The Feinics Gate Podcast - Issue 167 - Decks, Duels & Bad Decisions

Now it's Showtime. Let's show them we can rise from Ash, Jane, Lavender and Scarlett. Phoenix power so can't go where we rise. They tried to bind us with one like a flower.

They didn't know we had a phoenix.

What's up, everybody? It's your girl, Jade Phoenix. We are back. We are here and I am. It's a solo kind of day because it's just me and Crimson. Hi. How's it going? What's going on? Hello. Hello. How you doing bud? Just been busy. Just been busy, I know. Both of us are just been crazy busy like so for me, so I've spoken about how the Phoenix Gate has a store, an actual physical brick and mortar store out in Hicksville, Long Island. You guys should come and visit us. What I don't think I've mentioned, and Crimson, correct me if I am wrong, that we do open TCG and tabletop gaming nights on Thursdays.

We do. I do, we do, we run it, we run it out of the store and I can't remember if I mentioned it in the last episode, but now I'm mentioning it here. We had our first week last week and it went amazing. We had such a great turn out and that was with people who couldn't even make it because for some whatever crazy reason, traffic was insane.

Yeah. Yeah, so I can't wait.

Yeah, and we you should be having the next one. You said it was tomorrow, right? No, it would have been yesterday. Or or would have been yesterday, correct? Because you said only for. You said specifically only Thursdays. Correct. OK.

Thursday. Night. Game nights. Yes, So talking about Magic though I have been, I have been diving deep into the the game a good bit to myself. So I've been having fun with the deck building aspect of it. Yeah, I love that. And it's so perfect because like at our game nights, we don't just focus on magic, but it is a very big part of what we do. But we are also hosting Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-gi-oh, Lauric, Hannah, if that's your game right now. I know that our friend Patrick is running the A Call of Cthulhu tabletop, which is pretty fun, I'm told.

We're also going to be starting to do Warhammer over there, so oh. My God, yeah. Exactly. And we also are going to be talking to a couple people out running their DND as nights as there as well. And as always, because you know, we're hosting it, it's free to come in from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM or later if we choose to stick around. You don't know that and the other thing is, is even if you've never played, we have pre made decks that you can purchase when you come in. It is free to come and play. You can stay the entire time.

Any level of skill is welcome. I'm trying to get since since Crimson is finally like into the game with me, I've been like, we're trying to plot a way that poor Crimson can come out and join us, but unfortunately your schedule and the fact that you live in New Jersey kind of prevents that. Yeah, no, it's, it's yeah, I I get out of late, but I mean I have been looking at at other pods. To. To join, participate in yeah. And then, you know, around like the Jersey area here, so. That's cool.

Like. Actually, if anything, if I end up, if I end up just not finding a one that feels comfortable enough, I'm probably just going to just making my own and just putting out Flyers honestly at this point. I mean, we could still do like again, we can still do as our friends have stated, we can still do games over the Internet using spell table. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, you have promised to teach me how to play Digimon. Yes. And Yu-gi-oh.

I'm at the point now with Yu-gi-oh. I don't even feel like it. No, that's fair, but if I'm going to be a proper game master at Mid Island collectibles for my game night. I I'll, I'll, I'll run you the the I'll run you the the info that you need to know. Cool, I appreciate it because there's one person I know I can rely on when it comes to CCG. It's you, Crimson. Yeah, it's I think technically the only OG card game I had, well until now, but the only TCG card game that I was never really like picked up on heavily with Magic since the beginning.

If I did, I probably would have had a bigger fucking library that I do now, but. I corrupted you. I take full full of responsibility for that.

But but yeah, like, I don't know, with me, it's like with Yu-gi-oh, it's like a love and a big hate relationship. Why? It's it's Yu-gi-oh's, not like how it used to be. Neither is magic. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. See, Magic has different game modes of playing, right? I guess you could say you call them like different game modes, different set, different. My goodness, there's a term for it. I'm blank. I guess you could call it. Yeah. Modes of play. Yu-gi-oh. There's only one. There's only one way.

That sounds boring. And yeah, it's great. I know there are some places like Oh yeah, we run, you know, classic like yeah, but but still, majority, majority is, is is how it's played now. Doesn't matter if it's, you know, tournament or not. Most people prefer to play the current meta. The thing is, when it comes to Magic, at least as far as I've seen, there is no one turn kills. No, not really. There used to be. There used to be. Oh, but that's the thing, at least when it came to that, magic kind of changed it up to fix that a.

