The Ties that Bind

Hey there, YGO Community,

Remember when I said I was going to try to post more? Sorry about that. I kind of lost my enthusiasm for the game for a while late last year and it just recently came back in the past few weeks. I think I got kind of burnt out and got tired of losing or being mad when I lost. In my absence, I've been playing a lot of Overwatch and going to the gym 4 days a week. I actually played only my 2nd regional of the year, last weekend in Philly. I played Trickstar and did better than I had anticipated at 6-3, but missing my invite because I punted a match and probably could have played better in general. I'm not sure how frequently this blog is going to be back, because of the aforementioned other hobbies, but, you're not here for any of that, so, anyway, I'm back for this week at least. 

This week's post will likely be a short one because I'm a day late to cover Super Agent's spike and Diagram's price tank combined with the fact that I only have one card to talk about as a pick-up and only two whose spike you might not be aware of.

Ties of the Brethren - This  week's spec card was only ever printed in the Legendary Decks II set that very few players, outside of the most casual bought. This card is still sub-$6 and that blows my mind since we have the release of the Counter Fairy structure deck slated for either late this year or early next year. I've always liked this card but I was trying to play it in some kind of Thunder Stun deck with Thunder King Rai-Oh, Denko Sekka, and Zap Mustang. The Fairy deck uses it so summon the board of Honest, Bountiful Artemis, and Barrier Statue of the Heavens to try to stop their opponent from doing things. They can't special summon monsters, except for Light monsters, you draw cards when you use a counter trap, and you have Honest because the deck's weakness is being run over by bigger, better monsters. If the card doesn't get a reprint in the deck, and this deck is a tier-1 strategy, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see this card double if not triple in price overnight. If you have a few extra bucks lying around, I'd recommend picking up your set now.

Van'Dalgyon, the Dark Dragon Lord - The Secret Rare copies of this card are nearly nonexistent on TCGPlayer, with only two listings available, and none of them for NM copies. These copies drying up probably has something to do with the release of the Counter Fairy deck I mentioned. People always want the highest rarity option for their 1-of's and this is likely going to be no exception. With there being no NM copies available, it's really a seller's market and I imagine the next few listed will be $10+ as people look to flip them immediately. If you have one and want to play the deck, keep it. Otherwise, try to make a few quick bucks.

Machine Duplication - By now, I'm sure you've seen much of the Spyral stuff skyrocket in price in anticipation of the deck becoming more powerful with the upcoming Forbidden & Limited list. We don't currently know out next list, but the OCG list absolutely cleft the meta in twain, taking every meta-relevant deck down a notch and, accidentally, making Spyral a very powerful contender.  As people get more and more familiar with the deck, they keep discovering combos and Machine Duplication is involved in at least one of them, plus is just a great value card even if you don't open some nuts combo. The Super Rare copies are $7+, while Ultimate Rare copies are nonexistent in NM, and the lowest LP copy is nearly $30. I'm obviously a seller at this price point, but this is a card that goes through the roof every few years, and the set is only getting older, so this card is only getting harder to find in decent shape.

I hope you all had some fun reading this week and I hope to keep bringing you guys content when I'm able or I get a hot tip about something.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Instagram: @DontKnowHow2Lose
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog? 
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, and I've still not made enough to actually get anything from ad revenue, but it would still be a cool way to  help support this blog.

Keep the juice flowing,

Lyle

Legendary Weapons

Hey there, YGO Community,

I told you all that I'd try to post more frequently, so here we are. Normally I choose one card and talk about it at length, but I want to try something different today. I'm going to briefly touch on a few cards that have recently fluctuated in price. Without much further ado, let's jump right into this.

The Black Stone of Legend - This card is seeing a reprint in the Legendary Joey Deck as an Ultra, but the MSRP of the decks will probably help it maintain some semblance of value, but if I had them, I would be dumping them with the swiftness. Get the $18-20 you can now instead of the $10 that you will be getting in the future.

Book of Eclipse - Super rare copies of this card are sitting right around $6 right now, if I had to guess, it's probably because of people getting ready to fight ABC and Blue-Eyes. This card has been $10+ before for the Commons/Starfoils because of it outing the Djinn lock in Nekroz, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it being that Look at Swords of Concealing Light for example, the card went from actual beans to $8+ for the Ultra literally overnight and the Ulti went through the roof, hitting $40+ for the 1st Ed copies.

Coach King Giantrainer - This card is $8+ because of the hype surrounding the 12 Beasts deck or whatever it's called. I'm sure you all saw the Maxx "C" vs Terrortop video, so you know how explosive the deck can be. I honestly don't know exactly know all the plays, but I can't wait to get blown out by the deck when it comes out. I know that if the deck can consistently summon this card, it's probably pretty strong.

