• posted on 10-09-2026

For context im an og pokemon tcg collector and player. Was more fun back then, less artificial hype; plus retail stores had retail prices not reseller prices etc etc. oh and we had places to actually shop like Toys R Us, Kb toys and malls...

That said, i see many young trainers making the rookie mistakes while chasing hype, fomo and clickbait online. And unfortunately, i also see many people on ebay listing "collections" for wayyy higher than the collective demand for the cards they are selling. Stuff like 1000 card binders with commons and rares from all the chase packs they opened; desperately hoping to gain some of their money spent back...

So, some simple and quick buying tips for new pokemon tcg trainers:

1.) Don't chase

unless you have a new pack smell addiction, i would highly recommend that you do not chase hyped sets and cards. Nowadays they overprint everything and manufacture scarcity with gated drops and whitelisted vendors. You will almost definitely open a box of packs and fail to pull what you actually wanted... and if you do its a good chance the card is low grade. and not in an unique error card way, but a meh no one wants kinda way.

2.) Cherry Pick

just buy the card art you want. will be cheaper and you can select the card with your ocd discretion. This even applies to some entire sets, you can literally just buy each card for less than opening packs/boxes. seasoned pack rippers will tell you straight up, people on tiktok or youtube will not however.

3.)Preorder reasonably

some stores put a 100% boost on the price, avoid this as prices will nose dive when the set ships. it happened with the pitch black set, absolute price destruction and just a few weeks later another set dropped furthering the demand decline. On the 30th set preorder i was able to get the knock out box for $10, after selling out people on ebay were charging like $60. and now its like $30 or less if you look. i know i know you want to spend more when you don't have to because....?

4.)Avoid importing

sometimes the temptation is real with importing pokemon card tcg stuff from Jp. however depending on the seller and item size, packages risk being damaged in transit. happened recently to me with a Charizard deck box from Jp. Experienced seller and brand new etc etc. On arrival, the bubble mailer had visible damage. The deck box had crushed corners and dents. Perhaps customs didn't like pokemon cards very much, idk. Thankfully the seller actually gave me a full refund after i proved my case with opening pictures.

thats a noteworthy thing to add, record or take pictures of package openings when/if you do import. really helps if you have an issue. and when you can find the item domestically and verify that perfect item in the pictures is the one you will indeed receive, boxed not enveloped.

5.) Go to the irl store.

Not target or best buy or walmart. and none of those people on paid discord notification bot lists [lmao]. Think Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Aldi's and stuff like that. You've probably heard of the checklane blisters pokemon blister packs, well you can find them for retail price or less literally at the checkout lane in regular stores.

Back in the day it was more common, every 7/11 and convenient store had packs. But even now the Dollar Store has packs. You may get lucky at places like Marshalls or Burlington dept stores too; those guys have random seasonal stocks of everything and sometimes its packs of pokemon cards.
try to practice fomo markup avoidance whilst online and have fun <3

• posted on 10-09-2026

A few individual cherry picks from the secondary pokemon card market, mainly ebay. When i hunt for cards on the ol' bay i use simple keywords, nothing too specific as that limits results sometimes.

i really like going for under-valued promos that are still sealed in the wrapper thingy. New sets have a ton of under-valued holos as well, it's much easier to just buy the card art i like instead of opening packs.

Anyways, here's the recent lot of pokemon card pickups pictured below:

scooped a few of those new sealed cosmos promo Alakazams. pretty cheap right now, so im going for owning 10+. you may want to stock up these before time goes by. bonus points if you find an error card or HD swirl still sealed.
as for the vintage vending stickers, grabbed a few. i usually go for the Jp ones from way back, many variations exist and you'll have more fun collecting these than modern sets imo.

• posted on 11-21-2025

this year was packed with heavy stuff, like heavy...
not going to go into detail or complain too much, as part of trusting God is not whining too much publicly lol.

that said, through the hard stuff this year i've learned to see things differently. like a new pair of eyes that see different ways to approach situations and control whats actually controllable. one easy place to start is with mood and emo stuff. not getting mad at everything or everybody around. avoiding being too opinionated about other people's business, being less critical etc.

spotting negative energy and moving around it or away from is crucial im finding. it's a luxury for some of us but practice it where or however you can. energy is everything, so try to align with the vibes you want to put out.
helps a lot if you're not already in a relationship as well. Being positive can be hard if you are glued to a negative frequency type of person. male or female doesn't really matter, same with creed/culture. maybe it's the wifi or the infinite number of conspiracies out there that affect some people different, idk; but whatever it is imma avoid those that are sensitive to it.

last year i paid my bills with crypto and was definitely a crypto bro so to speak. Now im bearish on many blockchain things. Communities are lowkey honey pots for scams and rugs, even exploits. The real art is the scam, literally, getting people to mint art that has malicious smart contracts and whatever else attached. Take an offer and get phished, claim an airdrop and get drained. I was so bullish on sui and as of late... good Lord... Stuff that i've seen and read from the teams on that chain was wild. Geo blocking, kyc, scam airdrops, hacked defi and more. like wow guys what happened...
Summer on chain with eth was like a big exploit operation. Make daily txs guys, click on everything... vibe code with all the external calls you can... you'll get XP YIPPPPPEEEEEE...

and ya know, anon, a decent portion of participants got hit in silence chasing airdrops and xp. But i guess the REAL monad presale on coinbase will save the market lol. Guys have been getting farmed on that one for like a year now, and it was insanely kyc heavy. lots of hoops to jump through even for the faucet stuff, which kinda tells ya something lol.
A few well known chains have an exploit problem and one way some teams fix that is by knowing who you are, simple. eth formerly had insane gas/validator prices and once it became cheaper exploits surged. If you ever wondered why solana is sold as an eth killer its because sol is no where near as compromised as eth, its really that simple, anon. eth's price actually reflects tons of stolen funds just sitting somewhere waiting for bridge/off-ramp or a wash through an nft collection; artificial scarcity via theft.

i was big on nfts but now im fading back to trad art. why? well, cause its this thing called a power supply... ya know a psu. tech related art has a problem with being dependent on the computer/phone being on, and having relevant connectivity. Like how much long term faith do you have in images being hosted on public shared protocols..? During a time with numerous wars/conflicts brewing globally.
Starting to see what the old ones already knew, its not about the sales/money, more so the longevity of the inspiration, idea or message. And sure trad art can be destroyed or lost in other ways, but idk something about not having to plug it in or need evil nerds to distribute it - is just better imo long term. Make art that lives on; and canvas or physical works are much better with that art concept.

my vision is literally causing me to see things differently too. as i type this everything is so blurry, and the lights are so intense yet without the lights on i don't feel as comfortable [seeing]. im thinking its from all the pesticides in coffee and tobacco products i consume daily, plus getting older in general. in a wild way losing vision could make art and literature even more precious tho, anon....