Little, I mean it has definitely evolved from alpha When I started playing. I started playing Magic the Gathering way back in like 9596. So I started playing and that's known as alpha because that was the first, the first one came out in 94 in like, you know, I was a 1011 year old kid. Don't do the fucking math so that you guys can figure out how I how old I am. Shut up. And you know, it was like this really cool card game with mystical shit and I'll fucking loved it. Loved it, you know, and it, it just, it changed from back then, like back then, there were very clear fucking, there's very clear fucking rules, but you were still able to kind of like get around and bend them a little bit, but not to the point where you just outright could make a violation.

Then magic gained in crazy popularity and more rules started to come as more sets started to come out, the universe expanded. And then, I'm not going to lie to you, I did stop playing for a very long time. And in that very long time, they changed everything.

You done goofed. Yeah. So what exactly did they change per SE on on it compared to before? Well, First off, they introduced different style of gameplay. So from what I the way I used to play your deck was 60 cards, you know, 60 to 80 cards. Typical. That's like, that's like a typical TCG deck, yeah. So, you know, they introduced this new thing called commander, which I never knew how to play until when I, until I came back into the fold. And back then, when you were making your deck, there was no such thing as a commander who controlled your deck.

You were the commander, you were the person that was like, you know, doing all the stuff. They later on in the early, I want to say the early 2000s, they introduced something called planeswalkers, which was probably, yeah, which was the early versions, I'm assuming of what is now commander. Like the commander style. Like you could have a planeswalker that would help you control your battlefield, but you were still able to use the typical 60 to 80 card format deck, including your commander. But it didn't, it was weird because your commander was still just another card.

Your planes worker was just another card to use on the on the plane, on the fields, you know, like it didn't really, it didn't really stand out as much or dictate as much as the commander style does now, if that makes sense. Yeah. You know, so you are allowed to have, if you had that a certain card in your deck, you were allowed to have four of each of those in each deck. So like, yeah, if you were running a black and white deck and you had four of a certain card, it was allowed. Yeah. But that changed with the introduced.

With the introduction of commander style. You now cannot have 4 cards in a deck. You won't. Can only have one of that type of card in a deck, and you have to have. Unless unless stated otherwise by the text. Yeah, and even then it's still kind of like when it. But unless stated otherwise, you are absolutely correct. Now the other thing also is you have to make sure that you have 100 cards in your deck like that is the. And that's including the commander as well. That is including the commander. So technically you have a commander and 90.

9 cards. To play with, yes. Yeah. So that was that was how it changed. That was how it changed. And it's like at some point we all just said it's just cardboard but then spent our rent money chasing a shiny dragon.

Yeah, but see, that's the thing when it comes to Yu-gi-oh. It started off fun and simple, now it's just completely evolved into something that is is what it is today. Whoops, you're knocking stuff over. Oh no, you made a mess. Is what it is. No, just drop the tool here. But it is what it is now today, which is a monstrosity of a game where you can chain a combo to the point where it could literally be the first turn, like not at all like first turn and then it goes into the other players turn and then that's it.

Like no, no, first first turn. And you know what makes it that way? What? It's the fact that, unlike Magic, Yu-gi-oh doesn't really have a limit on how many cards you can play. Really. So you could play like 1000 cards you. Could play your entire whole deck. No, but I'm saying like how many cards are allowed in a deck in Yu-gi-oh? So if I recall correctly, I'm a total number. I believe depending. I mean, I think the the usual is like 40. I think 40 might be a little bit more like 4060 card deck and then yeah, the standard.

But The thing is, there is only technically unless stated in in the text otherwise, because there are some cards that are just like you can only play one this card, this type of card once per turn, OK, or you can only trigger this ability once per turn. That is probably the only limitations on cards themselves. Now in terms of playing them literally on a on a player's turn. The only real limit that there is is normal summoning. What? You could only normal summon once per turn, but that's the thing that doesn't put a limit on fusion summoning.

Ritual summoning. OK.

Exes summoning. Oh God. Singro summoning. Link summoning. OK. And pendulum or pendulums? I actually pendulums are probably, but pendulums aren't really used as much pendulums. It's like the way pendulums work is that you put two different monster cards with different levels on each side, and then you can summon any number of monsters from your hand between those two levels. So but that that means you can literally summon a whole fucking board full of monsters in just one go.

