What do you all think of the high priced Dragon Ball Cards?

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I have been following the Dragon Ball Super card game for awhile now. I’ve bought a decent amount of the original sets then I stopped for awhile.

Seems like I stopped right before it started to get good…

The tournament of power booster boxes are over 200$ now. I think just about a month ago they were only 100$. They retailed for probably 65ish at the start.

Those boxes contain signed cards of Beerus, Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza. Each of those cards seem to be in the 100$ range or more. They also had a secret rare card that sells in the 300$ range for ungraded and 600-1000$ graded by PSA. This card is called Goku The Awakened Power. I read where this was a limited print run so it made sense to me why the value of these cards continued to go up…though it did seem to go up very very fast which surprised me. I was not use to seeing card games other than Pokemon go up in price this fast.

I believe the Goku card was considered to be very overpowered in the card game so part of that value should have been due to playability but then you see the PSA 10 version of the card sell for 1,000$…

Then the newest set came out Destroyer Kings and it has multiple secret rares already selling in the 200-300$ range and the booster boxes have already shot up to 100$.

Now I have not done a ton of research but this seems to be interesting to me. Is Bandai just not printing a lot of these cards now? The first few sets booster boxes are only around 50$ currently. Feels kind of like how the Japanese Booster boxes of Pokemon are?

I have been trying to decide to if I should bite the bullet and get some of the tournament of power cards and have them graded. I figured they would have gone down in price at least a little bit by now but they just seem to keep increasing…

What do you all think?

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With DBS you need to understand the game’s design philosophy.

99.99% of DBS cards are worthless even on release. I take issue with some of DBS’s set design.

What happens every time they release a new DBS set is that 99% of the cards of all rarities sit under $2. What does have value in the sets are Special Rare variants of $1-10 cards. Maybe 1-2 of the SRs will retain value value after a set’s release but from a business’s point of view to open these sets for singles is loss leading.
There is no significant value in these sets which makes deckbuilding for players super cheap. This is because US stores go crazy opening product of a game which has a tiny playerbase but also because the game isn’t balanced well and most cards you need to play the game are too easy to pull.

Dragon Ball might be a huge IP but to get people to give up their time to sit and play in tournaments every week is asking a lot. It has a decent following but events aren’t huge. Time will tell if it can grow.

DBS secret rares have a pull rate of 1 per case. Nobody wants to open $800 worth of product to get one so the super playable ones start out extraordinarily high, then depending on how the meta forms they drop in value. Sometimes dramatically, sometimes gradually.

When you have a deck worth $50 and you need a relatively inaccessible card to complete it, what do you do? You buy the big secret rare. That’s how these cards have extremely high price tags compared to the rest of DBS cards which typically have a ceiling of $20 barring reprints like event promos or different variants. Competitive decks typically run around $100-$200.

These cards are valuable because they are PLAYABLE, not collectable. They gave Awakened Goku an effect that lets you win the game in one attack, it’s the only card with this effect. The Tournament of Power special rares are playable to different degrees but they are also unique so there is definitely a level of collectability to them. All these supplementary “TB” sets try and do something different than the core sets. They look great, it’s inventive, doesn’t stop most cards in the set not holding value.

If tomorrow Bandai decided to reprint Goku The Awakened Power the price would tank. It’s not a 20 year old collectable, it’s a new card that came out last year, Bandai wants their game to be nice and accessible and Tournament of Power is out of print. It would also make boxes of such a reprint set fly off the shelves.

Is Bandai mass reprinting cards atm? They’re not going crazy with it but they’re going above and beyond to foster a strong playerbase and make the game accessible somewhere down the line that could mean major reprints or making another card that fills the shoes of Victory Strike Son Goku.

The other thing is DBS tcg could just die. Stores have been burned with previous sets needing to liquidate product at huge discounts, local tournaments are small, it’s a terrible product to open and the insane power creep doesn’t help either.

Bandai is at the very least supporting this game quite well but that’s not cheap. While this is wild speculation; Their finance people could only have a road plan for another 2-3 years if the game hasn’t met expectations for all we know. Another thing to consider is that DBStcg only exists in Western markets, not Japan, which is definitely a strange thing for a tcg based on a Japanese property.

If you want to dabble in DBS just flip, there is nothing to suggest a long game. From my experience in MtG and Yugioh sought after cards sometimes just cool off and drop in value regardless of reprints or playability. Demand is met, then supply grows and cards just drop. The Tournament of Power Special Rares, Awakened Goku and sealed boxes have already spiked to crazy high levels for DBS over the span of a year, doesn’t mean they will keep going up. The safest speculation is probably the sealed box imo.