Fire Formation - Tensu - This card's price is another product of the hype surrounding the new Beast Warrior deck coming out. The card was only printed foil once and is obviously strong in that deck, so I wouldn't be surprised if it holds a price tag, not $45, but $10-20? Definitely.

The Hidden City - There are only two copies for less than $20 on TCGPlayer. I assume it's because people are expecting the new support to break the deck, since, ya know, the last two TCG-exclusive archetypes have been tier 1. The deck hasn't had any cards leaked as of me writing this article, but by the time you read this, it might. I think that at $20, if you don't have too much into them, flip them, but if you want to play the deck because it has big, smashy monsters, keep them.

SPYRAL Super Agent - See The Hidden City, except there has been a card spoiled for it, just today. I'm not a pro and you don't come here for theorioh, you come here to make a little profit, so I'll let you all to evaluate it for yourself.

The White Stone of Ancients - This card is getting a reprint in the Legendary Kaiba Deck, see The Black Stone of Legend.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Instagram: @DontKnowHow2Lose
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog? 
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, but the minute amount of revenue from the ads does help support this.

Keep the juice flowing,

Lyle

Glad You Came

Hey there, YGO Community,

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've posted anything and the last thing I did post wasn't great. I've been dealing with some bullshit in my personal life. I struggle with depression and it can make it pretty hard to get anything done. I had an entire article typed up about the Bunbuku spike, called Rac(Coon) Racc City, but ended up deleting it because I didn't feel like it was good enough or anyone would wanna read it. And when I woke up the next day, literally everyone had already covered it. But I'm back and I wanna try to keep bringing you guys some content. I can't promise any kind of schedule, but I do love doing this and I'll keep doing my damnedest to bring you all something you some knowledge that you can hopefully make some money from. I want to thank my friend Louie Orem for making me realize just how much I loved doing this by starting his own YugiTube channel, YGO Juice Bros. I can't make any promises, but I think there might be some sick collabs between the two of us in the future.

Now that I got that boring stuff out of the way, we can talk about the real reason you're all here: the Market Watch. So, it was recently announced that a character on Arc V would be playing Gladiator Beasts and that there was some new support. This implies that there would be more real world support for the deck and the thing that always happens when they announce legacy support happened, the existing cards went up in price. I'm aware that the deck is available in low rarities, but I specifically want to talk about the high rarity versions of cards: CP and TU holos and BATT promo Gyzarus.

Gladiator Beast Bestiari - This card is the heart and soul of the deck, is needed to summon Gyzarus, the Twin Twister on a body, and was limited to 1 for years after the deck was hit. CP7 copies have always been pricey, but now $45 is the cheapest on TCGPlayer.

Gladiator Beast Gyzarus - There are copies of the set foil and gold for beans, but if you're gonna play the deck, you know you want to play the super juice version. These were only available to winners of the Battle Pack Tournaments at YCS's, so they're super limited.

Gladiator Beast Laquari - The highest attack level 4 monster in the deck and needed to summon the strongest boss monster in the deck, Heraklinos. There is one copy from TU5 for $13, then after that, they're $40.

Gladiator Beast Heraklinos - Barkion/Beast wrapped into one big ass fusion, provided you have enough cards to discard. There is one LP copy for $9.50, and after that, they're $25.

I don't know exactly how good the deck will be, but I know that many Yugi players, myself included, will try to break the deck. Based off of this, I made a spec buy this week. I purchased many copies of the card Gladiator Taming. If the deck ends up being good, this card will absolutely destroy the mirror, snatch your dude, contact fuse, attack, tag again. The card is actually good against other matchups too because you can change the position of their guy, rumble into it, take a little damage, and get a tag into your answer. Players pay life for everything nowdays, why not to answer problematic cards? The card is also a secret rare from 5 years ago and has never been reprinted. And at like $0.55 per, you can't really neg.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Instagram: @DontKnowHow2Lose
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog? 
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, but the minute amount of revenue from the ads does help support this.

Keep the juice flowing,

Lyle

Scourgeboard

Hey, guys and gals. This is a quick update post to let y'all know how I'm doing and why I've been absent as of late. So, I got a warehouse job to help fund BigTymeJuice and I've been hella busy with the job. And once I got my invite, I just started focusing all my extra energy on MTG, since the new set dropped. I just dropped down to part-time so that I can focus more on BTJ and start writing again, so hopefully you'll be seeing a whole lot more of me in the next couple'a weeks. But that's enough of that boring stuff, let's get down to why you are really here, the market watch update.