But to be fair, honestly if we really want to get into it, you don't really need pendulums to fill your whole fucking board because there are a lot of fucking cars in between X ES summoning, you know, fusions and all that, that you can literally have a fully stacked board. And heck you can. You can definitely kill off your opponent before they even get even a chance to draw emotional damage. So here's my question to you, because like you're saying all these things and IA person who has never played Yu-gi-oh before doesn't really understand what you mean.

Yeah. So it's there's different types. So when I'm describing all this stuff, there's different types of summoning. Now obviously a magic you have the typical OK, I pay this much mana to summon this creature.

Now the only thing when it comes to that is that the only limit to your summoning is your mana pool. OK. Which is how much mana you have on your board. Same in magic, OK, Same in Magic, no. No, no, that's what I'm saying. That's magic. Right. That's for magic. That's. I'm not saying that's how Yu-gi-oh is. With Yu-gi-oh, there is no currency for playing cards, so you could play as many cards as you like. You can play as many spells that you like. You can set as many trap cards as you like. Oh God.

So long as it's not over the slots on your field now with Magic, there's no real limit to the amount of cards you can play. No, I've seen I've seen people who literally have like so many cards on their field simply because they just have the ability to create tokens and creatures and, and some and all sorts of shit like it's. Ridiculous. Yeah. So when it comes to that, you know that's that's there's no limit to the amount of cards that you can have on your side of the field with you. Gil there is there is that limitation where you can have five monsters and five cards for five card set field for your spells and traps.

Now that's the thing that doesn't stop from one turn kills. One turn kills still happen a lot, especially within tournaments. Now is it is that to say that, oh, it's always going to happen in every game? No, no, no. But it happens more than it should, right. It happens more than it should. And it and that's why a lot of people nowadays, they're at the point now where they're where they are, where either you're a new or old player coming in and you just see the current state of the game. Yeah. And it's, it's literally, it's literally played like it's either meta or nothing.

Like that's the only way you can have fun. Which it it's. It's just so annoying. Yeah, it sounds like it. Like, don't get me wrong, I am still learning, relearning I should say, because a lot of things have changed since I was playing back in like, you know, high school and college and shit like that. Like it's, I can guarantee you that I probably before I picked up Magic and I would say that I started picking up Magic again last year. I want to say last year is when I started to like get back into it.

I would say that. Personally, it was hard for me to sit there and like, just because I'm so I was, AI was very rusty and I'd forgotten a lot of like how to play, what to do and all sorts of stuff. Like, I needed a crash course and just how to play again because at that point, I probably hadn't picked up a deck for like, 10-15 years. Yeah, Like, I'm positive I hadn't, like, even going and looking at my old stuff. I'm sitting there going, what is this? I don't remember doing that. Like, I did not remember how to use my decks.

And I knew that I had some pretty lethal decks from back in the day. But now I'm being told that these decks are not good and I would have to deconstruct them. And I was just like, OK, but here's the problem. If I deconstruct these decks that have been sitting this way for about 15 to 20 years, I'm not going to remember how to put them back together.

So yeah. What would it matter if they're going to have to be changed anyway? It would matter because what if I want to play classic?

I don't have to play commander with magic, you can play classic style. No, I know you could. You could. I mean, that's really up to you. Yeah, I mean, listen, I I don't have nothing against Commander. I actually find it's a little bit more challenging in deck building, which I like, believe it or not, because it's like the old way of playing the deck. Yes, you definitely had to put some planning into it and how to make the deck roll and all sorts of shit. Yes, you had to do that. And you had to balance out just enough mana to make everything in your deck work, which took away valuable spaces sometimes if you were trying to do big shit, you know?

There's there's already sort of a template now for for that when it comes to creating decks for that. Agreed there is, which is nice because this magic I feel has become more mainstream and because it got into the limelight because like a lot of games getting into the limelight, they simplified it while still making it even exponential. So much harder, just like extreme, like unnecessarily so much harder. But at the same time saying oh, we dumbed it down. No, you fucking didn't. No, you fucking did it.

You lie. No. You lie, she. She wasn't ready. I wasn't, she was not. So I got thrown into my first Commander playthrough Magfest of this year. Yep, I remember, I remember. Yeah, and I, and I think, you know, and, and that I hate, I hate to say it was just like the spark is back. And all I could think of is I want to play Magic. I want to play Magic, I want to do Matt. I just want to, I just want to play my card game. I just want to play my game. And I'm so grateful and happy that you, Crimson, have decided to play because between you and me, we could go for days just playing this game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I I played you for the first time with your deck and it wasn't even like just to see how your deck would roll and it was a pre con, correct? Like one that you hadn't really tweaked much. I I'd never tweaked it at all. I literally just took it out-of-the-box and started playing. Right, which is something that never would have happened back in the day. Yeah, well, it really depends. Not all pre cons were this good. Mothman that pre con that. Yeah, so that one I got on a on a very sweet deal Yeah as well with the other Fallout pre cons.

