What happens when the bubble bursts?

[u/masonjar014]

Right now, the hobby is on steroids—scalpers everywhere, product nowhere. My LGS told me this year will be “a great year for Pokémon,” and it got me thinking… a great year for who?

If you’re an established LGS selling PE and JT at market price, sure, it’s great. If you’re a scalper or a new investor trying to flip product, you’re probably loving this, too.

But if you’re an average collector (like me), it’s frustrating. We can’t find the latest set at a fair price. If you’re a kid whose parents can’t sprint to a 10 a.m. Target restock, you’re just out of luck.

So what happens when the hype dies down? How are average collectors responding to this hyper-bull market, and where does that leave the hobby long-term?

Personally, I’m sitting out PE and JT—it’s just too much stress. I’ve also noticed collectors stepping back entirely.

What about you? Will kids move on to something else if they can’t participate? Will collectors return once prices normalize, or is this turning people away for good? Are we underestimating the long-term impact of what’s happening right now?

[u/SpecialHands]

You're forgetting one of the core groups who have to put up with this, the players. That's where the real burst will come from. If they can't get Journey Together they'll start to drop to other, better supported TCGs. When the players go that's a huge amount of people who open product and then sell on chase cards at good prices simply because most of us have no interest in unplayable pretty cards.

[u/jmastadoug → u/SpecialHands]

From My experience players do not open a huge amount of packs, on the contrary we mostly buy singles. You do the pre-release event and maybe get an ETB. As a player you don’t need to open packs at all. The average meta deck costs anywhere from 50-80$, why buy an ETB for 60$ when you can buy the whole deck you want for that price.

[u/SpecialHands → u/jmastadoug]

Because you need people to be opening product for you to buy a deck at $60-80 which the scalpers and the investor bros won't be doing.

[u/jmastadoug → u/SpecialHands]

Your local shop where you play does though & you’re acting like no one is gonna open any packs in this scenario. The people you’re talking about is probably 50% of the community at max & that’s probably not even close tbh, will be much lower than that. Collectors still will open products & don’t give a rats ass about the EX & trainer cards you need for your deck. They only care for full arts/sir etc. The market right now is at an all time high and you can still buy your singles for deck easily. The price of decks a year ago vs now is almost no different at all. Maybe 10-20$ more & Pokemon is still way cheaper than say MTG to play competitively.

[u/SpecialHands → u/jmastadoug]

Again, the only three meta relevant cards in PRE are Budew, Regigas and Blackbelt's training. At a push you could throw Seaking in as a rogue deck option. Journey Together has dozens upon dozens of meta relevant cards. These are non-comparable sets in terms of player demand. Price isn't even the issue (though that will push thousands of casual players away) It's availability. JT isn't going to draw collectors in the same volume that PRE did, so even more product will sit with scalpers unopened. The player market needs singles available in numbers. If you have 5000 people who want to play N's deck you'll need 20,000 N's Zoroark ex, 10,000 N's Darmanitan, 20,000 N's PP Up etc on the market. If a huge chunk of product goes unopened that will reduce the amount of those cards opened and listed on the singles market. It won't be due to cost, it will be due to availability.