By Kenny Wisdom
Today I thought I’d take a different approach with my articles and write about an often underappreciated aspect of the TCG: values. Whether you’re a competitive player looking to gather the most bang for your buck, or a collector searching for the cheapest way to complete your collections, or anywhere in-between, card values should matter to you. Knowing what good prices and bad prices are and knowing what cards are on the rise and which are falling is an invaluable skill. Today I’m going to note a few cards which you should try and pick up while they’re cheap, and alternatively, a few cards that you should try and sell now, since their price is only going to plummet.
ON THE RISE:
3.) Rayquaza & Deoxys Legend
– This card earns a #3 spot only because it’s already kind of expensive, and is probably going to end up being played as a 1-1 in most decks (although 2-2 is also a possibilty). Right now you can find RDLs (what we’re going to refer to them as from now on, too much typing etc.) for about $20 a pair. I speculate that between Nats and Worlds, the price will probably go up to between $25 and $30 per set. Not the biggest profit ever, but with these cards being LEGENDs, and therefore already pretty rare/expensive in their own right, you can’t expect to gain too much value on ’em.
2.) Magnezone Prime
You’re a little late to the game on this, I’ll be honest. Around States and Regionals my team and I were trying to pick up extra Magnezones for cheap to flip for high prices, as we saw how good it was going to be in
HS-on pretty early (due in no small part to a friend traveling to Japan for spring break and observing the metagame there). All in all, we were able to trade for about 20 extras between our group, valuing them at between $7 and $10 dollars, whether through trade or purchase.
For those not paying attention, they’re now at $17 on TrollandToad, and are only going to get higher. You’re not going to be able to make entirely too much profit off of these guys, but if you pick them up at $17. I’m confident you’ll be able to re-sell ’em for $25 or so. Maybe even higher.
1.) Cleffa HS/COL
Cleffa is probably your best money making opportunity. It’s a ridiculously underrated card that’s only going for $.30 for regulars and $.50 for foils at the moment. I don’t suggest that you buy non-foils, but I picked up 10 reverse foils on TrollandToad (buying out their stock) at $.50 each and have been able to sell and trade a few away, valuing them at anywhere from $.75 – $1.50 each. They’re only going to go up, and are a fairly low-risk investment for an inexperienced hustler.
Honorable mentions: Junk Arm, Judge.
FALLING SHARPLY:
3.) Smeargle UD
Smeargle is one of my favorite cards ever, so it’s hard for me to say this, but it’s got to go. It’ll still be played and it certainly has it’s place as a starter in some decks, but the fact is that it’s worse than Cleffa in most situations/decks, and has the added risk of running into a Juniper or Judge in this format. Not a terrible card and it’ll still be played, but now is the time to take advantage of the falling price. Sell your entire stock now, and re-buy a playset or however many you need when the price drops in a few weeks/months.
2.) Pokemon Circulator/Pokemon Reversal/Luxray GL Lv. X/etc
Short and sweet: These cards are strictly worse than Pokemon Catcher, which is due out in three months. Not going to expand on this too much, but you should be dumping these cards as fast as possible.
1.) Vileplume UD
Now, I know that some people are going to disagree with this off the bat. I mean, with Catcher coming out trainer lock is SURE to go up, right? Wrong. It’s not a bad assumption that trainer lock should be stronger next format in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t work. You no longer have Spiritomb to set up behind, and Catcher targeting Oddish/Gloom is going to ruin your day. If you can manage to a.) make a deck with Vileplume that is actually viable and b.) get that Vileplume online consistency, then bravo to you, but I just don’t see that happening.
Honorable mentions: Tyranitar Prime, Ninetales UD.
Thanks for reading!
– Kenny Wisdom
kenny@sixprizes.com
twitter.com/kwisdumb
youtube.com/playtowinpokemon
Tags: Card Collecting, Cleffa, Luxray, Magnezone, Rayquaza, Smeargle