That I got, yeah. Essentially I only paid 50 bucks for it because for the full set of four, for the full set of four I only paid 200. Wow, that's not bad. Now mind you that deck for Mothman is now selling for like 100 and like 30 bucks. That's crazy. That's it. Yep. And I was. That's crazy. Like this is what brings me to another point that I would like to discuss with you. Yeah. And that is the fact that is this an investment or is it I just like shiny things?

It really comes down to the rarity of cards. Honestly, for me, I would say I'm trying to think I would say that would kind of fall within that would kind of fall within the means of like both both because you for for two reasons. One OK, the the cards are obviously nice. They look really nice. They are pretty, right? They are beautiful. Cards they are, they are very gorgeous looking, the arts really nice. As a person who actually enjoys artwork on cards a lot, you know, Magic is definitely up there for me in terms of artwork.

Oh. Yeah, you could tell they put in the artists. They put in a lot of love and care into the art pieces that they do make. Not much that I can save for older Magic cards, but. Oh no, they're beautiful. Too. They're beautiful, too. I've seen a couple that I mean, listen, I'm I'm going to I'm still going to run the corner of my deck either way. But like, I kind of don't like what it I will hear no slander. I will hear no slander. I will. Hear no slander against those cards. Those were deliberately made that way because they were supposed to be ridiculous.

Listen. Listen. You listen. Listen, when it comes to how that those cards look, they looked a little bit too crazy. And by crazy, I'm not saying like, oh, it's like the art, like the what you're looking at is crazy. Like no, no, no, just art style that they decided to go with was just bad. I'm just going to see how it is bad. You're so mean. Listen, I'm just saying sometimes not all cards. I'm not saying all cards. I'm not saying all some of the some of the cards from you know, from from from those sets still to they still look really, really nice.

Yeah. There's just some that questionable because I've seen a couple of the counterspell cars. I've got also one of my bulk orders that I bought, Yeah. And it's like a poorly drawn dude in like he looks like he was drawn by like a three-year old. Some of those cards are meant to look like that. They did that on purpose. But why though? Because it's funny and you have those, those people out there that enjoy putting cards that look like that in their decks. Well, I I guess, but. You are so hoity toity.

Of the wind. Listen, listen, I, I, I, for me, I, I just enjoy. If you're going to be, if you're going to be, let me just say this. If you're going to be spending money on cardboard and at least they got to look good.

So here's my question. Here's a question. I have a question. For you I have an answer. Go ahead. Smart ass. But I was going to say, would you say that? Do you find it more like would you say that you're more someone that's going to be buying single cards or do you have a pack addiction? Me, I have an addiction. I get so much serotonin from opening up packs. It is ridiculous. I sometimes like prime example, Strixhaven. Secrets of Strixhaven is dropping very soon. It's the latest series that is coming out in Magic and it's supposed to have some of the best cards that have come out in a long time, at least for gameplay.

And for me, I enjoy opening packs like that is that is that is my thing. I love it. So of course I managed to get my hands on 22 draft boxes and I've done nothing for the last several hours since I came home from my store but opened up packs. So I make no excuses for my pack addiction. But I know you besides buying your pre cons you have purchased, you've gone out of your way to purchase single just singles. Which do you prefer? Both, but for me there is one thing when it comes to sealed that I buy OK.

If I buy a booster box, that's the only one I'm buying. You don't buy more than one. No. Why? Because when it comes to and this isn't for me because of bulk. Yeah, OK. I do not need to because it's more it's more looking at it from a financial standpoint if I'm only buying a box to pull the the the next rare card and that's it. Now, mind you, it's not like these, not just no, not even because of that.

And I have all the bulk cards that that the the the standard cards. I have every single one of the standard cards that are just not like ultra rares or whatever or epics. Right. Or mythic and I have everything else. OK. That's like very generic that comes with the box, right? That's fair. Financially because each box that is at each booster box is at least 110 to depending. If it's brand new, it's even more TO130140. Right, right. So my first box, I'm already dropping that, but I'm kind of making my money back.