If we get to year 5 of Dragon Ball Super tcg and a collectorbase develops then it might be worth going after Awakened Goku if it’s deemed to be the penultimate Goku card. But if the game lives that long it might have been worth buying a box of the 1st set instead of what’s hot now.

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I think budget did a good job summarizing this and probably has much more experience with this tcg than I do.

The difference between mtg, pokemon and yugioh vs dragon ball is 20+ years of devoted players and collectors. There’s a lot of support for the dragon ball tcg today, but will it still be popular and fresh in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

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Well said by the above comment. Just want to applaud the thorough response and note that he is exactly right on most points. I hang out with people that are invested in the game for the sake of playing it. It’s a hustlers game. Buy, Sell, Buy, Sell, Buy, Sell… The playable cards all sit in the 5-20 range with the occasional outlier. The big Secrets are are constantly spiking and dropping with playability.

To give a good perspective - I live in a heavily populated area that has 10+ card shops within an hour of me and 5 within 30 minutes of me. I know of one that deals regularly in this product and they keep very, very minimal amounts on hand. Mainly just sell the sealed product and wait for a small restock. This is keeping the secrets high in price for now causing people to break more boxes in search for them (us Pokemon collectors can appreciate this). Stores just dont trust the product yet and the player base isn’t there yet.

As far as long term or short term collectibility - I’m personally staying away. I think these cards have a high volatility and are destined to fall in the future with just a single reprint. On a lighter note - they are gorgeous, well made cards and I think they are awesome. I just don’t want to sink money in to them unless I’m doing some quick flips.

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Nice response by @budget

Buy if you enjoy the cards, but don’t “invest”

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Thanks all. I do really enjoy the cards. I am a pretty big Dragon Ball fanatic. I have a half sleeve tattoo of goku/vegeta and vegito overshadowing them. I will buy knowing I am buying just because I enjoy the card.

Thanks again and well said everyone!

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if this is any indication, i sold a damaged son goku awakened power for fo r bout 300 usd on ebay auction, yes it had a bend and i photographed it for ebay and it went that high so people are buying for the purpose of playing it seems, as opposed to collecting. Conversely however, PSA 9 copies of son goku awakened power have sold for 500 and 10s for 1,000+

Watch this space as i have 2 son goku awakened powers with psa atm, will update with sale prices.

Outside of this money talk, i must admit it is one of the most beautiful trading cards i have ever laid my eyes on. The attention to detail, layering, rarity, everything just makes me say oooooft.

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i love how they have the whackest names out.

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Fuck you must be fun at parties…

You’re probably the same person that in 1999 said not to pick up Pokémon boxes.

Of course anything new is speculation, but there’s just so many things wrong in what you’ve said mate…

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The irony being I’m suggesting the sealed product is the best way to go but ok.

I have 3 boxes set aside of Galactic Battle for myself because I bought them when stores were fire selling them but I can’t ignore the factors that make DBS not look appealing.

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I’m definitely being super harsh on DBSTCG though, really playing Devil’s Advocate.

Collect what you like @lazzlo . If you want a PSA 10 Victory Strike Goku buy one raw and grade it. The print quality of DBS cards is amazing so I don’t think they’re worth the premium for all the same reasons people think PSA 10 Hyper Zard isn’t. 88 out of the 106 copies submitted have come back a 10 and it’s not like people aren’t taking care of them.

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Are you going to address the difference between the HR Zard and the AP Goku though? Thought as much:

HR Zard:

  • Still in Print
  • Grades well
  • Collectors item only, totally unplayable in TCG

AP Goku

  • One time limited print
  • Grades well
  • Players item, collectors item second to the primary market

People need to understand practically all of the desirable cards get their value from their playability in DBS. In Pokémon there is a very established collectors market.

AP Goku is a one in case card. 1/288 packs. There are vast quantities of that card that will never be Mint now. There’s also nothing to suggest it will get a re-print.

DBS is in its infancy, and ANY collector should follow @smpratte with his latest advice on flipping. If you cannot afford to hold it long term, don’t buy it.

That being said there are a lot of strong indications about the DBS card game. Some incredibly rare promos, rare prerelease cards and even trophy cards.

It’s totally ridiculous to write off this TCG so early and tell people that 99.99% of the cards are worthless when you know that’s pure bullshit. Collectors are starting to take notice. These sets are not a short term game, collecting has always been a long term game.

