Welcome to Digi-Panda! This channel's focus is primarily on the Digimon TCG of 2020. This channel aims to be educational and informative to new, experienced, and hobbyists of Digimon. I've also co-commentated several competitive Digimon TCG events, including Carta Magica, Top Cut and CoreTCG! Not to mention Digimon 2022 Nationals and more. My goal is to bring insightful builds and discuss combos and deck techs.
With that in mind, I've loved Digimon from a young age, and so I bring to you the following schedule each week. Tentative - Min 3 Uploads a Week Monday: Meta Monday - ft. Deck Profiles of the present, or gleam into the future of next set Tuesday: Tactical Tuesday - for deck techs, strategies and discussion for new and experienced players. Wednesday: What-If Wednesday - Concept/Theory Craft Episodes Thursday - Sunday: Writing and Editing
Digimon is a franchise created by Akiyoshi Hongo and is owned by Toei Animation Co., Ltd.
I wouldn't necessarily place blame on one entity in this entire process. Stores order product, Bandai prints to order. Stores don't get enough product - why? Players open product or justify that the product is good/bad Store has unopened or no product remaining. Stores order less or more next time. Bandai prints again.
BT17 is going to be the same. BT17 in Singapore was almost sold out in Singapore in most every store. My friend brought $70 dollar per box boxes instead of $55 per box because he didn’t pre-order 😅. BT17 was overhype lol 😂
Great Video as always! I think the story is pretty consistent across the board. Order period to Bandai was due around RB01 plus stores getting burned with BSS product- and I think around that time there was inklings that Apocly was on the chopping block for JP meta (can't remember when exactly BT15 dropped for JP) so orders for product in general went down. I also think part of the issue is for LGS's is that there's a lot of issues in TCG land in general. MTG and Pokemon tend to still be the flagship games for most stores - magic being the largest and they are having a TON of issues mitigating the "is this set going to sell well?" problems with Wizards of the Coast. If the bread and butter product is washy - any weakness in another TCG means less ordering. Tie that into the popularity of Fusion Worlds and One Piece - many stores are focusing on those bandai games unless they have a stable local scene. Even retail products are hard to come by. Typically on release I can find blister packs everywhere for at least the first 2-3 weeks post release. Can't find a single pack within 100 square miles of where I live (outside of a fairly large city in the NE) - and the only adventure boxes I could get were one's ordered through Target online. Which is another Bandai issue - sure they print to order - but they never supply Retail either with subsequent waves of product whereas Pokemon and Magic get 1 or 2 sets behind replenishment for at least a month or two. I think if at the least - Bandai provided the retail space with some more waves of product - they wouldn't necessarily need to "over print" or build in large buffers. Hopefully seeing sales for BT16 will allow for maybe some last minute extra printing for BT17 in August - although idk what their printing capacity is like these days with so many games. I am curious - what have you heard about concerns from LGS' when unification happens? Like currently the ENG community can use the JP meta to get a barometer of how a set will do - that disappears with unification so LGS' can't use that as a tool to properly allocate. I guess the silver lining with BT16 is stores and bandai can work on building that equilibrium now - perhaps in your example of 10K cases, we can work back to 8000-9000 cases without having "foresight" into a set is the sweet spot with a 5-10% buffer? And then duplicate that with allocation to retailers. Using Target as an example - give each store 2-3 cases of 28 blisters (and Target has 1950ish stores) which puts an additional ~6800 cases of retail product on top of that into circulation. I think if Bandai moved towards some sort of allocation break down like that we'd have enough product, but not so much that it dilutes any of the collectibility of the cards.
The only plot hole in my narrative and assumption is why is it some stores request an order of 10 cases but only receive 5? Or those who order a case and only receive 6 boxes? I don't have a direct connection to distributors so there's no way for me in knowing if being Gold Tier assists in distributors giving you your allocation more or not. Does ordering early set precedent? Does being gold tier? What about ordering late? So many questions here that I can't answer but I can only make the assumption that distributors want to make EVERY store happy so they try and shave off a percentage of another order to help another.
My stores ordered tons of boxes but all got shorted. We did buy out all the stock they got and all the adventure boxes in the area. We have a very big scene for being in Alabama. We tend to have 14-21 people ish and we have 3 local locations.
God daaaaaaaaaaaamn. One of the nuances I didn't mention in this video was I don't know how Distributors work when it comes to fulfilling orders. Do they try and make sure every store gets some? Or are other stores prioritized over others based on what tier store they are?
@@DIGI-PANDA im not exactly know how the distributors choose. We have multiple of us that buy cases so they tend to get a lot of sales of product each set. We have 2 stores in northern Alabama that are gold status.
