Enter the World of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Market!

Since we ushered into the new year, I’ve been wanting to do more articles for YGOrganization. For this, it’ll be on current cards receiving many purchases, meta trends, and implications for current or future for the game of Yu-Gi-Oh!

Firstly, let’s get the big… well small bug out of the way, Maxx “C”. After 7 years of it not receiving a reprint because of its banning in February of 2018, it finally received one in the Speed Duel: Battle City Finals box and it quickly became one of the best selling cards from the set because of its past format uses and the panic that it caused as players thought it was going to come off the list. With this recent print, the Prismatic Secret Rare has stabilized at $15 while at $4-5 for the Common, since it is guaranteed in the product, unlike the chance to get the Prismatic Secret version. It’s an amazing reprint for past format players as it’s more accessible to players once again. Along with this new reprint, the text for Maxx “C” has finally been updated and fixed with Problem-Solving Card Text, making it where Debris Dragon can finally revive it once again!

Ryu-Ge Rising’s Super Rare copy, albeit short printed, is up to $2.50 since it is a Reinforcements of the Army like card for Ryu-Ge and useful for the splashability of the engine. While the boss monster of the Deck, Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistava, has creeped up more, hitting up to $4 since players have been testing many Decks with the engine in decks like Dinosaur Pile, Swordsoul, and Voiceless Voice.

Varudras, the Final Bringer of the End Times is returning to where it once was to its $20 range. It is used in Decks like Yubel and some Ryu-Ge as an end-board piece of interruption, by being able to negate the activation of a card or effect by detaching an Xyz Material from this card, along with detaching another material to destroy a different card on the field. This is still a common end-board piece for Yubel and any other deck that can utilize this Rank 10 monster.

For the Maliss players that haven’t seen this tech yet, here is Enigmaster Packbit from Phantom Nightmare, as it hits up to $15, and has been seeing play in the deck as an option to send off with Firewall Dragon Darkfluid – Neo Tempest Terahertz as another form of interruption like Mereologic Aggregator, which on its own is $7 for another point of negation of a face-up card on the field.

Along with Enigmaster Packbit, both EM:P Meowmine and Code of Soul have been seeing prices going up. Both cards are extenders for Maliss as they Summon themselves from your hand if you control a Link Monster. While Code of Soul is at $2, EM:P Meowmine is sitting at least $5 because of the other effect that it can use as if a Link-2 is sent to the GY or banished. By banishing this card from your hand or GY, you can target 1 card on your opponent’s field and return it to the hand for extra interruption.

Metaltronus from Legacy of Destruction, has been seeing use in more cases as of recent, causing the card to slowly crawl to the $2.75-3 mark. It’s a useful card in Mirror Matches and also used to get around certain issues in the format.

Rescue-ACE Hydrant’s Super Rare version from Maze of Millennia, has hit an all time high at $9-9.50, as another short print. Rescue-ACE seems better now that people have turned to the Fiendsmith engine as their engine of choice.

Heraldic Beast Leo, a 1-of Rare from Cosmo Blazer, has risen to $4-5 because it has been over 10 years since its first print. This card is a mandatory card for the Heraldic Beast Deck and engine in a post-Alliance Insight format. It’s because if the card is sent to the GY, by any means, it allows you to add any Heraldic Beast monster from your Deck to your hand. The main card that you’d want to search off of this card depends on where you are at in your combo. It will either be Heraldic Beast Gryphon (YGOrg Translation) or Heraldic Beast Stat Whale (YGOrg Translation).

Walls of the Imperial Tomb from Phantom Nightmare, has been going up and hit the $2.50 mark for its use in 60 card Orcust or Tearlament Decks. It has also been seeing additional play in Gimmick Puppet as it gets to Imsety, Glory of Horus for extra Level 8 bodies to help with the OTK/FTK. Along with Walls of the Imperial Tomb, Imsety, Glory of Horus has moved up over the $20 mark on both of its Secret Rare versions from Age of Overlord and the Dueling Mirror Tins because of Orcust, 60-Card Fiendsmith Kashtira Tearlament Horus and Centur-Ion all seeing rogue play.

