Vol. 2026 · Saturday Edition
Know what to buy, hold, and skip. One weekend read instead of 20 hours of YouTube.
A weekly briefing on the Pokemon TCG market. We watch and analyse every relevant video from the most-followed Pokemon-investing creators on YouTube, extract the data points and the actual Buy / Sell / Hold calls, and stitch them into a single weekend read.
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58 articles, free to read
21 issues published
Sellers are approaching the market with Walmart credit card statements showing bot-bought Destined Rivals ETBs purchased five units at a time across seven pages, now being offered in lots of 3,000 to 4,000 at $103 each. Distributors are simultaneously selling Destined Rivals…
21 videos from 9 creators analysed
Sellers are contacting buyers daily with lots of 500 to 5,000 loose Destined Rivals ETBs, yet most still demand $100 to $120 each even as the reprint wave lands. Distributor wholesale on reprint booster boxes starts at $300, meaning the secondary market floor is structurally…
20 videos from 8 creators analysed
More than one million Destined Rivals ETBs are hitting big-box stores, with Walmart dropping units for at least seven consecutive weeks and cash-out bids collapsing from $150 to $90. Creators are split on when to buy: some are going all-in at $100, others say the real floor is…
30 videos from 10 creators analysed
Cash-out servers that were paying $150 for Destined Rivals ETBs have pulled bids to $90 with no firm floor, and distributors are sitting on 25,000-plus booster boxes each before the main reprint wave even arrives. Buyers who paid $2,400 to $2,800 per case are already sitting on…
27 videos from 10 creators analysed
Pokemon has been dropping 50,000-plus Destined Rivals ETBs per week at Walmart for nearly two months straight, deliberately crashing reseller cash-out prices from $276 down to $95. A second major sealed product, sitting near $530 after peaking at $640, is projected to fall to…
26 videos from 10 creators analysed
Roughly 750,000 Destined Rivals ETBs have dropped through Walmart in six weeks at 50,000-plus units per week, with zero units reaching distribution yet, crashing buy-list prices from $150 to approximately $100. Meanwhile, Chaos Rising booster boxes have hit new all-time lows…
26 videos from 10 creators analysed
30th Anniversary Pokemon Center ETBs shadow-dropped at $60 MSRP and are already clearing $350 to $375 on eBay secondary market, with scalpers who bought current-era ETBs at $60 to $70 now panic-selling at $50 to $60 shipped. Pitch Black booster boxes hit an all-time low near…
21 videos from 7 creators analysed
GameStop is charging $170 for 30th Anniversary ETBs and $600 for each Ultra Premium Collection pre-order, while TCGPlayer listings briefly hit $1,200 per UPC. Perfect Order ETBs collapsed 50% from their release-day peak to near MSRP plus shipping, and Chaos Rising ETBs followed…
29 videos from 8 creators analysed
GameStop is listing 30th Anniversary Ultra Premium Collections at $600 against a $180 MSRP, and TCGPlayer scalpers are moving ETBs at $400-$500 against a $50 MSRP. Shill bidders with zero feedback are artificially driving up Pokemon slab auctions on eBay and Z&G Emporium, with…
24 videos from 9 creators analysed
A Legendary Collection reverse holo Gengar sold for $408,000 this week, up from $675 in 2017, a 60,345% return in 8.5 years. Pokemon has not pushed a single set reprint through distribution in six to eight weeks, and multiple channels believe the company is warehousing…
22 videos from 9 creators analysed
Chaos Rising illustration rares have collapsed 45–90% in a single month, with cards like Tauros IR down over 90% overall and now trading below the $7 cost of a booster pack. At card shows from Kansas City to upstate New York, sealed product across every era is stalling while…
26 videos from 10 creators analysed
An estimated 1 to 1.5 million Phantasmal Flames booster boxes left the factory in March and have not appeared in distribution, with Destined Rivals ETBs similarly held back, pointing to a coordinated release window timed to the 30th anniversary. Pokemon Company is also…
31 videos from 10 creators analysed
Pikachu and Zekrom tag team exploded 242% in a single month, from $40 to $137 raw, purely on 30th Anniversary speculation before a single pack has been opened. The Celebrations Charizard reprint peaked at $80 at launch and crashed to $5 as supply arrived, and the new set's…
16 videos from 8 creators analysed
Pokemon confirmed it printed fewer cards during the biggest boom in hobby history, dropping from 11.9 billion to 10 billion cards while rip-and-ship demand is at an all-time high. PSA is closing all affordable grading tiers on June 2nd with a 10-million-card backlog, locking an…
19 videos from 8 creators analysed
A tactile pack-selection technique spreading on TikTok lets buyers go 10-for-10 on hits by feeling the back three cards, and loose packs are now effectively compromised inventory. Distributors like Southern Hobby are so dry on Pokemon product that even veteran stores with…
30 videos from 10 creators analysed
A BGS 10 black label Mew SIR from Paldean Fates closed at $236,000, approximately 80 times the $3,000 PSA 10 comparable. A new pack-selection technique spreading on TikTok lets buyers feel the back three cards of a pack and identify hits, going 10-for-10 on pulls, threatening…
32 videos from 10 creators analysed
A BGS 10 black label Mew SIR from Paldean Fates closed at $236,000, approximately 80 times the $3,000 PSA 10 comparable. A new pack-selection technique spreading on TikTok lets buyers feel the back three cards of a pack and identify hits, going 10-for-10 on pulls, threatening…
32 videos from 10 creators analysed
Fraudulent level-one sellers are flooding TCGPlayer with Ascended Heroes ETBs and booster bundles listed 20-25% below market, using fake tracking numbers to trigger the 10-14 day payout clock before buyers realize nothing shipped. The volume of scam accounts is at an all-time…
23 videos from 10 creators analysed
Ascended Heroes has stopped printing until after the 30th Anniversary set in September, yet distributors are already charging comic stores over $12 per pack wholesale, making any retail price relief structurally impossible. Coordinated buyouts involving millions of dollars are…
31 videos from 10 creators analysed
Coordinated fake sales on TCGPlayer briefly dragged Mega Gengar from $1,435 down to the $700s, with third-party pricing apps Card Ladder, Alt, and Collector App all ingesting the fraudulent data unchecked. A separate scheme is cornering thin slab markets, staging friend-network…
22 videos from 9 creators analysed
Sellers are weighing Ascended Heroes loose packs between 20g and 23g and pulling heavier god-pack candidates before listing the rest, a practice last seen in vintage. Distributors are charging $1,200 per case for Prismatic Evolutions SPCs, locking comic and hobby stores into…
14 videos from 7 creators analysed
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