card, which no TCG should ever make.

At this point, we have to accept that products are going to be a hit or miss. TPC/i seems to be getting more in touch with the player base so this could change.

It seems like Pokemon has always waited too long to create "counters" to popular decks. Oricorio Sensu counters Night March.... after Night March rotates out of standard. Field Blower is an answer to Ability Lock Garb five sets later, and by the time The next block of Pokemon games comes out, maybe we'll have a solution to Trashalanche Garb. And then they favor some types over others. Boom grass is automatically the dominant type because of Forest of Giant Plants. Pokemon needs to be more in touch with their players, because as I said, players are what keep the game alive. If Pokemon screws up and releases just one card too powerful it can drive players away. This is another reason I'm glad a ban list is coming soon. We need it. Pokemon will begin to lose players and won't gain any players if nothing at all is done to keep them into the game

 

[MikeyPaine]

I am a pretty new Pokemon player and a long time competitive Magic player and I feel the exact opposite. Also I think you maybe don't understand some Magic products. For example, commander decks out of the box are not very competitive and are not particularly powerful, especially in commander. I also don't really understand how Magic fat packs are any different than elite trainer boxes. Promos keep the cost of cards down, honestly I wish Magic would crank out promos like TPCI does.

I can't think of very many cards other than Shaymin in standard that cost more than 20 dollars, there's at least one card per set in Magic that will retail from around there - though rotation is coming so prices are in a bit of a lull right now.

At the very least, I think Magic also suffers from the same issue of appealing to collectors.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

I am a pretty new Pokemon player and a long time competitive Magic player and I feel the exact opposite. Also I think you maybe don't understand some Magic products. For example, commander decks out of the box are not very competitive and are not particularly powerful, especially in commander. I also don't really understand how Magic fat packs are any different than elite trainer boxes. Promos keep the cost of cards down, honestly I wish Magic would crank out promos like TPCI does.

I can't think of very many cards other than Shaymin in standard that cost more than 20 dollars, there's at least one card per set in Magic that will retail from around there - though rotation is coming so prices are in a bit of a lull right now.

At the very least, I think Magic also suffers from the same issue of appealing to collectors.

Saying the commander decks are competitive was kind of phrased the wrong way sorry. I mean the decks are able to be played against someone in a competitive format. For example if two players had Commander Pre cons, they would be able to play a competitive game together. The difference between Fat Packs and ETBs is that if a casual player were to unbox a Magic Fat Pack, they could make a 60 card, casual deck.... the same can't be said with ETBs. I guess everybody has differing opinions on promos though. They keep the cost down but I highly doubt anybody will be playing any of the promos that come out of the box, as they are almost always just things that appeal to children, maybe they have big numbers on them, but they aren't playable *cough cough* Charizard. When I say that Pokemon appeals to collectors, I mean that they realease countless products for high prices so that collectors can go in a store and find tons of things to bring home that night. When was the last time Magic had a "premium" collection box? I feel like promos are done just fine in the form of the pre release promos. Something Magic also does better than Pokemon.

 

[MorningSTAR1337]

It seems like Pokemon has always waited too long to create "counters" to popular decks. Oricorio Sensu counters Night March.... after Night March rotates out of standard. Field Blower is an answer to Ability Lock Garb five sets later, and by the time The next block of Pokemon games comes out, maybe we'll have a solution to Trashalanche Garb. And then they favor some types over others. Boom grass is automatically the dominant type because of Forest of Giant Plants. Pokemon needs to be more in touch with their players, because as I said, players are what keep the game alive. If Pokemon screws up and releases just one card too powerful it can drive players away. This is another reason I'm glad a ban list is coming soon. We need it. Pokemon will begin to lose players and won't gain any players if nothing at all is done to keep them into the game

I think part of the reason such belated counters are added was not for Standard at all, but for the Expanded format, which at this point feels a lot more like Yugioh (or more specificlay, Yugioh if it cut off most of the the pre 5Ds cards) and it actually does see some support on both a tournament and product perspective.

As for the Ban list. That might have some problems. For starters, Would it follow the logic of the Shifty and Trump Card bans, being targeted at cards that are blatantly unfair, rather than "merely" centralizing? We have to considering the possibility that TPC/i actually sees Trashalance as balanced for the format and the fact that they seem to be creating alternatives for item cards like Switch, Escape Rope maybe even the Pokeballs.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

I think part of the reason such belated counters are added was not for Standard at all, but for the Expanded format, which at this point feels a lot more like Yugioh (or more specificlay, Yugioh if it cut off most of the the pre 5Ds cards) and it actually does see some support on both a tournament and product perspective.