Only if you get good hits though. No, no. No, no, no, no, no. Because you're making your money. You're getting your money's worth. Why? Not just because of the hits, but also how many cards are you getting here overall? If there's 15 cards in a booster pack and a booster box has like 30 of those. Yeah. So you're getting about like what? Whatever 30 * 15 there's. 350 cards. Something like that in a booster box, yeah. Yeah, in a booster box. Yeah. Now now mind you, I I've I've just went through the bulk of just bulk cards that I purchased, OK.

And I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of this. That's rough, buddy. Mind you, I only spent like 40 bucks on these bulk boxes. I bought 2 of them. So I spent 80 bucks. I got around like $250 worth of bulk just alone for $80.00 from these little for 80 bucks. Now imagine that when it comes to fucking, you know, granted, yeah, it's like, oh, but yeah, you know, these, these these both boxes are going to have a lot more, of course. So of course I'm not not denying that. But again, these are newer cards, right?

Not older, no. The older you get, the more the more you go back in time to the older sets, the more money they can be worth honestly, because like they're hard to come by now they're out of print. They're you can't people that have them. Aren't selling that. Yeah. But The thing is, when it comes to these both cards, they're not going to be worth more. You'll be lucky you get one or two or three that's worth at least a buck in these bulk sets. But The thing is, just because they're cheap doesn't mean they're not usable.

They are highly usable. It's just, they're just so vast, vasted amounts of them have been printed that it's just, it's not worth it in the sense of like, it's not worth anything. No, it's not and. Also like, it's not like. It also depends on how the card itself is used, like because. That. Too, That's called spade a spade here. They print out some great cards and then they print out some real crappy ones where it's like, why? Why did you print this? This is trash. I can't use this in a deck. Yeah.

Like I'm not going to do No, I I I can say with full confidence the Spider Man deck, the spider man fucking release where it's their first was like their first attempt at universe is beyond. And it was absolutely the the decks themselves, the pre cons, the cards, the boosters, every single bit of that release fucking trash. Yeah, did not work at all. And I'll, I'll stand by that. Yeah. Babies. But but when it comes to just in general like validating my reasoning for one booster box and that's it.

Even if even if you get like something, it's still you're going to get still close to around 100 bucks total by OK, $0.30 here, $0.20 here, 50-60 cents here. Oh, a dollar here, a dollar there, and then you get your hits, right? You get your like at least like two or three hits maybe depending on certain boxes. So, you know, all together you're kind of making your money's worth. Yes, all together. But now then, what do you do with all these cards that you're never going to use?

You never know. True. It's it's true. It's true. Oh, when are you going to use that? I don't know, Listen, there are cards now people didn't even think about until they come out with a another card or another set where it's just like, holy fuck, there's a use for this card now. Yeah, I've seen that happen way too many fucking times. And then cards that were $0.30 now go up to like 5 to 6 bucks. I know I've had that happen where cards that I've had because remember, I've been playing forever. I still have a full ton of cards.

Most of my cards when I again, when I stopped collecting are from like 10:15 twenty years ago. I have so and like we're not counting the newer sets that just came out recently. So I would say for me the biggest drop beside like, because again, I say spider man is trash and I only bought 11 box of that and I was like, Nah, I'm not buying another box of this. Like period. No, I bought, I bought a bundle box of it. Fucking hated it. I was, I was like, Nah, I'm never buying another box of this. So they also came out with the avatar set as well.

And those apparently are really, really good. So I went out and I bought some. Yeah, those cards, fucking phenomenal. The Final Fantasy is my favorite drop to to date right now. Those cards, oh, they're so good. They're so good. Like. Oh yeah. Final Fantasy and Norway The Final Fantasy and Norway Eclipse That was the best drops to date. Final Fantasy, I already have my deck planned out for that one, yeah. And then the other like that's why I like Strixhaven I'm so excited about because they are already promising cards in there that are going to just be so beautiful.

Or like also reprints of older cards that haven't been around for a while. Like Strixhaven is going to be one of the better drops, I believe. And we're already gearing up after Strixhaven drops. Within a month and a half, two months, we get another huge drop from Magic, and that's the Marvel series that's coming out. Yeah. So it's like, again, it comes down to want, need and just am I getting this because I have an addiction to opening up packs? Yes. Or do I actually want to use this set or are you or am I just getting it because I like collecting?

And I am noticing that because of this, and this is not just this is not just for Magic. This pertains to every single one of the TCG games that I've that that is out there. The collectors and scalpers are ridiculous. Oh yeah? Oh my God, Prime example Pokémon. Yeah, holy shit. If you've been living under a rock, Pokémon's been around as a card game since, what, 1995? Yeah. So. It came out. It came out. Actually, I don't know if the TCG came out 1995 the game, yes, the TCGI I think was around 1990.

