During the pandemic you may had noticed that content creators on many different platforms were all addicted to one thing: Pokémon cards. It was no surprise either, as for many it was the perfect time to get into the hobby as we were all stuck at home doing nothing. For some, Pokémon cards were a way to get away from the stresses of the pandemic and enjoy the shiny cardboard for what it was. For others however, the hobby became an investment and some were influenced by big content creators to believe that collecting and selling the cards would make them rich.
This however led to the hobby becoming impossible to take part in, as many people kept going to stores and buying Pokémon cards in bulk, leaving nothing for the casual enjoyer. This also had an impact on card prices as well, as now the big hits of each set were well over $100 ungraded, leading to many not being able to afford the cards they were searching for. While these markups in price and empty store shelves were a dark time for the hobby, it all suddenly came to a halt once the Scarlet and Violet era of the trading card game, TCG, came out. Which begs the question: why? Did everyone suddenly lose interest in the hobby? Could it be inflation? Have people finally realized that shiny cardboard isn’t worth it? Well, I don’t think it was any of that.
When the Scarlet and Violet base set came out for the TCG, it gave us a new type of card art known as special illustration rares, or SIR for short. Along with that, we now started to get silver borders around the cards, as opposed to the usual yellow that we’re all so used to. While all these new arts and changes looked very good, the set didn’t attract a lot of attention from the investor side of the community. The new Koriadon and Miraidon SIR, while stunning, was only going for around $80 at release and has now dropped to under $30. This trend in prices would also carry on to the next set, Paldea Evolved, which didn’t generate much hype as well. This however can all be explained with two words: chase cards.
You see, within the Pokémon TCG community, for a set to generate a lot of hype and have cards worth going after it needs to have cards that fit a certain criteria. This can range from having a “waifu” card to having the stupid fire lizard named Charizard. While this usually stays true for sets in the past, this formula was kind of broken when the next set, Obsidian Flames, came out. While it starred Charizard as the main hit, people didn’t see the hype in collecting it as the new terastallization art for the Scarlet and Violet line weren’t really received well and people didn’t like how it looked with their beloved fire lizard.
While the Scarlet and Violet era doesn’t look like it’s all that great for investors, as a casual collector it has been amazing. The new SIR cards look so cool and have led to some of my favorite cards in the entire TCG. Along with that, we have had some amazing sets such as 151, Paradox Rift and the newest one, Paldean Fates. Paldean Fates has been my personal favorite out of the new sets as it gave us a SIR for Nemona, who is my favorite character in the entire series and the SIR does her justice. It also includes many other beautiful cards such as the Gardevoir Ex SIR and Clive SIR. Along with this, it has also been a lot easier to collect cards as now stores have implemented purchase limits on Pokémon cards and pull rates have gone up substantially. With pull rates being up, it allows for people to pull the cards that they might’ve wanted from the set without having to spend an arm and a leg to get them.
Pokémon cards are still very much relevant and now is honestly the best time to get into them. There are many great and cheap sets to start with and I do highly recommend Paldean Fates as a great starting point as it not only has great trainer cards, but also a shiny Charizard for those who like him. While it might seem like no one talks about Pokémon cards these days, the hobby is far from dead and has only been getting better for new and casual collectors alike.