As for the Ban list. That might have some problems. For starters, Would it follow the logic of the Shifty and Trump Card bans, being targeted at cards that are blatantly unfair, rather than "merely" centralizing? We have to considering the possibility that TPC/i actually sees Trashalance as balanced for the format and the fact that they seem to allowing alternatives for items cards like Switch, Escape Rope maybe even the Pokeballs.

See Expanded is where problems could arise. TPCI doesn't design cards for expanded. They design them for standard. Imagine if Hypnotoxic Laser sees a reprint, Raticate BREAK could be a viable deck. Now in expanded, it can even be a C- tier deck. Imagine some long forgotten card in expanded, like Shiftry, suddenly made better by a brand new card, like Forest of Giant Plants, and creates an extremely powerful deck.

 

[D2B2WIN1]

A TCG is only as strong as its casual consumer. Sometimes, TPCi makes products catered to that audience. Sometimes, TPCi makes products catered to the competitive crowd.

With Battle Arena Decks and Legendary Battle Decks, they provide a decent foundation to new players interested in the competitive side of the game. Those decks are designed to get older, out-of-print cards to causal consumers and lower the entry barrier to new Expanded players. TPCi could include more Ns, Lysandres, VS Seekers, Trainers' Mails and so on, but that devalues other competitive products. You could say, "Buy singles of X card" but some people would rather have a product that does most of the legwork than invest too much time/money on something they may or may not like. They would still need to buy cards for the Standard format, which will get them interested in the latest packs.

It would be interesting to see a Standard legal Battle Arena Deck within the coming year/rotation. It could reduce the price of cards like Max Elixirs, Choice Bands, and Fighting Fury Belts. Though, given the last Standard focused Battle Arena Decks weren't great, they may be less inclined to do it.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

A TCG is only as strong as its casual consumer. Sometimes, TPCi makes products catered to that audience. Sometimes, TPCi makes products catered to the competitive crowd.

With Battle Arena Decks and Legendary Battle Decks, they provide a decent foundation to new players interested in the competitive side of the game. Those decks are designed to get older, out-of-print cards to causal consumers and lower the entry barrier to new Expanded players. TPCi could include more Ns, Lysandres, VS Seekers, Trainers' Mails and so on, but that devalues other competitive products. You could say, "Buy singles of X card" but some people would rather have a product that does most of the legwork than invest too much time/money on something they may or may not like. They would still need to buy cards for the Standard format, which will get them interested in the latest packs.

It would be interesting to see a Standard legal Battle Arena Deck within the coming year/rotation. It could reduce the price of cards like Max Elixirs, Choice Bands, and Fighting Fury Belts. Though, given the last Standard focused Battle Arena Decks weren't great, they may be less inclined to do it.

I don't think something as drastic as a standard focused Battle Arena Deck with playsets of Sycamore and Seeker included in each deck is needed, as that would drive the already high price up BY A LOT. I don't want there to be $50 Battle Arena Decks, and at that point I rather would just buy singles.

 

[Otaku]

I don't think something as drastic as a standard focused Battle Arena Deck with playsets of Sycamore and Seeker included in each deck is needed, as that would drive the already high price up BY A LOT. I don't want there to be $50 Battle Arena Decks, and at that point I rather would just buy singles.

Why would those cards drive up the cost?

TCG cards aren't a limited resource in the usual sense. Unless an expensive, additional process is used on the cards themselves, the only reason to raise price beyond the usual market forces is to avoid diminishing the perceived value of actual booster packs. This could be an issue, except one the exact cards cited shouldn't be that hard to obtain: Professor Sycamore has four major releases: XY 122/146, XY: Phantom Forces 101/119, XY: BREAKpoint 107/122 and XY: Steam Siege 114/114. Of course, that last one is a Full Art and doesn't much affect the supply for competitive play (legality in rotation, maybe, but not the real supply). What has affected the supply is how often it appears in preconstructed decks already: four copies total (two per deck) in the Xerneas Vs Yveltal, Mewtwo Vs Darkrai and Keldeo Vs Rayquaza. The soon-to-be-relesaed Black Kyurem Vs White Kyurem Battle Arena Decks will probably also contain two Professor Sycamore per deck (Alternate versions using that new A symbol).