See here. I want to say let me double check here. Hold on. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to remember actually hold on. I could tell you hold on. My keyboard set up this way. Hold on. Oh no. No my key caps. 1996. So yes, so it was after the game was released, so 1996. Because I I, I know this because when I have the cartridges, but two, my keyboard caps are actually set up as the Pokémon games and they're all in order by date. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the trading card game that came out October 20th in Japan in 1996, but it didn't come over into America until January of 1999.

That's what I'm telling you. Is that what you're telling? Me, they came out, they came out with the digital card game of it.

That's that's around the time that they came out with the digital card game. Right, so Pokémon like I never knew. Now Pokémon's been around, obviously we're talking now 30 years, we're talking 30 years that Pokémon, the card game, the game itself, is the band around, right? Yes. So I do not remember the way people would go insane for the card game, the way that they're going insane for the card game now like people people are. Fighting. Yeah, people are. It's not as popular as it used to be because the crazy, I'm sorry, it wasn't as crazy as a use.

Sorry, it wasn't as crazy as it was now. It was there was a whole thing where it's like, Oh my God, like everyone Pokémon, Pokémon, but it wasn't to the extent like you were saying like what the way that scalpers are. It's, it's the scalpers are definitely, yeah, they're not helping. They're, they're really not helping with this. So when it comes to, you know, anything related to, to scalpers and this and that and and and all that, it's it, it, it, it definitely ruined the experience experience.

But you know what it is? I also blame the people themselves. Yeah. Because they turned a card game into a collection seeking thing rather than playing the actual game. Because that's the thing. Pokémon is one of the few games that successfully lives in three worlds at once, though. It's the collector game, the casual game, and it's competitive. No. So what I'm talking about is just strictly the card game here. So when it comes to the card game, people made it into what it is now. It wasn't anything to do with, you know, with Nintendo or Game Freak or no, it's because, and actually, I can also blame one other person too.

What's that? That guy who owns all the fucking Charizards. Oh, him. Yeah, yeah. So, and I think, I think when he ended up fucking on on the TV show of Pawn Stars and all. That they brought out that beat, yeah. That huge fucking collection of Charizards, which fucking again, blew everybody's fucking mind. And then it just made it. It just exposed the collective aspect. And I want to say collective, but in a sense of like, oh, you know, collect and play. No, no, just collect Now. It's turning it in.

It turned it into a whole fucking thing. Yeah. Where it's like, oh, we're going to collect these cards and, you know, make turn a profit. Yeah, on them. And and that's what it's turning into now, honestly, it's at it's at the point that is now where Pokémon is turning into a fucking currency now at this point, yeah. It's true. It's true rather. Than a fucking card game. No, it's like it should have been. No, it's absolutely true. But like, what's what, what makes me laugh about a lot of this stuff is most people don't realize that without Magic the Gathering, which started and I double checked my I double checked myself magic the.

Gathering. Came out in 1993. This is the OG Magic the Gathering is literally the one that started every single modern format of TCG that we have now. You wouldn't. No, it is true. It literally invented the modern trading game for trading card game format. Without this, none of the. Other trading card game. OK, OK, OK, OK. Trading card. I thought you meant card game. Nevermind. No, Sir. Because I would have been like, OK, First off, solitaire. First off, let me finish what I'm saying. Crimson, I'm good.

Because I was going to say no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to make sure I heard that TCG in there. Sir, that's all right, Sir, You know what? We, you know what? Just thank Richard Garfield because he's the one that created Magic the Gathering.

So you can thank you, Richard Garfield for literally creating every everything that we are 33 years later. Everything like Pokémon came next. Obviously Pokémon was the second card game, TCG card game to hit the you know, the streets, I guess. And that was that was signifying now global because magic was mostly like here in the states, but then Pokémon was in Japan and then it came over here. And honestly, it was just like Pokémon created TCG games to become like this cultural explosion like you just.

Woof. Woof. You know, so I mean, Yu-gi-oh followed. It actually came out at the same time as the American drop of Pokémon. So like, I think that's why a lot of people sit there and say that Yu-gi-oh and Pokémon were always at odds.