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I don’t think it should be written off, it’s just too early to think that things are stable.

DBS’s tournament support and attention to the playerbase is too good. They errata problems almost immediately, release packs designed to specifically help failing sets. This micro-managing is the exact reason why I think they’re going to eventually end up reprinting cards like Awakened Power Goku. It doesn’t even need to be a reprint, they could just introduce set rotation and cause a mad panic in the secondary market.

And it’s not pure bullshit. The value of set cards is a problem the product has. Stores need to want to open it for the game’s long term success. Putting all the value in promos isn’t necessarily smart product design. People weren’t happy at all with the veggie package in Tournament Packs.

Prices also just cool off in the long run. Maybe Awakened Power Goku will be the holy grail in 10 years time if the game survives that long, it’s price will probably have a noticeable lull before then. Growth isn’t constant or guaranteed.

A small print run isn’t the most important factor, the accessibility is. Little kids don’t buy or play this game, teenagers and adults familiar with tcgs do. They’re aware of the card’s value. The card is protected when pulled. It’s not an infinite supply but there’s definitely more mint than non-mint copies out there.

If something was to happen tomorrow to make Awakened Power Goku plummet I would be all over them once the dust settled similar to how reprints vs the original/most sought after prints in Yu-Gi-Oh! behave. When you lose the player’s value and only collectors pick up the card then a lot of volatility is gone and they’re cheaper.

And the 'flipping" I talk about is to do with cards changing price drastically. If we were to wait 5 years in DBS most of the cards with any significant value today probably won’t be worth that much in the future because they are either made obsolete by newer decks, possible reprints or possible set rotation. The secondary market would have a completely different landscape.

With no set rotation some random common/uncommon foil or SR could skyrocket as it becomes meta-relevant or a obscure promo quadruples in price. Maybe there’s a card nobody cares about now that becomes extremely sought after. Your Nats and Worlds prize cards where there’s only a handful of copies in existence might have gradual growth or colossal growth or no growth at all because nobody cares for them or they had a huge batch left over and decided to distribute them as prize support for smaller tournaments or an ARG. Who knows how DBS will look.

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Are these being graded now?

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damn i wish!

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It doesn’t have to exist in Japan, because in Japan they have Dragon Ball Heroes; the arcade machine. DBSTCG is a direct “clone” without the machine mechanic in it.

That said… there never been a Dragon Ball based TCG that lasted more then 5 years.

Score Entertainment had a very good TCG, based sets on the Saga’s and it was very balanced and very playable. From the first card of the first set, till the last card of the last card; everything was able to be played and nothing was considered bulk (of course, there was but there was no set rotation so you could do crazy deck building if you wanted to). The problem: no license in Europe due Panini holding all Dragon Ball rights back then, barely anything in Australia and New Zealand. The game basically was only in the US and Canada.

Score Entertainment did try to revive the game by basically doing a whole new game; it failed due to people not being able to play their old cards with the new cards in a good effective way as they used to do. Basically one or two sets were released before it got bunked (also Score went bankrupt)

Panini got hold of the license that Score Entertaiment had and tried to make their own TCG. The game bunked before it could take up any steam. This because Bandai took the license away from Panini to push the DBSTCG into the North America, Australian and European market.

Even before the ‘original’ Score Ent. TCG, Bandai and some other Japanese publishes attempted a DBZ based TCG; they all bunked.

Now, I just get together with friends once or twice a year to rip out an old Score Entertainment deck and play some games together. With small prices but mostly fun. As long as Toei Animation doesn’t have a solid stream of Dragon Ball content, in a way that Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh have, any TCG for Dragon Ball has no long life span ahead. A TCG cannot survive a drought of content (manga, anime, movies) and Toei is good in making sure there is drought.

The DBSTCG looks super, art wise. Play wise I never got the hang of it. It has a lot of flaws to it (so much meta decking, no cheaper ‘alternatives’ for certain cards).

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I sent this in a long time ago and it got refused. Why aren’t they grading them do you think?

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There was a Goku, the Unbeatable PSA 8 that was on eBay a few months ago (though there were a couple of errors in the label, so that was kind of strange). Otherwise, I’ve seen only BGS-graded Score DBZ cards. I’m still debating whether to send my URs to BGS (almost a completed Limited set).

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It is very strange they won’t grade those but they are grading these: The DBZ Gold Cards

link

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i haven’t even seen BGS graded score cards. got any example pics?