Voiceover: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we bring you today yet another quality article on Pokemon Aaah!, written by the one and only fancyfinn9, today we will see… is Pokemon TCG Classic worth it!!
[Audience cheers loudly and applauds]
The Actual News:
On Pokemon Day 2023 (held on every 27th of February), The Pokemon Company unveiled their latest creation, the Pokemon TCG Classic. What was so special about this? They were re-launching Base Set cards as their own board game! So once again, we would have freshly-printed Base Set Charizards, Blastoises, and Venosaurs. Oh, and don’t forget the original energies! You might think to yourself, “Why, this sounds quite good!”… but hold up, you haven’t heard the full story yet!
Besides 3 theme decks based around the Base Set cards of the stage 2 evolutions of the Kanto starters (and a partridge in a pear tree!), the TCG Classic would have a top-quality playing mat, stackable cone-shaped damage counters, and even a new way to do coinflips. So far so good, right? Well, there are a few downsides: firstly, none of the cards – except for energy cards – are tournament legal, which means that you can’t use any of them outside of TCG Classic itself. But maybe the most important downside is: the price, because the TCG Classic, dear reader, is priced at a whopping $400. At this price, the Pokemon TCG Classic may just be the most expensive set that TPC has ever released. And the minute that they shocked the world with this price tag, one question arose immediately: is it worth it?
That is a hard question, because there is no definitive answer, but I wanted to find out what everyone else was thinking and see if maybe it really was worth the cost.
The first thing I did was ask the PA! Discord on their opinions (BTW a quick advertisement here, if you want to take part in these 100% serious conversations you should definitely check out the Pokemon Aaah! Discord):
“Extremely expensive for being a group of Half Decks […] imo it doesn’t worth it […] TCG Classic is more like a “Fancy Product” … you know … luxury” – Dr. Omanyte
“$250 might make sense as a price; call each deck maybe $40, and maybe $130 for all the other stuff. As a premium product I could even see going up to $300, with each deck being $50 and then $150 for the other stuff. $400 is kind of out there though” – JP
“IMO $400 is overpriced for Classic, even if the cards had regulation marks” – Hâlian the Protogen
“TCG Classic is too expensive …” – Piquitos
“i think the EN Pokemon cards undermine themselves by having that (This card can’t be used in tournaments.) printed on all of them […] as if they’re cheap proxies and not cards you paid $400 for” – INTERNETFRIEND
And finally, from the man himself:
“… at least for $400 you can still get ALL the cards from the set and they’re also REAL cards.” – nick15
So yes, it’s mixed opinions.
So my next step is to use this amazing tool we’ve had since the 1960’s to double-check facts and just generally finding out more information, in order to find out if the TCG Classic is worth the price. What is this tool, you may ask? Well, you might have heard it before: it’s called the Internet!! So I wanted to see how much I can order the individual pieces of TCG Classic for, and I encourage you to do the same and not just take some random person’s advice. Specifically, because of stuff like discounts on mass orders, or making them yourself—as it comes out cheaper especially if you’re an international company—but I purposefully didn’t go into these details as this way I am overshooting the price. So lets break down what you’re getting and see if it’s worth $400!
THE BOARD
This is a fancy-schmancy gameboard and storage box in one. Inside it can fit the three decks and your box of accessories. I’d say this is worth no more than $50, because this looks like it’s made of better materials than just cardboard.
THE ACCESSORY BOX
Nothing much to see here, but it is very visually appealing, I must say. $20 because of the detailed shape.
THE DAMAGE COUNTERS
Okay, these are very fancy versions of the small paper circles we use these days, and they’re also stackable! I found a website that sells wooden pawns – which are roughy the same size as these – for $0.12, so I’ll give a single damage counter a price of $0.50, just to be generous… the set is priced at $400 after all. So, let’s see… that’s $32 for the damage counters.
THE MARKERS (see accessory box image above)
Alright, I would personally mistake these for some sort of abstract artwork. To be fair, they had to come up with some sort of new design for these, but I feel like there was much more potential here. Imagine a small campfire statue as the burn marker, and a cauldron for the poison marker, or something like that!
This was the best picture I could get
If I gave the damage counters $0.50 each, I’ll just double it because the markers are slightly bigger. $4 for the markers.
THE DECK BOXES
Oh come on, you couldn’t do anything better than a black design with a Pokéball in the center? While we don’t know for certain what kind of deck boxes these are, the same website as before sells premium deck boxes for $10 apiece, which is definitely more expensive than whatever kind of deck box we might get in TCG Classic, so that’s $30 for the deck boxes.
THE CARDS
Ok, this is probably the hardest to decide, as we have no definitive price of how much TPC spends on a single Pokemon card being printed. And the price of the decks can depend on various factors. But just to overshoot it again, the SAME website as before offers 60-card decks for $15, so that’s $45 for the three decks.