According to information from some shop owners, the set was oversold. So I don't know if it was necessarily short printed, or if the initial orders to Bandai couldn't compensate for late orders.
That's the trick with the deck! Option 1: Your opponent attacks, you pull out a level 5 and simultaneously blast digivolve into Azulongmon ACE. Fulfilling 2 Digimon that are yellow and black for the DNA on your turn. Option 2: Your opponent attacks, you pull out Megaseadramon with Jumbogamemon's effect, then tuck Jumbogamemon to bottomdeck a level 6 and simultaneously blast evo into Azulongmon ACE, then hard evo into Chaosmon the following turn. It's extremely gimmicky but it's hilarious.
The last few sets haven't been big sellers like this set which is unfortunate, but happens. If stores are able to do some research on future sets, that would help with Digimon sales. Also, not implying that the card game isn't doing so well would help too.
Disclaimer: I live in EU. IMO ordering on release day is too early. Buying 1-2 weeks after release is the sweet spot. Prices generally trend down for several days after release and stabilize after a week or two. After that, far less people are opening product, leaving the supply dwindling and causing prices to slowly creep back up.
I absolutely agree. The way I wanted to frame this is that BT16 has been very different from the norms of what usually happens with prices. Certain cards have stayed high, if not higher than what I would have normally seen if the set was a "normal" release with consistent sales. A lot of this is based on the speculation of what could have happened because I have been seeing a lot of complaints that Bandai doesn't print enough or players missed out on presale prices when they were lowest. Though presale prices are generally only affecting a handful of cards at this point.
@DIGI-PANDA What I dont understand is why Bandai would make a card game for an IP that is next to forgotten, meanwhile DragonBall struggling to gain any new players
I imagine a lot of this is impacted by the fact that we STILL don't have BT16 available in most places in the UK. Most people I know have basically just given up on boxes (because they don't seem to exist) and are just buying singles from places that got the initial, very limited, supplies. I've certainly never bought singles before getting a box before but it has been the only option if I wanted to play BT16 this week, and probably next week by the sounds of it (officially most places with to allowing BT16 format on Monday).
This could also be true. A faint memory vaguely recalls an instance where North America and Canada got the set two weeks late but prices had already seemed to torpedo to very low trends.
Great discussion video. This has been said before but with the unfortunate hit of apocaly and the inclusion of LM cards in bt15 the set after this was never going to be ordered at high amounts from stores because it really felt bad to open bt15. Couple that with some random distribution issues with bt16 and we got this -.- Bandai needs to chill with printing card games cause it shows they can’t handle the production for it
Legitimately curious, I know some individuals sell internationally, such as the Adventure Boxes. Is there any crossing back? IE do you see individuals buying from the North American sellers? Or is it just waiting at that point?
Hm... Not necessarily. As more events occurs, this will drive what are the best cards of the set. If Magnamon X and Rapidmon X don't perform as well in additional events, I could very well see the market of boxes coming down due to these secrets being worth less.
I'm hearing a few of these reports as well. And one thing I have no way of knowing is.. How do distributors actually divvy out the orders? Examples: What if Gold Store A ordered on time but Gold Store B ordered late? Is Gold Store A just not going to get their fulfillment because Gold Store B jumped on late? In essence, dividing the orders in a way so that both stores receive something? Do Gold Stores have priority over Bronze Stores? There's so many nuances and no direct line to distributors that I have no way to answer this missing element. It still feels like everything is printed to order, just certain stores that don't order on time still get some?
While it's true that the miscommunication really caused problems for our Europe counterpart, I can't decide whether this helps or hurts you as typically I've seen markets driven further down by increased product released in different areas. For example, when Europe and Latin America had their release but parts of North America and Canada were delayed, pricing was substantially cheaper once it was released in NA and Canada.
@DIGI-PANDA as a UK player it hurt are locals a lot and store, the set basically won't exists in are scenes cause to get the cards as singles has heavy shipping fees which prices some of us out when you pay more in shipping that rhe bulk you need, and means we have no real prizes I think it will hurt the game and market here cause it's loss a lot of trust from players out this way
It really sucks because, I'm still tyring to find a magnaX because I've only gotten rapidX and buying a playset of magnaX, in a nice way of putting, makes me want to back flip off a bridge
Magnamon X is largely the gatekeeper of a lot of decks in this format. Personally, I think Numemon's representation will cause a shift from Magnamon X to something else to deal with Numemon and then we'll see a cycle of Numemon, Magnamon X and deck that counters Magnamon X.
There are buys on the tcg market that buying low and then selling at a mucher higher rate with a large quantity of cards. Pro-Play and Crazynicks are responsible for that across several sets on tcgplayer.