Battle Arena Decks are very close to what it is I am suggesting. The MSRP (at least in the U.S.) is 29.99 USD. This gets you two decks, deck boxes, damage counters, coins for flipping (I would prefer dice...), with the decks balanced against at least each other. The actual hurdle is if Battle Arena Decks contained more cards from the latest expansions, it might annoy the distributors. TPCi is selling to distributors who in turn sell either to smaller distributors or large retail chains. The smaller distributors handle smaller vendors and/or sell direct. If you start including the best an expansion has to offer before a sufficient amount of vendors have made their initial sales, they may feel slighted and order less of the next expansion.

 

[Slurma]

I'm sorry If I bored you with my rant about TPCI's products, and I don't even want to get started on promo card quality, but I would like to offer a way to "fix" it. Currently I also play Magic the Gathering, that one card game you see next to the Pokemon products, and I love how Wizards of the Coast handles Magic products. Of course a few Magic products are absolute trash, like Mystery boxes, but otherwise they have some great things you can purchase. The first product I want to go over are welcome decks. These aren't sold at big box stores like Walmart, but rather found, normally for free, at your local game store. Inside are two 30 card decks designed to battle against each other. Sounds a lot like a version of the Trainer Kits with Raichu and Lycanroc, or Pikachu and Suicune, except $10 less! What about Battle Arena Decks? Magic Duel decks offer the exact same thing, for way less than the cost of a Battle Arena Deck. I bought Mind V. Might, a Magic Duel Deck, for $15 comapred to the $30 I spent on Keldeo V. Rayquaza. Compared to ETBs, Magic Bundles/Fat Packs can be used to make a working, casual, Magic deck. And for the more casual players, there are deckbuilder's toolkits, which are non existent in Pokemon! But the thing is, Magic doesn't flood the market with new promos every week, instead they make much more well thought out products, like Archenemy: Nicol Bolas, which releases in a few days, which is a Magic game playable right out of the box, or Commander decks, High Power decks that can be used competitively.

Unfortunently, Magic and Pokémon have two different mainstream audiences. Pokémon is something kids enjoy, most of the time just collecting the cards, when they are young and then never touch it again, while Magic is something you play (feel free to correct me). This is why they make the "Collectors Chests", which are pretty much just lunch boxes with cards, so the average mom can see it buy buy buy.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

Why would those cards drive up the cost?

TCG cards aren't a limited resource in the usual sense. Unless an expensive, additional process is used on the cards themselves, the only reason to raise price beyond the usual market forces is to avoid diminishing the perceived value of actual booster packs. This could be an issue, except one the exact cards cited shouldn't be that hard to obtain: Professor Sycamore has four major releases: XY 122/146, XY: Phantom Forces 101/119, XY: BREAKpoint 107/122 and XY: Steam Siege 114/114. Of course, that last one is a Full Art and doesn't much affect the supply for competitive play (legality in rotation, maybe, but not the real supply). What has affected the supply is how often it appears in preconstructed decks already: four copies total (two per deck) in the Xerneas Vs Yveltal, Mewtwo Vs Darkrai and Keldeo Vs Rayquaza. The soon-to-be-relesaed Black Kyurem Vs White Kyurem Battle Arena Decks will probably also contain two Professor Sycamore per deck (Alternate versions using that new A symbol).

Battle Arena Decks are very close to what it is I am suggesting. The MSRP (at least in the U.S.) is 29.99 USD. This gets you two decks, deck boxes, damage counters, coins for flipping (I would prefer dice...), with the decks balanced against at least each other. The actual hurdle is if Battle Arena Decks contained more cards from the latest expansions, it might annoy the distributors. TPCi is selling to distributors who in turn sell either to smaller distributors or large retail chains. The smaller distributors handle smaller vendors and/or sell direct. If you start including the best an expansion has to offer before a sufficient amount of vendors have made their initial sales, they may feel slighted and order less of the next expansion.

But I don't think Pokemon will ever create a Standard Focused Battle Arena where EACH 60 card deck has 4 Vs seeker, 4 Sycamore, 3 N, 2 lysandre, etc. That in total would be 8 Seeker (which would be equal to the MSRP alone) 8 Sycamore, 6 N, 4 Lysandre, across both decks, which would (likely) drive the price up if not a little bit, a lot.

Unfortunently, Magic and Pokémon have two different mainstream audiences. Pokémon is something kids enjoy, most of the time just collecting the cards, when they are young and then never touch it again, while Magic is something you play (feel free to correct me). This is why they make the "Collectors Chests", which are pretty much just lunch boxes with cards, so the average mom can see it buy buy buy.

