True/False .. sign of things to come?

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djp952

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The rumor mill over at Pojo.com seems to be of the mindset that UpperDeck Entertainment will not be selling Dark Revelations Volume 2 directly to retail outlets. What this implies is that in order to purchase DR2 "over the counter" at stores like Wal-Mart and Target, customers must wait for 3rd parties like Excell Marketing to repackage and distribute them.

This seems completely absurd to me, for so many different reasons. First off, DR2 is only truly appealing from a retail perspective. The cards are quite new, most of the good ones are banned/forbidden, and most "insiders" I know of think it's a complete waste of their time. Going directly to the hobby channel, where you'd expect to find more of these "insiders", is counter-productive.

Retail outlets like Target and Wal-Mart must account for a staggering amount of sales each year. Personally, I refuse to buy the repackaged cards, since it's impossible to know if they've been scaled out or tampered with. (Of course I haven't bought many packs retail lately at all, but that's a different story).

True or false, even the speculation that this is the case could be a very telling thing for this game. Consider the ramifications of this action, as well as the timing. GX starts airing in the U.S. tomorrow (Monday), right? DR2 contains no GX-based cards. Coincidence?

But then again, they've also gone and made this Forbidden Legacy thing, that has the FIRST three boosters in it (and FYI rumor is the secret rares are PCK art BEWD/PCY art DM/ PCY art Kuriboh). HUH? WHA? So ... you'll sell completly ancient garbage like LOB, MRD, and SRL to John Q. Public, but they can't have DR2? Are the cards from Invasion of Chaos THAT horrible in the mainstream? No wait ... those cards are banned. So was Yata-Garasu, but they still sold DB2 retail.

Well, like I said, this is just a rumor gathered up over at Pojo.com, and could be a complete farce. But that said, I'd like to see what YOUR opinions are as to why UpperDeck would make a seemingly counter-productive and bone-headed move like this....

<discuss>
 
After reading the "interview" with UDE about concentrating more on the Hobby market I think this is a possibility. Of course it is a silly knee jerk reaction to the state of affairs they have created with their old policies and will likely blow up in their face as this is not the release to target to the Hobby market due to the factors you already pointed out. The last few sets have not had the kiddie appeal to be flying off the Walmart shelfs and I would hazard a guess that Walmart and Target haven't been too thrilled by the numbers they've been turning because of this.

I think UDE and 4Kids are floundering in the market at this point. First the Envoys completely shattered the Broken meter and shoved the game to a terrible place for many core gamers. Then the banned list made it worse as not only was the problem not contained but now the gamers that loved having such powerful cards weren't happy because they couldn't play all of the broken cards. Then you release a movie with a great concept of "Exclusive Cards" only to 1) Not do a great job on the movie, 2) Give lousy "Exclusive Cards", and 3) Completely and totally botch the toy offerings from the movie. That is a lot of money and good will to toss down the hole.

Yugi's picture being removed from the packaging of the sets does dilute brand recognition when attempting to sell to grade school children and their parents. Cutting the sets back to nearly half of the cards we were used to meant getting far too many of the crappy filler cards while trying to get the decent cards for a set and less packs being purchased because there are less cards to collect. And you are doing both at the same time so who was being targeted? The gamers who hate buying a box full of 10 of every card you'll never use and only 4 to 7 cards that you actually wanted? Or the kids that aren't as likely to point out the cards because Yugi is no longer smiling back at them? I understand that they were trying to appeal more to the older audience, good use that packaging for the Hobby market and put the cartoon friends on the retail stuff.

They should start taking some ideas from other markets, Alternative Art is a great way to offer "Exclusives" to one market while not adversely affecting your other channels. Collectors will go where ever they need to to pick up what they are after and parents are more likely to buy the red Dark Magician for the kid that decorates his whole room in Dark Magician crap than the tournament player who isn't going to be playing him whether he is Purple, Red or Aquamarine. Give the gamers a clearer channel to card sets without such lousy pulls (slightly higher priced packs with a more beneficial percentage of seeding) channeled to the Hobby market. MORE STRUCTURE DECKS. And for god's sake recognize that you aren't getting the job done on the rulings side and hire somebody who can. My god you sell pieces of cardboard with printing on it for markups that make oil companies look like they are fair and honest, you'd think you could hire some people that can sell instead of has beens who were good at playing Magic.
 