Primite Roar is my current penny stonk to look out for. Even though it is 50 cents, it’ll be going up once Supreme Darkness comes out and with Advent of Blue-Eyes following after it. So I do recommend getting your copies now if you are interested in future Decks that utilize a Normal Monster slot.

Elzette of the White Forest and Astellar of the White Forest have been slowly moving up in price as players prepare for Supreme Darkness as we anticipate the release of Elzette, Azamina of the White Forest and Queen of the Azamina (YGOrg Translation). While Astellar of the White Forest is sitting around $15 or more, Elzette of the White Forest has reached up to $27 a piece for this shrouded hype. 

Another piece for the Azamina White Forest Deck has been hanging around the $30 mark. Deception of the Sinful Spoils will single-handedly be useful once again because of the new Azamina and Sinful Spoil cards we will be seeing in Supreme Darkness, thus making the deck a new rogue contender for the game to combat against Ryzeal and Maliss.

Even if White Forest isn’t seeing much meta play right now, it’s always great to have a Muddy Mudragon laying around just in case. You can utilize it to make Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon in White Forest Decks for a negate before your 5th Summon, since it is a Fusion Substitution card. Currently hanging around $3-3.50 for the Rare copy, it is another card with low quantity and lack of reprints as the only other reprint is an OTS Pack Common that is also up to $2-3.

Red Rose Dragon is a useful card for the Dragon players, with it sitting at $2-3. It could be a future essential piece for Dragon Link or Dragon Ruler type decks since it gives you access to either Bystial Dis Pater or Arms of Genex Return Zero, which are both useful. We will see how those Decks develop going into 2025.

A great card to find in your bulk would be copies of Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir. Even with its Valiant Smasher’s reprint, other copies of it are still up in price. Maximum Gold: El Dorado copies range from $1-2, Battles of Legend: Relentless Revenge copies are anywhere from $5-6 and original prints from Circuit Break are $3 a piece. So if you have extras that you don’t need, get the value while you can.

A certain Xyz monster from Return of the Duelist is on the rise again. Soul of Silvermountain comes only in Super Rare with a nifty price of $3. It was a useful utility card for Geargia decks in past formats, since it is a Rank 3 that takes 2 EARTH monsters. It can be used to stop your opponent from using set spell/trap cards and if it destroys a monster in battle, while it has Xyz materials, you can reborn a monster from your GY in Defense Position.

Because of the many 60-Card Pile Decks running around, thanks to That Grass Looks Greener being at 1, Tearlaments Scheiren has been going up with the slowest of crawls. It is up to $2 because of Konami’s neglect of reprinting cards from Power of the Elements. This card is useful because it allows you to fuse into any Fusion you need like Mudragon of the Swamp for targeting protection, or Garura, Wings of Resonate Life to have another Level 6 or just purely used for Link Material for the card draw effect.

With recent hype about Primite Bystial Control, people have been using aid in the deck with the Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon engine as the featured card currently sits at least $7. This is because it pairs well with Bystial monsters like Bystial Druiswurm, which itself is holding $18-20.

With the recent reveal of the Fusion Monster, Philia Regis (YGOrg Translation), Duality has been struck again with another buyout hitting up to $8. This is because this card is playable with Dragonmaid and you can use Duality with Lady’s Dragonmaid (YGOrg Translation) to Summon Philia Regis as the former is a LIGHT Dragon while the latter is a DARK Dragon. If you are keen on wanting to play Dragonmaid, I would also recommend picking up Light and Darkness Dragonlord since it is currently sitting around $2.50 from the hype as it’s one of the easier Fusions to make in the Deck during your opponent’s turn.

Generally looking through cards from the year, Goblin Biker Dugg Charger caught my eye especially. A previous Ultra Rare from Phantom Nightmare has made its round going up to $5. Goblin Biker itself is a decent counter to the current Ryzeal Deck as we’ve seen from the string of topping lists from the OCG, since the primary goal of Goblin Biker is to remove Xyz Materials from your opponent’s board to build up your board and gain advantage.