I want to thank my good friend, Daniel Misner for hitting me up and letting me know about this card. This week's update is about a card that I've always loved and tried (unsuccessfully) to make work. This was not the case for a player at this weekend's YCS. That card, of course, is Sky Scourge Norleras! Super copies of that card are like $22 currently and NM Ulti copies are nonexistent, with the only listing on TCGPlayer being a LP copy for $30. This card was damn-near a bulk foil until this weekend when it shot through the roof. My advice is, as usual, if you have copies of this card, ship them now. The card is cute and super fun and powerful when it goes off, but it's a pain in the ass to set up.

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet, but there should be more in the near future.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog?
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, but the minute amount of revenue from the ads does help support this.

Keep the juice flowing,
Lyle

Til' Infinity (The Warmup)

Welcome back, YGO Community! Sorry that I didn't have an article for y'all last week, but I was lazy and a little busy getting ready for the holidays this past week, but it was mostly me being lazy though. For those of you who celebrated a holiday, I hope it was great, and for the ones who didn't celebrate anything, I hope you had a good weekend. Well, without further ado, here's this week's article.

This article will be the last one before the BOSH Sneak Peek, so I figured I'd do my best to give you ideas of two more cards that may go up as people continue to try to find answers to the most hyped card in recent memory. In the last article, I talked about XYZ Encore. This week, I wanna talk about the other options: Night Dragolich, , and Chimeratech Fortress Dragon.

1. Night Dragolich
This card's effect doesn't activate, so Infinity can't negate it, so it gets to smash over it. And the OCG sided it at 3 as a way to out Infinity. When I was first tipped off to this card by my friends Cameron and Dan, I bought Trollandtoad out for less than $0.70 per and they're already up to roughly $3.00 for the MP copies and roughly $4.00 per for the NECH copies. We've seen the way cards that OCG players tech spike in price, so I'd say that these could hit $8-10.

2. Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
This card is already reasonably high in price ($19-22) because how badly dropping a Cyber Dragon and eating your opponent's board in order to make a reasonably-sized threat can blow out Kozmo players. Well, imagine dropping it after your opponent spends resources to drop their boss monster who's going to control you out of the game. They can't negate your Cyber Dragon's summoning condition and it's cost to contact them for the fusion, so they can't stop that either. The card only has 3 printings, a Manga Promo, an old Tin, and a Battle Pack Tournament Promo, all of which are pretty difficult to come by. If people move to this strategy as their preferred way of outing it, the card becomes relevant against two or more of the top decks (Kozmo, PePe, and whatever Level 4 Pendulum Spam decks are viable). The card's limited distribution could cause it to skyrocket to $35+ easily. It could also, by extension, cause Cyber Dragon Core (currently $3-4) and higher rarity printings of Cyber Dragon ($43ish for Duel Terminal Preview,$35ish for Ulti, and $14ish for DR04 Ultras) to spike.

This Week's Trend

Dodger Dragon - Shout out to my boy Panda for putting me on to this card! Super Rare copies are $5-9 currently following a buyout because of how much potential they have in a world of infinite Counter Traps. I'm currently holding all my copies and pursuing more because I believe in them. So, if you can get them for $4-6, I think you should buy them.

The Melody of Awakening Dragon - This card went from a bulk foil to $3.50 with the anticipation of the new Blue-Eyes stuff. I think this card has a lot of long-term potential as a casual card. It's everything casuals like, it supports on of the biggest, smashiest, Timmyest monsters in the game, which just so happens to be a character card. And, I mean, just look at the art. Lord of D. playing a freaking guitar solo. They just did a Blue-Eyes Structure Deck in the last 2 years, so it's unlikely that Konami will do another one just for the Alternative Dragon stuff. It could easily be a $10 card in the very near future. Pick them up for $1-2 per, stash them, and profit. You're welcome.

I just wanna thank you all for the crazy love I got on the most recent post. You guys crushed anything I could have ever imagined, 2400+ views in 24 hours.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog? 
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, but the minute amount of revenue from the ads does help support this.

Keep the juice flowing,

Lyle

Understanding the YGO Market 101

Hey there YGO Community,

For my first article back, I decided that I should give you guys/gals a proper explanation as to why the YGO secondary market is so hectic and how to read and hopefully make some money off of the instability. First thing's first: With the exception of a VERY select few people, you WILL NOT get rich off of hustling some cardboard, but it might help you pad your wallets a little or at least make your hobby sustainable with minimal continuous investment. The main things I'm going to talk about here are: hype, buyouts, and impulsive buyers. I know that these three things are very closely related, but they are all different in their own ways. Don't worry though, I'll give you a speculation target at the end, ya know, since that's why 90% of y'all are here.

