I tried to start playing the physical format, but...

For this post I used the prices from TCGplayer.

I have played Master Duel since day one, I know how to play the game, I haven't spent a cent on the game and I have practically all the decks I want, but I recently thought about starting to play the Physical Format, I knew that buying all the staples (ash, imperm, called by, etc) would be expensive and coincidentally I found out about the New Blue-Eyes Structure Deck, but what took me by surprise is the volatility and speculation of the secondary market.

It's true that I could buy 3 Blue-Eyes Structure Decks for about USD 33, but to play the deck optimally I need to play the Primite Engine, and 1 copy of "Primite Lordly Lode" costs USD 129 and as a comparison a AAA game costs USD 60-70. Four months ago that card cost USD 3-4.

I'm only interested in playing the game, I don't want to have to keep track of secondary market prices every time Konami announces new cards or a banlist, or every time a random deck performs well in a big tournament.

It's true that I could settle for playing budget decks, but I don't think I can after playing Master Duel and Duelingbook and experiencing the freedom of playing any deck I want. For example "Fiendsmith Engraver" costs USD 56 but in Master Duel it costs 30 UR Crafting Points, and all cards are Free in Dueling Book.

Waiting for current prices to drop won't solve anything because new cards that are equally or more expensive will appear in the future thanks to the powercreep. It's not feasible to play the game physically without interacting with the secondary market to a greater or lesser extent.

Konami could solve this problem by printing the new cards in multiple rarities just like they do in the OCG, although it is possible that this will cause other problems since the Western and Eastern markets are different.

The game recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, I'm not going to say that the game is dying or anything like that, I'm just going to say that every game needs a continuous flow of new players and currently Yugioh has two major barriers to entry:

  1. The High Learning Curve. This point is self explanatory.
  2. High Prices and Volatility in the Secondary Market.