Oh no. You either played one or you played. The other I could tell you, I could tell you right now, Yu-gi-oh dominated it. Yu-gi-oh dominated it, did it Because that's the thing. Think of it like this. How many Yu-gi-oh card game digital games are there compared to Pokémon digital card games? No, I don't know as as as much as I know because I know my history when it comes to the card game. And that's because I have two of the games. One of them was not even released here in the US. It was only released in Japan.

They never even got into Japan. Released. That's crazy.

That's crazy. And and by the way, when did you say the Pokémon card game was released? So let's let let's rewind here, then let's rewind 1993. Magic drops and basically invents the entire genre. Pokémon kicks the door in in 1996 in Japan and 1999 here in the States, and then they go, this is for everybody. Yu-gi-oh shows up in 1999 and just chooses straight. Yeah, just. Chooses straight violence and it's like fuck you then now here we are in 2026 and you got one piece and Lorcana proving that TC GS are still evolving.

They're still you're still able to do it. And that's not counting all the countless other like minor card games that are out there. Like you have Dan to Dan right now. You have so many other like smaller games that involve cards and card trading and all sorts of other things that like I'm probably not even I'm just talking about the big bads, you know, like the OGS and the big overreaching ones that. Everybody. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Those Ogs are the same ones that are probably going to be the only ones to stay.

Agreed. I mean thinking about it like these. Are the ones that did the. Test of time. Oh yeah, I'm going to keep it a buck like, and this is not me putting down anybody who plays these card games, but enjoy it while it lasts. I'm just saying because there's no guarantee that it's going to continue because listen, if, and this is coming from experience, OK, this is not just me talking on my ass saying this. Digimon has try, try try try, tried so many different iterations of their card game and they just can never get it right now.

They have it right now. Is it Yu-gi-oh tier? Absolutely not. Is it Pokémon in the collectible sense? No, In the plain sense. Honestly, I see it more than I do Pokémon. Did you mind? Yes. That's funny considering at at mid island collectibles we don't I don't see a single one of my fellow vendors in there that have Digimon. I see Pokémon one piece, Lorcana. I'm not I'm not sitting here saying that they may not have it. Rift hold is another one that I'm told is getting very popular. I just I've never seen anybody posting up Digimon stuff.

You want to know why? Because it's not for money.

Again, it's money. Pokémon is everywhere. Why? That's literally it Because not saying that Digimon cards are completely worthless. Oh absolutely not, absolutely not. They most because The thing is right now when it comes to Digimon, the card game, it's it's the cards value comes down to a few different factors. OK. It comes down to meta. Meta is always going to be a big thing, right? That's always going to change the price of a car no matter what. Of course. Like I've seen it when it comes to the Digimon card game, a non hollow rare correction common to rare card you can see being sold for like 7 bucks, which for a single card it's like oh, $7.00.

But we're talking about common to rare. That's that's a lot for common to rare card and that was I remember vividly what card it was. It was a fucking V Mon card. It wasn't like a special promo or nothing. No, it's just it was a standard. It was because of its abilities. So that alone you can already see and that was that price was like that for a hot minute because that that card's ability was being used through a lot of different decks.

Then you have rarity, which obviously again, this is this all sounds like stuff with other TC GS and all that. But yeah. But The thing is, when it comes to that, rarity only holds up when it comes to Digimon for so long and. Then what? And then the price goes down because not a lot of people are chasing after it, right? OK. So that because either either they got their copies and then, you know, it's not really talked about, not saying it gets ignored, it's prices. You'll still see cards they're like 20-30.

And then you have those like really expensive ones that are like 100 dollars, $200. And those are the chaser cards, which are the secret rares. The Omnimon black. I'm sorry, the Omnimon white, I keep forgetting the exact name, but it's for what set? But there was a Omnimon card that at its time of release, it was a secret rare card. It was all white with blue and red accents. OK. That card was going for 10 grand. What 10? Grand Jesus, I mean, and the. Price, yeah. I'm not even going to say shit considering there is a magic card that sold for like $1,000,000.

Yeah, the the the only ring or something like that, right. The One Ring. The. Completely borderless Magic the Gathering card, and I believe that is now owned by. Post Malone. Yeah, there you go. Because Post Malone plays. It's so crazy how many, how many like bands and actors actually play Magic the Gathering. But we'll, we can always get into that in another episode. Oh yeah, so, but yeah, so the card, the card, the Omniwon card was 10 grand. Like it was so hard to fucking pull. Like it was bad.