Hype
Webster's defines hype as "extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion" or to "promote or publicize (a product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits." How is this relevant to the Yugi secondary market? Well, competitive players always want to be on the cutting edge of the game and they want to have the drop on the next big thing. This often causes demand to far surpass supply on any new, sweet tech (Deck Devastation Virus, Luster Pendulum, the Dracoslayer, Brilliant Fusion, Xiangke Magician, and Storming Mirror Force) or the staples (For their time) that players slept on for too long and have to scramble to get (Upstart Goblin, Vanity's Emptiness, Twister, and Denko Sekka.) All it takes is one weird tech in a Regional/YCS-topping deck to cause a mad rush of players to buy their copies before all the reasonably-priced copies are scooped up and they have to pay the mega juice price.

Buyouts
A buyout is exactly that, either one individual or a group of likeminded people make a run on a certain card with the intent of causing the price to spike. Buyouts tend to be more of a MTG thing because the player-base tends to be older and they tend to have more disposable income, so making a run on a new, hot card in order to artificially inflate the price is more easily done. But that doesn't mean that buyouts don't happen in Yugz. There have been multiple cases of people buying up all the copies of cards only to re-list them for mega juice prices. And while I have never orchestrated a buyout, I have certainly profited from them multiple times throughout my Yugi career, the most recent occasion being Deck Devastation Virus. As I was writing this, and I had written an entire paragraph about the DDV buyout, I became aware of a buyout occurring on TCGPlayer. Every copy of Tatsunoko was bought up and copies were re-listed for $65+ before dropping to $35, and eventually to $20ish. Don't get me wrong, the card is very good and should probably be more than the $9 that it was before the buyout, but it was talk about Chris Leblanc's Synchro Fusionist deck hyping it, followed by a buyout that caused the current price spike.

Impulsive Buyers
There are a large portion of Yugi players who are incredibly impulsive, quickly jumping on the newest thing that any "pro" says is good and buying their playset. This has caused certain less reputable people in the past to say how "broken" a certain card is in a deck in order to get them up to a crazy price and let them cash in on the hype before people realize that the card isn't good after all. The most recent case that comes to mind was Spell Chronicle and how amazing it was in Shaddolls. People hyped the card up, knowing full well that it didn't trigger their effects because it was cost to send them, and when confronted about it, they called it a "social experiment" in order to justify their greed. They cost unfortunate, misinformed, impulsive players so much money for cards that were actual trash and should have been left in the bulk box. I know that I don't do these for no benefit to myself, it's not just keeping the public informed about a card. I make money off of selling cards after they go up, so before I write about a card, I make sure to buy at least a few copies, depending on how many I already have.  I may be wrong about a card, (given my track record, it is unlikely) and I might make money after they go up, but I will NEVER knowingly lead you astray. If I'm writing about a card, I believe it is the genuine article. The card might not break the game, but I genuinely believe in everything I write about as money makers.

Speculation Target
The card I want to talk about this week is XYZ Encore, as suggested by my friend Cameron. Now, it's no secret that Cyber Dragon Infinity is finally being released in BOSH. This is the most talked-about card in a long damn time, and for good reason. It steals your opponent's dudes and uses them as part of its Solemn-on-a-stick effect. I don't need to tell you how to summon it, because everyone knows how at this point. I'd rather tell you how to beat it. We've seen in the past the cards that can't be responded to tend to be worth keeping in mind, I mean, Super Polymerization got banned. We've seen XYZ Encore be played before, believe me, as a long-time Evilswarm player, the Dragon Rulers players ALWAYS had the Encore... The card is currently like $3.00 and has so much room for improvement, so if you can manage to squirrel away a few extra copies in order to deal with the incoming menace, I would advise you to do so. I'm not saying that it'll be $100, but let's not forget that the card has been $10+ in the past and most definitely has the potential to do that again.

Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?
Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

Twitter: @SparkConfidant
Reddit: BigTymeJuice

Want to support the blog? 
Consider turning AdBlock off while you read. I know, ads suck and I'd be lying if I said that I never use AdBlock, but the minute amount of revenue from the ads does help support this.

Keep the juice flowing,

Lyle

The Return of the YGO Market Watch!

Hey there YGO Community,

I've been thinking about it a lot recently and after having read an incredibly well-written article yesterday, I remembered just how much I truly love writing. I also remembered just how much I liked watching the cards trend upward after I talked about them, (not necessarily because I talked about them) but because I was right significantly more often than not. And, more than anything, I remembered just how much I loved hearing feedback from the community, good, bad, or indifferent. So, it is with great pleasure that I get to announce that I will be relaunching the YGO Market Watch in the next few weeks. The articles will likely be bi-weekly and should be a little more in-depth. The main reason I originally stopped was that I ran out of cards to talk about and I started focusing more on playing than buying and selling, but this new schedule should keep me busy, yet keep the work coming. I want to thank you all for all your support in this whole endeavor.

Keep the juice flowing,
Lyle