Money...

Money... This certain term has brought pain and agony to numerous card players. This definitely a strong control of the game, and seperates players into two different groups: Players with money, and players without money. Players with money will have an easier time gathering the more expensive cards while players without money will face difficult times, and cherish every $50+ card they possess (i'm not saying the second group of people doesn't have money, but they are definitely on a tigher budget that the people of the first group).

Money has driven people away from the game, simply because it's too expensive to have the best cards. It doesn't help that prize support in yugioh is lacking, compared to the prize support in MTG or Pokemon. This lack of prize support isn't an incentive to play yugioh competitively; the only incentive is to hold up the trophy at the end of the day, or have fun (if you are one of those people...).

Money isn't always assurance when it comes to buying a box, either. Yugioh is not like Pokemon or Vanguard, where you 95% guaranteed to break even or profit from purchasing a box. In Yugioh, each box usually contains 5-6 super rares, 2-3 ultra rare, 1 ultimate rare, 1 secret rare, and maybe 1 ghost rare. Konami is quite annoying and frustrating because each set contains good cards AND bad cards within the same rarity. I believe in ABYR, exactly 5 of the 8 secret rares are good, expensive cards. The others won't be as good. If person A buys a box of ABYR, and pulls Mermail Abyssmegalo, and person B buys a box and pulls Spellbook Library of the Heliosphere, person A almost made broke even with that one card, while person B is crying in a corner. It's ridiculous. Konami knows exactly what they are doing. People will purchase boxes until they obtain the cards they want. Konami makes more money by purposely including crappy cards into the higher rarity bracket.

Money is definitely a challenge in every card player community, and certain communities have it significantly worse than others. Here in Belleville, the owner of our card shop decided to charge us $29.95 + tax for the Hanzo tin. This is a little ridiculous, especially when I can buy the same tin at Walmart for $24.99 + tax. The original retail price, according to Konami, is $19.99. Silly, right? Also, I found out something yesterday from Mike (the other employee at the card shop). Apparently, the owner is starting to despite his credit system because it's unfair. Unfortunately, that's all the information I received regarding that because the first round started, but I'm probably going to visit the shop on Monday so he can elaborate on this topic.

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This is where I start discussing a different tangent...

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I'm currently in the process of trying to organize Pokemon DS tournaments (generation 5 Pokemon). The financial cost of this is quite minimized compared to any TCG. $40 to purchase Black/ White/ Black 2/ or White 2 (most people have already purchased this game), and entry fee every tournament. That's it... I don't have to work two jobs to afford that or anything.

This also happens to be a game that rewards patience. It requires patience because you should train your Pokemon to make them stronger, hatch eggs until you get a Pokemon with a suitable nature, etc. This game requires skill because battles do require a good amount of though to come out on top.

The luck factor in this game is quite small. There are critical hits (lucky shots that do more damage, and critical hits don't happen all the time either. In wifi battles of generation 5, I've ony once seen two critical hits in a row. Those critical hits were against my team, and I still won after a close battle. The other factor of luck is quite minute: Normally the pokemon with the higher speed attacks first. The luck comes into place where you have two pokemon facing each other with the exact same speed stats. Who attacks first? I experimented this once on my own, and both Pokemon went first multiple times. Other than those two examples, I can't think of any other luck factor at this time.

Generation 5 battles also contain a variety of formats: Single battle, double battle, triple battle, and rotation battle. There are also formats a little more specific like Little Cup for example.

When I do get things rolling, we will decided upon our own "ban-list" to make the game balanced. This will include banned pokemon, moves, and possibly items.

So yeah, people of Belleville, expect something soon. This is a really great idea, and doesn't require significant financial loss...

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Money... Unfortunately, we can't change how Konami runs their business. Unfortunately, we do have to deal with unfair prices in our communities. However, that's not a reason to quit playing. I've won locals with both cheap decks and expensive decks. I also build my decks so they can defeat expensive decks. Just because the game is expensive doesn't mean you have to get depressed over it. Fight it and move on, and kick ass with cards, expensive or not.