Current State of the Market: Are Budget Decks Dying?

Instead of making another deck profile as usual, I’m going to make an opinion article on the current secondary market. The secondary market, for those of you who may not know, is the places players can get singles from other players and/or shops. The secondary market also basucally decides their trend in prices. I'll start off by saying this: currently, the market is garbage. Cards prices are inflated to kingdom come and buyouts are becoming increasingly common by places/teams to increase card prices price for personal gain. Because of this, budget decks are dying. I don’t mean to alarm anyone, especially because most of my individual deck profiles have been dirt cheap, because they are hyper-casual, but there are still red flags that everyone should be seeing. I’ll explain why I think this and touch on how it can be fixed.

In this post, I hope to cover three main points

• Why buyouts have a negative effect on a community.
• TCGPlayer’s mistake of letting individual players put cards and their prices up.
• How a bad market limits new players and accessibility.
  

First, buyouts have a very negative effect on the secondary market. According to the infamous VanKohl40, "Buyouts are often seen as a way of cards having value and stimulation in the games community." Let’s delve into this.

When someone(s) buys out a card(s), they go to TCGPlayer or all the other popular card gaming sites and buys every copy of a card in hope that they will rise in price and the individual(s) can make profit. Everyone else with copies of the card now have a card with an increased value. On one side, it can help the players with the card make money. The issue is that it hurts players that don’t and severely hurts accessibility for a new player or someone who is getting the deck new. In VanKohl40’s video, “Cardfight Vanguard Players Hate Card Buyouts”, (which is supportive of buyouts) he gives an analogy. He says that Jr., who doesn’t play the game often, buys a booster pack and has a card in it go from $1 in price to $10 in price. Because of this, he is making money or getting a good trade, because of a buyout.

Let’s look at the flip side. Timmy, who wants to start the game by getting a Vanquisher deck, looks at the card prices. He sees that Vanquisher is a good $25 apeice. After support was announced, his price was inflated as much as possible because people were interested in their own personal gain and profit, and now Timmy can’t afford the deck. This wasn't even caused by how good the card is, just hype. Buyouts are usually what makes a card jump in price so quickly and so much, and it limits accessibility severely. Buyouts are usually done to profit off of a card. Buyouts breed a community that becomes less and less accessible because money becomes more and more of an issue.

Now, I’m not saying all decks should be cheap. Nextage was a G Rare at first, and was nearly impossible to pull due to the rarity ratios. Then, TL became meta and popular and it’s price became ridiculous. This is understandable because Nextage is absolutely necessary to a popular meta deck and his high demand and almost no supply. The issue is that, for example, Vanquisher (I’m using him as my prime example), isn’t even amazing or topping tournaments but has a high price tag due to hype and price inflation. It shouldn’t have a pricetag like this. When Vanguard first began, and I’m quoting Different Fight here, a full Tachikaze deck was $30. Great Nature was $40, maybe. Casual decks don’t need a high pricetag just because of hype and buyouts.

Limiting accessibility for new players leads to less players coming in. Combining that with the fact that Bushi hardly advertises the game, not much players get into the game, or at least not as much as we could have. Not attracting new players is bad.

In conclusion, limiting supply with buyouts on a card with high demand hurts the market. It’s much harder to fix a card price by flooding the market with it then to destroy the price by buying it out.

Buying out cards is definitely a way to make a profit, but is inconsiderate and horrible for the rest of the community. It makes the entire community pissed at the person (s) responsible because now the card(s) are much much harder to get. Sure, you might be able to get X card on EBay or a Facebook group at a discount, but those aren't as reliable and you still (probably) won’t get the card for the price it was before its inflation.

Second off, TCGPlayer letting anyone put cards up was a giant and utter mistake. Let me explain why. Someone, anyone, can post a card with a regular price of $2 for $4. Because of this, the average price goes up, and it slowly climbs (buyouts are really just a way of speeding this process). If people start following the trend and posting the price higher, the overall price goes up. The price gets more and more inflated, and it can get silly. In the normal irl market, things can’t go full capitalist because the government can occasionally limit it if necessary. But this is card games, and nothing can regulate it. Vanguard market can go full capitalist. Stride Fodders, which are all Rs, have stupid prices right now. The Narukami Stride Fodder was an $8 R at one point. New players getting into the game have to break out a significant amount of money (easily $100+) simply to start a game.

Here are some examples. Looking at Kukuri and Commander Thavas, the prices don't seem horrible? A SP always has a high price, and Commander is a great card. The issue is that their prices are much higher than the market price, and it eventually drives the market price up. Kukuri is almost $40 higher than the market price here. Commander is $8 over the market price. Because this one seller is the only seller with these cards, they basically control the price. I get that the sellers generally want to make money, but that's usually why crates and boxes are bought, and jacking up the market price is unnecessary. If everyone wanted to make money every time they passed off a card, then the prices would just stack on top of each other and the card would become more and more expensive, eventually destroying the market price of the card.

Also, what the heck is this. Celestials are hardly seen in competitive play. This was under a buck when I bought the deck about a month ago. I don't know if a Celestial buyout happened, or no one is selling their Celestials back on the market. $4 Minimum Narelle shouldn't be a thing. And I have no idea how high the other seller was when deciding on the price. This is dumb. Casual decks don’t need absurd price tags. I'm trying so hard to abstain myself from using profanities.

Finally, even though I’ve mentioned this multiple times, less accessibility stunts growth and leads to a more money-based community. Advertisements are practically nonexistent, which helps lead to barely any new players, coupled with the fact that there are very few big tournaments that make the game worth competitive play. Due to Bushiroad short printing Tri3 and The Reckless Rampage, supply is low for those sets and demand is high (at least for Tachikaze and Nubatama from Rampage atm), and prices are stupid even without buyouts. Buyouts make an already fragile market more fragile. Less accessibility = less new players and more players leaving = small community which eventually = dead game. The game is meant for fun, not a lucrative way to make money by inflating prices. Bushiroad’s part in this is not advertising to attract new players and short printing cards to destroy the marketplace.

Overall, what I’m asking is for everyone to work to fix a bad community and market, along with to notice these red flags. The market is a mess. A good half of the posts on this blog are now invalid. The only reason people buyout cards are for personal gain. Even if someone is lucky enough to have a bought out card when it increases in price, it still hurts the community and any new players or players who want to build a new deck. Waifu and good and popular decks are bound to have a bigger price tag, and that's understandable. But at this point the marketplace is stupid, and it needs to be fixed.

First off, get everyone to notice the issue. Discuss how to fix it with other players. Help each other out and don't only sell cards for stupid prices. Some of the other best ways to help fix the market are to either boycott these groups/individuals who are responsible for this or to do the reverse of a buyout and flood the market with cheap cards. In addition, don't become part of the problem. Please. Just. Don't.

Anyway, please don't die, nor kill the market.

-JamesTheFefnirFanboi

PS: I also forgot to mention how Revival Collection helped the market considerably and should be continued. It obviously wasn't enough, but Bushi still deserves a pat on the back for at least starting to contribute to fixing the issue. Other card games seem to do reprints wayyyyyy more than CFV, but a Revival Collection every year is something we definitely need.