Oh, and I almost forgot:
COINFLIP V2.0 (see accessories box above)
This is really just a foolproof way of doing coinflips, basically you just put a metal ball in a spiral of sorts, and depending on what hole it lands in, you get either heads or tails. Well, umm, I see where they’re going with this, trying to make coinflips fairer and all that, but like, everyone was fine with coinflips until now. Why change it? No more than $10, correct me if I’m wrong.
And that is everything – actually wait, there’s still packaging, but I’ll call it $20 for that.
Now that I have gone through everything we will get in Pokemon TCG Classic, I would like to assure you, dear reader, that I have not manipulated or edited the prices above for any reason – and I did not and will not change them from this point onwards. Why am I saying this? Because I expect my overshot price to be less than what TPC is selling TCG Classic for. However, I haven’t added it up yet, so my plan might backfire 👀
Alright, let me do the maths quickly, be right back…
[lights on the stage dim… a drum roll rises from the darkness]
[Insert a cool theme tune here – something along the lines of Britain’s Got Talent]
Voiceover: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, may we welcome you to, the First Annual EIPPAO Awards!!
[Applause]
Voiceover: And now, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to your host this year, Fancy Finn!!
[Applause and cheering – it’s clear that everyone in the audience loves Fancy Finn]
[Fancy Finn walks on stage]
Fancy Finn (through applause): Good evening!
[Even more applause and cheering than before – geez, these people really do like this guy]
[Nick15 slowly lowers the “EXTREME APPLAUSE” sign 
]
Finn: Tonight is a very special night, as all the Pokemon fanatics of the world come together and celebrate the EIPPAO awards once again. And this year, we shall be evaluating the Pokemon Company’s [that one random WHOOP! in an otherwise quiet audience] latest product, the Pokemon TCG Classic! Take a look!
[Loud cheering and applause]
[A trailer for the TCG Classic plays while the audience are still cheering/applauding. A large cheer is heard after every feature is listed.]
[Trailer ends]
Finn (over cheering): And that is our product tonight!
[Even more applause and cheering]
[Cheering and applause dies down]
Finn: So, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, for the price of the TCG Classic, for the retail price, we have four hundred dollars!
[Booing from audience]
Finn: But now that we know that, let us hear from evaluators! Let me hand over to Professor Finn!
[Loud cheering and applause]
[Professor Finn walks on stage and gives a small wave]
[After a while, applause/cheering subdues]
Fancy Finn: So, Professor, please tell us, how have you evaluated the retail price of four hundred dollars for the Pokemon TCG Classic?
Professor Finn: Well, Fancy Finn, that is a question me and the evaluation team have been working hard over the past months to answer. This year, though, we have done something different, and we have come up with our own retail price of how much this year’s product should actually be selling for.
Fancy Finn: How exciting! And what is your evaluation this year?
[Mysterious music starts playing in the background – don’t ask me what kind, it’s just mysterious]
Professor Finn: Well, the team and I have evaluated that…
[The music comes to a climax and ends abruptly]
Professor Finn: … the Pokemon TCG Classic is overpriced.
[Huge gasp from the audience]
Fancy Finn: And pray tell, Professor Finn, what was you and the team’s estimate of how much the TCG Classic should be sold for?
Professor Finn: Well, Fancy Finn, I’m glad you asked! For the estimate is indeed…
[An exciting, cinematic music that has been playing in the background since the gasp reaches a climax and also ends abruptly]
Professor Finn: Two-hundred and eleven dollars!
[Audience applauds and cheers, the loudest yet]
[Confetti pops and is now everywhere]
Fancy Finn (over all this loud noise, but still audible): Thank you Professor Finn and the team! And [turns to the audience] thank you to all our audience tonight and [looks at TV camera] everyone who joined us at home! Our evaluators gave the TCG Classic a price of two hundred and eleven, thank you all for watching, and we’ll see you all next year!
[Audience cheers and applauds even more, Fancy Finn and Professor Finn wave at the camera]
[Some cool outro music (similar to the intro) starts playing as the camera zooms out from the stage, over the audience and transitions to the EIPPAO logo. During all this the end credits (see below) are rolling horizontally across the bottom of the screen.]
END CREDITS:
Presented by Fancy Finn
Evaluation team led by Professor Finn
Copyright © 2023 The EIPPAO (Evaluating If Pokemon Products Are Overpriced) Board
Brought to you by the PA! Discord – the world’s ONLY Pokemon Discord
So, what is my conclusion? Well, my investigation concluded that the Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic is a solid $211 worth of material and cards… which means that the price of $400 is a bit more. Of course, companies need to make money, so giving us products at the exact price they spent making it wouldn’t leave them any profit, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Then there’s also the cost of putting it all together. So if you wanted to make something like this yourself, is the work to put $211 of material into it worth $189?? But maybe it is! That’s for you to decide. I just hope I helped you make a decision for yourself that you are happy with.
The Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic drops on the 17th of November ’23 – in 2 days time at time of writing – and that’s all from me, fancyfinn9, for now. Have a good one!