Even Goblin Biker Big Gabonga and Goblin Biker Grand Entrance have gone up to $5 and $10 respectfully. They are both essential pieces to the Deck since Grand Entrance is a Reinforcements of the Army like card, along with being able to Special Summon a Level 4 or lower Goblin from hand. Also, by banishing this card from your GY, you can add 1 Goblin monster from your GY to your hand. While Goblin Biker Big Gabonga itself also nets you a Goblin monster from your Deck to the hand, it’s also able to attach 1 face-up monster on the field to this card as Xyz Material only when Xyz Materials are detached from an Xyz Monster. And lastly, during the End Phase, you can attach any Goblin monster from your Deck to this card as some Goblin Biker monsters give your Goblin Bikers Xyzs additional effects.

Two of the best two Extra Deck staples this whole year happened to be S:P Little Knight and Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis, both from Age of Overlord. S:P Little Knight single handedly ended up in Quarter Century Bonanza and all of her copies have hit above the $5~ mark.

Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis itself has been holding strong at anywhere from $28-30 because of how its utility has gone up and down over the past year. I would hope Konami would have this card in Quarter Century Stampede because of how much demand this card has alone, like how S:P Little Knight was over the past year.

With meta developments, Fiendsmith’s Tract is up to $28 because of the vast utility of the Fiendsmith engine. After Snake-Eyes lost Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye on the current Forbidden and Limited List, we ushered into the Ryzeal/Maliss format with each of the decks running the Fiendsmith engine, using it to the fullest potential they could. Even Fiendsmith itself is a deck running smallish engines like Magical Musketeer or Kashtira to snipe important cards off the field or in the Extra Deck.

Even Fiendsmith Engraver isn’t safe from the price going up. With how powerful and how much the Fiendsmith Engine is, a single copy of Engraver currently costs, on average, $110, which cements its own legacy as the head of the best engine in modern Yu-Gi-Oh! A majority of decks are playing it against pushes from your opponent with Fiendsmith’s Desirae to negate face-up cards or Fiendsmith in Paradise to send off Desirae in order to send an issue to the GY while recycling cards like Fiendsmith’s Sequence back into the Extra Deck to Summon it back again on the next turn to make the same monster to either push for game or defend against opponent’s threats.

In the future, Orcust will be given their support and many players have gone to run Foolish Burial Goods to send a 2nd copy of Orcust Crescendo to start their full combo. Each copy runs anywhere from 20 cents to above $4 since as stated earlier with the Fiendsmith Kashtira Tearlament Horus Deck, it also uses Rainbow Bridge of Salvation as more copies of Pressured Planet Wraithsoth and Primeval Planet Perlereino.

As we close out the year, Fire King Courtier Ulxanix’s price has settled to $9-10 as Fire King decks take a backseat to this format. While the deck is still potent, people have moved over to the Kashtira Engine to fill the void Snake-Eye had in the Deck.

In the metagame, Triple Tactics Thrust has been seeing more play, especially with floodgates like Different Dimension Ground and Dimensional Barrier. It can also Set Artifact Sanctum, which can Summon Artifact Lancea, a counter to Maliss. Every copy of Triple Tactics Thrust has hit above $8.50, even the ones from Quarter Century Bonanza, as it is one of the best staples of the game due to its ability to get any Normal Spell/Trap you need to help defend yourself against your opponent or to help break their board if they stop your initial push.

For the past format players, Saber Hole from Absolute Powerforce has recently hit up to $20+ because of the recent Edison side event from YCS Anaheim with one of the top 4 duelists maining 3 copies of this card as a meta call. It’s a strong Counter Trap as if your opponent Summons a monster by any means and you control an X-Saber monster, you can negate the Summon and destroy it.

Finally, if you have Tokens in your bulk or binders, the 3 OTS Pack Super Rare Mecha Phantom Beast Tokens are going up in price as Version A (Dracossack Artwork) is $10 while Version B (Megaraptor Artwork) and Version C (Harrliard Artwork) are $3-4 a piece. Being OTS Pack exclusive cards, they are slightly harder to get, especially being from OTS Pack 9, which was released to OTS Stores in 2018.

Thank you for reading and giving this article a chance to get some insight on the market and development of the current changing formats for Yu-Gi-Oh!. It would be appreciated to provide feedback on this style of article and I’d love to know if you all would like to see Cardmarket additions in the future!