Now the price has plummeted now. I mean, the last time I checked, and this was after a while too, afterwards. So we want to say like maybe like 2 years or something like that. I'm guessing more people kept trying to pull it, more people started pulling it. So the price is on. It started going down, it started leveling out a little bit more. And I want to say about two years ago when I checked it was at $1000. Jesus, that's still a lot of money for a single card. God damn, I'm not denying that. But if we do want, we do want to do comparisons.

Even if it is an extremely rare card, it warrants its price now.

Right. The rarity, the rarity, like because we're not supposed to talk about like, oh, I was like, you could buy like a case and something like that and you'll pull it. No, no, no. It was not a guarantee. If you bought a case of the fucking boxes that you would get one, right? That just goes to show how rare it was. Yeah. Now, is it the one ring type of rare? No, Fuck no.

But yeah, so so and that's the thing. And then over time, the prices level out and you'll start seeing things go lower and lower and lower.

And then on top of that, alternate arts, those, those, those are, those are like the cards, which a lot of people, obviously they'll see it on all card games nowadays, but I think it was more at the start, it started becoming more of a thing. I didn't really see it a whole lot back in like 2020, because back in like 2020 to 2021, that's when the Digimon card game started and they started at the gate with alternate arts. Now, obviously other card games have their their extremely like beautiful artwork and this nada yada, yada, but most people didn't incorporate having an alternate version of a standard card, right?

Which that would obviously make the the alternate version obviously worth more, right? Because it's harder to find. So here's my thing. Here's my thing. Because we could keep going on about this for hours. At a time. But honestly, when it comes down to it, I'm actually very glad to have gotten back into playing this game because it really does. On top of like, yes, is it blow? Is it literally burning away money? Yes. But it brings me a small monochrome of joy that I'm not getting in this insane world.

And I think you could say the same thing. Plus it's pretty it plus honestly, it's it's, it's helping me to reconnect with a lot of my friends that you I used to play and that, you know, it's giving us some nice nostalgia feels on top of everything else. And honestly, I think at the end of the day, it's not about the cards. It's about the stories that I'm building with them and the friends I might accidentally destroy along the way. Yeah. You know, so like for me plus like honestly it I, there are worse things that I could spend my money on, OK.

Yeah. Like I I could be addicted to crack. I could be addicted to cocaine. No, I'm addicted to cardboard. The other. See.

All right, What about you? What about you? Like, I know you. I've known you for a while now. I know how many cards you sit on. OK, so like for you? It's the Pokémon card. I I sit on a good few gems, especially some of the older ones. I I at least have a few cards that are in and of themselves alone worth at least $1000 easily. And honestly probably the only thing I need to do is just dehumidify them because they're they're obviously doing that typical thing where the howls are starting to curl. Which again, that's a simple fix.

I even learned a new method for that SO and it works fantastic. I think that we should revisit how to care for your cards in another episode.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's one of those things that's not really a whole lot. I don't think we need to do a super long conversation on that. I mean, I'll, I'll even, you know what? I'll even plug this in for those people who actually play the card game and they struggle with this shit. They're called the Boveda

packets. They're essentially you can buy like a 10 pack. They essentially work as a both a dehumidifier and a rehumidifier. So if you have cards that are too dry, they also help with adding some humidity to them. They consistently keep a humidity percentage that is perfect for the paper of the card itself, especially if they're hollow of they're, if they're not hollow, I don't know why they're curling. I can't really solve that problem for you bro, but you know. But at least for the hollows you can use these little packets.

Put in a little container for at least maybe 24 hours and then you should be good. Sounds like a plan. Any other closing thoughts Crimson? I guess if you're getting into any sort of TCG or any of the kind, you know, as this might sound, you know, some people are going to be like, yeah, when I say this. But. Make make sure if you're going to be spending money on this stuff, this stuff is meant to be a hobby, not your life.

You know, be be be a little bit responsible before you you spend money. And if you're looking into wanting to get into a card game, you know, again, make sure you're all your other priorities are taken care of first before you know, investing your your money into card games. I don't need. Anything for that matter. Or anything for that matter. Agreed. So agreed. Now my closing thing is just going to be once again plugging Mid Island Collectibles at the Broadway Mall in Hicksville. Every Thursday open TCG open Tabletop gaming night from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM or later depending on how we feel or how good the game is going.

So come on down, check it out, buy my shit and and I will see you guys all on the flip side. So say bye bye. OK, bye Which? Is blood in my face darkness can hold me, change Phoenix, or never change?

The Feinics Gate Podcast - Issue 167 - Decks, Duels & Bad Decisions

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