BT 16 and 17 are full nostalgia trips, combined with AMAZING support it's too bad things happened like this. I bought 2 pail at 10 and one at 14 but Dinobee stayed hovering in until it dropped and now I'm regretting buying a set.
Great video as always! After opening my case, I always pick up the rest of what I'm missing in base rare regardless of the price. Sometimes if I feel like a card will be used in multiple decks. I may pick up an extra playset or two depending on the price. For EX-07 I picked up 3 playsets of Vortex Resonance just in case there's going to be a lot of Liberator decks that need it in the future (since it's relatively cheap in Hong Kong right now).
Agreed! I follow a similar suit but mostly keep only 2 playsets of SRs and 1 playset of Secs. Sometimes secrets can be pricy unless they're staples like DeathXmon. If I'm ever in Hong Kong I'll let you know!
@@DIGI-PANDA I just got the heads up from my store that the stock has arrived at the distribution warehouse and will be there by Tuesday; which is when our prerelease will finally be happening. They're trying to get a deal on the boxes for a mix of demand and compensation for the delay, it's quite likly we'll have a discount at the prerelease event. I've only ever brought singles and Double Typhoon; this is actually the first release since I joined the physical game. I'll probobly buy a box; even if BT16 isn't something my jank-loving self wants greatly; if I pull a big card that could legit help fund 2~3 jank decks; and picking up older cards as single; like the Chessmon set. My BT15 Dark Masters list cost ~£12 plus shipping. Magnamon X could fund 2 of those once you account for shipping. That's the thing about being a jank-addict and experimenter; if I do pull; say; Magnamon X; I just get my money back.
I think the “problem” with this set seems to be that Bandai and lgs and many others didn’t think this set would fly off the shelf like it did. Obv pull rates and such affect prices for singles but I truly think everyone was caught off guard by just how much people wanted this set. I know personally at my lgs people that have never bought sealed product (myself included) were buying not just one box but multiple if they could. TLDR: I think A LOT of the problem with prices in this set is that Bandai releases such an insane set that everyone wants every single card so not only do people “want” more product they’re less likely to sell “extras” of things they do pull even if they’re not going to play it right now simply because every card in this set is insanely powerful and liked and sought after! Especially with how bt15 absolutely flopped
This goes back to one point though in regards to what does saying "Digimon is Dying" really bring to the table? There is fear mongering that can put off players buying the next set or new product. Or stores not ordering as much product. I'm not 100% certain how much Bandai prints but most of what I mention in the video is speculative based on other references such as Premium Bandai. I also am not too familiar with the intricacies of distributors and how they operate. I don't know if BT17 will have similar box prices but if they maintain their pull ratios like they did for BT14 and BT16, I could see it being extremely successful as well. While it's true LGS set the order for Bandai and Bandai prints the product (potentially to order), LGS are affected most by their player base. So if your player base is anticipating that there's going to be some restriction in BT16, maybe they told their LGS to not order as much, which set the precedent on how much is printed.
@@DIGI-PANDA again anecdotal but at my lgs when I first started going we’d have tourneys and nights where 4 people would show up a person very near and dear to our community who’s been playing digimon from the start said there would be nights he’d be the only one there trying to keep the local scene alive (shoutout Jeremy!)and now we’ve never ever had more people show up weekly even for just small regular tournaments we have so many people now and so many new players too our community has grown massively over the past year. Everyone’s experience may now be the same but I can say at least in my community digimon is FLOURISHING!
My shop is small. So, the owners have cooled on ordering new product for a while now after taking losses on multiple sets that they hadn't done their research on. Though, with only a few players that consistently bought sealed product, it hasn't been too awful with less boxes of the recent sets. We were lucky with BT16 that they'd accidently ordered more than they meant to and the increased demand showed in all the extra boxes getting bought up too.
Talking with the local game stores in my area, all of them got way less than they ordered. One store ordered 12 boxes, was informed they’d receive 8, and only physically received 4. I don’t have exact numbers for the second, but they’re completely out when normally they have a box or two on standby. The third received absolutely nothing. It should be noted that each store uses a different distributor, so the fact that this isn’t a problem with just one indicates to me the set itself was short-printed, especially since I keep hearing of case orders being suddenly cancelled everywhere.
One major issue I saw was that the set was oversold. And when speaking with stores in regards to their orders, I don't know if additional nuances would affect the order. Example. If a store is gold tier and ordered on time versus gold tier and ordered late. Or comparing a store that is gold tier that ordered late to a bronze store that ordered on time. Would a gold tier store be prioritized over a bronze tier store? Additionally, I don't know if distributors try to make everyone happy and equalize orders where they can.