See but that's the problem we're discussing. Of course the Pokemon TCG is targeted to the collectors and the little kids, but I want it to have more of a focus on players.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

But I don't think Pokemon will ever create a Standard Focused Battle Arena where EACH 60 card deck has 4 Vs seeker, 4 Sycamore, 3 N, 2 lysandre, etc. That in total would be 8 Seeker (which would be equal to the MSRP alone) 8 Sycamore, 6 N, 4 Lysandre, across both decks, which would (likely) drive the price up if not a little bit, a lot.

See but that's the problem we're discussing. Of course the Pokemon TCG is targeted to the collectors and the little kids, but I want it to have more of a focus on players.

Pokemon doesn't make decks with the secondary market in mind. They could easily make a Battle Arena deck with those cards in mind and all it would cost them is the price of printing it. The Battle Arena is to put older cards and what seems to be harder to get meta cards in decks. Even if they were to give us a standard (say sets that ended their print run), the cost of them will still be around 30 bucks (or whatever they are at now) since to don't decide what the cards are worth on the secondary market.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

Pokemon doesn't make decks with the secondary market in mind. They could easily make a Battle Arena deck with those cards in mind and all it would cost them is the price of printing it. The Battle Arena is to put older cards and what seems to be harder to get meta cards in decks. Even if they were to give us a standard (say sets that ended their print run), the cost of them will still be around 30 bucks (or whatever they are at now) since to don't decide what the cards are worth on the secondary market.

Battle Arena Decks are normally not meant to put meta cards into the format. They are essentially a "game" that two people can enjoy casually, out of the box, much like Yu Gi Oh Structure decks (mentioned by Otaku) or something like Magic commander decks. The problem with Battle Arena decks compared to those two products, are that they aren't balanced around a format, they are balanced around each other. For example, f you were to take the Xerneas Battle Arena Deck, and battle the Mewtwo Battle Arena Deck, the match wouldn't be the most balanced, as the Xerneas Deck was not built to battle with the Mewtwo deck, same with the Legendary Battle Decks, theme decks, Trainer kits, you name it. But on the other hand, Yu Gi Oh preconstructed decks are all able to have fair duels with each other, but not necessarily a pro level deck that costs $2,000. Same with Magic Commander Decks. Commander decks are yearly releases of four or five (can't remember off the top of my head) of decks. All 5 of these decks can be unboxed, and have fair matchups against each other.

 

[Rocket The Shellos]

Pokemon doesn't make decks with the secondary market in mind. They could easily make a Battle Arena deck with those cards in mind and all it would cost them is the price of printing it. The Battle Arena is to put older cards and what seems to be harder to get meta cards in decks. Even if they were to give us a standard (say sets that ended their print run), the cost of them will still be around 30 bucks (or whatever they are at now) since to don't decide what the cards are worth on the secondary market.

TPCI does make products with the intention of selling packs however. Admittedly regular VS Seekers aren't in packs that are even in print at the moment(though I have heard there are almost certain plans to bring it back in one of the next sets after Worlds), but remember that they recently did a second run of Roaring Skies, which contains the SR Seeker as well as Shaymin EX. They know if they print a card as central to deckbuilding as Shaymin or VS Seeker or Lele, people will buy packs, boxes, cases even, to get enough copies of the cards. If they put them in promotional products (admittedly they did with Seeker, but the 2 copies of it in the arena decks wouldn't cover the cost of the box) then they don't get the huge returns on their packs. Sure, they sell a lot of tins/boxes/whatever, but they lose all the "chasers" buying as many packs or even more expensive products containing said packs (such as ETB, premium collections, etc.) and that's less profit for them.

Admittedly people could just by singles, but the singles market outside the US is kinda garbage at the minute, and people who sell the singles still need to open cases worth of cards to get the singles. If dealers know that people will just buy a $25 tin instead of forking out $40 on the card or even hundreds of dollars on packs, then they'll buy less product to sell and TPCI loses business.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

TPCI does make products with the intention of selling packs however. Admittedly regular VS Seekers aren't in packs that are even in print at the moment(though I have heard there are almost certain plans to bring it back in one of the next sets after Worlds), but remember that they recently did a second run of Roaring Skies, which contains the SR Seeker as well as Shaymin EX. They know if they print a card as central to deckbuilding as Shaymin or VS Seeker or Lele, people will buy packs, boxes, cases even, to get enough copies of the cards. If they put them in promotional products (admittedly they did with Seeker, but the 2 copies of it in the arena decks wouldn't cover the cost of the box) then they don't get the huge returns on their packs. Sure, they sell a lot of tins/boxes/whatever, but they lose all the "chasers" buying as many packs or even more expensive products containing said packs (such as ETB, premium collections, etc.) and that's less profit for them.