The entire rumor seems bogus to me. Especially the part about GX... DR2 was thought up before GX was as Expert Edition 2 in Japan. GX cards are only included now in new booster packs, and why would it matter that there are none in DR2?

All that aside, why would UDE single out ONE booster series from being sold over-the-counter? There's no point to it.

Yugi's face being cut doesn't mean anything either, I wouldn't think... Personally, I think we should completely ignore this rumor because I don't see any point as to why we should believe it. It is a RUMOR. Is there any proof to it? No, because if there was, djp would've probably mentioned that.
 
http://www.metagame.com/yugioh.aspx?tabid=33&ArticleId=3647

Jason Grabher-Meyer said:
Dark Revelations 2 Ships Tomorrow!



That's right"”Dark Revelations 2 will be the fourth in Upper Deck Entertainment's popular series of reprint sets, and it's slated to ship out to retailers across the continent tomorrow morning, October 3. UDE continues to stand by its commitment to providing exclusive products and support to the hobby store portion of the industry, and this hot new expansion will only be available in Tournament Hobby Stores!
Click to expand...
 
Well, there we have it. I wouldn't go so far as to say "confirmed", since metagame can be just as wrong as everyone else.

I guess I've finally hit the set that I won't collect. Man, did they just save me a ton of bucks. I have to reorganize my drawers to remove the space for DR2, but c'est la vie. (I'm not willing to buy from my local hobby stores, since they price gouge to an extreme, and it's looking like my bulk reseller isn't going to be able to get DR2 at all)

Here's hoping it's the lowest selling series to date, and it wises them up a bit. If they really wanted to help the hobby scene out, they should have made the next structure decks exclusive to them for a period of time, but with some manner of dealing with the hobby store price gouging.
 
Hrmph... Well that's [/strong bad]total crap[strong bad]...

Oh well. In my opinion, DR2 sucks anyway. I mean, no new cards and most of them are banned and what not. It's not a terrible loss to me.

*feels like an ass after being corrected*
 
djp952 said:
Personally, I refuse to buy the repackaged cards, since it's impossible to know if they've been scaled out or tampered with. (Of course I haven't bought many packs retail lately at all, but that's a different story).
Click to expand...
Quite the contrary. Most of your repackages are from Hobby Boxes, and personally, I have pulled, and seen many people pull several Secret Rare "000's" from the older sets. I got my first Yata-Garasu from a repackage.

I love buying the 3 Booster or 2 Booster Blisters. For example, I reeeeeeeeally needed a Brain Control for the Regional I attended this Sunday in Rockville, MD. I didnt want to buy the Special Edition Box, as I really don't need anymore Anubis or Dragon Cards, so I bought the last 3 Double TLM Blisters left at target.

Ta-da!!! The only Holo I got was Brain Control!!! Dumb Luck! When I really want to take a higher percentage shot at getting a Holo, I buy the Repackages.

As a side note, why buy DR2, when you can just take a shot at buying the actual set when you are only looking for a specific card.
 
Oh, heck yeah. I have no interest whatsoever in buying DR2. As mentioned, no new cards. I'd sooner take my chances with IOC or AST packs.

Thanks, but no thanks.

And I've had fine luck with blister packs as well. I'm all for them.
 
I, too, have had very good luck with the blisters. Especially the 3 or 2 packaged ones. To name a few pulls: Shinato, many not-000 secret rares, Curse of Anubis, Insect Princess, the list goes on.

And to reiterate, DR2 is sub-par. The only enticing thing about it to me is the prospect of common Agent monsters. One more Mars or Mercury (or Venus) wouldn't hurt :D.
 
There's only one card I want from the entire series, and that's DMoC. I'll just pick one up on ebay after the series is released here in the UK.
 
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