Admittedly people could just by singles, but the singles market outside the US is kinda garbage at the minute, and people who sell the singles still need to open cases worth of cards to get the singles. If dealers know that people will just buy a $25 tin instead of forking out $40 on the card or even hundreds of dollars on packs, then they'll buy less product to sell and TPCI loses business.

They can make an entire product of VS Seekers and sell it for 20 bucks if they wanted. Just because VS Seeker on the secondary market is 7 bucks right now means nothing when they are making product. They don't go "this product is worth 30 bucks already, don't put in anymore of "X" card in or we'll have to raise the price." The secondary market doesn't factor in their choice. It of course is a good decision to not promo out your newest set but I assume they know this already, however they did print two Tapu Koko-GX, who is the mascot of the set (and arguably of Sun and Moon). The same can't be said for Shaymin-EX and Tapu Lele-GX but I still believe Tapu Lele-GX will get a promo since the Tapu are important to S/M.

Packs will sell whether or not they promo out the set. The full arts and hyper rares still exist. Do you think people stopped buying Sun and Moon base? These set still have useful cards and things collectors want and I for sure like to crack open boosters, no matter the set. I think the way they are doing things is healthy. This also means more cards in circulation which directly affects card prices on the secondary market. TCG's are a very volatile market and they take risk each time they buy product. They never know what cards are "hot", be it for players or collectors. Many people consider Evolution and Fates Collide bad sets but the markets still spend a lot of money on them. They need to watch trends and see what happens. Right now, things are more or less predictable but they still need to be on their toes for that oddball product that could devalue their stock.

Players are the same way. How many player bought up things like S/M Skarmory and some other GX thinking they would hold value? I even bought a bunch of SR Switch, E. Hammer and some other cards that are worth half of what I paid for them. They even released full art versions of these cards! I also bought nine full art Lysandre when they were nine bucks and now they go for 41 bucks, which has been very good to me. Point is, TPC/i should make product, whether or not it affects the secondary market.

 

[Nebby Baggington]

They can make an entire product of VS Seekers and sell it for 20 bucks if they wanted. Just because VS Seeker on the secondary market is 7 bucks right now means nothing when they are making product. They don't go "this product is worth 30 bucks already, don't put in anymore of "X" card in or we'll have to raise the price." The secondary market doesn't factor in their choice. It of course is a good decision to not promo out your newest set but I assume they know this already, however they did print two Tapu Koko-GX, who is the mascot of the set (and arguably of Sun and Moon). The same can't be said for Shaymin-EX and Tapu Lele-GX but I still believe Tapu Lele-GX will get a promo since the Tapu are important to S/M.

Packs will sell whether or not they promo out the set. The full arts and hyper rares still exist. Do you think people stopped buying Sun and Moon base? These set still have useful cards and things collectors want and I for sure like to crack open boosters, no matter the set. I think the way they are doing things is healthy. This also means more cards in circulation which directly affects card prices on the secondary market. TCG's are a very volatile market and they take risk each time they buy product. They never know what cards are "hot", be it for players or collectors. Many people consider Evolution and Fates Collide bad sets but the markets still spend a lot of money on them. They need to watch trends and see what happens. Right now, things are more or less predictable but they still need to be on their toes for that oddball product that could devalue their stock.

Players are the same way. How many player bought up things like S/M Skarmory and some other GX thinking they would hold value? I even bought a bunch of SR Switch, E. Hammer and some other cards that are worth half of what I paid for them. They even released full art versions of these cards! I also bought nine full art Lysandre when they were nine bucks and now they go for 41 bucks, which has been very good to me. Point is, TPC/i should make product, whether or not it affects the secondary market.

The point I'm trying to make is that Battle Arena Decks STILL don't cater to the competitive player. Even if they put in "X" number of "y" it still might not affect the fact that the decks are only meant to be balanced with the other deck is was packaged with. Like I said: If you start mixing the Battle Arena Decks together, it won't be fun. The Xerneas Deck isn't meant to battle the Mewtwo Deck. Adding 2 more VS seeker won't change that either way. I'm not asking for a Battle Arena Deck to be able to win competitively, which is what I meant by a Standard Focused Legendary Battle Deck, what I want is less promo boxes, more products that allow you to play the game casually, and in a balanced format that allows you to have a fun, competitive game. Sure you can always get a Battle Arena Deck, but they can't be played in their own format because each set of two are only balanced against each other