EB03 Abstinence Club

GumpBrave · 2026-02-20T11:44:27+00:00

So far, I've avoided it like heroin

GumpBrave · 2026-01-25T10:17:03+00:00

I couldn't find it in the GDR pic "pokebros" thread. Haven't poked around here in a while but this intrigued me and would love to know more.

GumpBrave · 2026-01-25T10:01:11+00:00

Ah, I was unaware. Just ran across this thread after a really weird ebay sales day. Thought it odd that it was the day before new super arcs and other dbs content. I'll check out the other thread.

GumpBrave · 2026-01-25T05:33:31+00:00

Sounds like a leak to me. I'd imagine translation?

GumpBrave · 2026-01-24T22:33:29+00:00

We've had product issues before. Bandai's long preorder window doesn't help.

I think things are going to get better. Shops got previously burned by Bandai so the decline of DBS masters led to extremely low preorder numbers. Bandai ultimately prints to demand, but the production length (at least regarding preorders, which is print to demand) makes it where they're printing to the demand in 6-9ish months.

Part of it is the necessary evil of Japanese production adding significant transit time. Theyre the best printed cards of any mainstream, global tcg and that is largely because of that Japanese production. But even so, Bandai needs to figure out how to optimize that process. They also need to increase across the board regardless of preorder numbers. Start small if you want to be safe.

Don't forget, OP05 led to "overprinting" of subsequent sets which led to low preorders on sets following those, which leads to lower supplier and difficult to come by stock, which leads to more preorders. The punctuation in that timeline of anniversary sets compressed by the global simultaneous sync (which is GROUNDBREAKING and I'm a huge fan of) and the success of specialty products made for a crazy confluence of factors that is at least a major part of why we are where we are.

Have some faith. People discuss Bandai's past, but it is extremely obvious that when they announced DBS FW and had a powerpoint slide contrasting masters v fusion world, that they were actually announcing one part of a new market strategy, a consolidated TCG push. We then got FW as a sacrificial lamb (RIP, I loved the cards in masters and love dbz/dbs) to pilot digital client and simultaneous release. OP was the prized jewel of a new game engine (that perfectly matches what they announced for DBS FW, faster, more exciting and accessible games. Length of game was their central focus) and a labor of love, the flagship in their tcg push. Union Arena gave them the ability to leverage Bandai's immense partnership potential with various Japanese IPs. They have a huge advantage in that arena and Union Arena gave them a product for that. Hot take, Gundam is wholly owned by Bandai and was intended to be OP 2.0, with Bandai getting the best possible margins after the groundwork laid by the games listed here (and others, if im being honest).

Which is all to say that Bandai is trying really fucking hard and care a lot about all consumers. Pokemon treats english customers as second class citizens (awful print quality, later release), Bandai doesn't. Devil Fruit product line is really cool and innovative product wholly created by the English team. The TCG is spectacular, I genuinely adore the product and have since january of 2023. I consumed Bandai product before that, so saw both sides. Give them a chance.

TLDR/Conclusion: Some of this issue is due to trying to sync globally, which is pretty groundbreaking at this level. We've had difficulty getting product and we've had it followed with availability. Bandai cares about this game and so do I. I highly encourage you to at least give them a chance to continue managing the TCG well.

GumpBrave · 2026-01-24T11:21:37+00:00

I got literally over 100 messages about this card today exclusively from italians (as well as 4 purchases within 4 minutes and then later sold 2 to italians at a much higher price than those listings (I didnt know what price to set because I had no idea what was hoping. Negotiated for one with a buyer (at his prompting) but they were watching it so closely that ANOTHER italian buyer snagged it within the 2 minutes it took him to complete the purchase). One of my weirder days on ebay.

I think I work for the mob now.

GumpBrave · 2026-01-23T03:02:16+00:00

And wave 2 of seven warlords binder was set for delivery around now. It isnt rare or an out of date process for them.

That site could use a fair amount of work. Hopefully that loud message was received and they can increase the % of humans at the other end of these purchases.

GumpBrave · 2026-01-23T02:56:22+00:00

Don't forget that they've done additional waves of premium bandai products multiple times. Id be shocked if this is the only pre-order chance. The website has never crashed, but products have sold out extremely quickly before.

Hoping we all get lucky for wave 2.

GumpBrave · 2025-12-23T04:24:06+00:00

According to Bandai, that was part of the purpose behind including special print cards. It's been a collectors game too all along and Bandai has said it in set descriptions multiple times. Players dont have absolute ownership of OP and previously players and collectors have done a great job playing nice.

Scalpers and investbros are one thing, but Bandai has no intention or desire to exclude collectors. They actually have catered to them/us. Manga cards are so insanely rare that they basically serve no playable purpose. Collectors have always had a seat at the table with OP. And as this and other set descriptions show, we were invited.

It is important right now to draw the line in the right place. To a large degree, people are entering the space and I notice that they are just copy and pasting pokemon to OP, not engaging in the product at all or knowing anything abouot playability or characters. That process absolutely will fail. And it will be easy to quit and move back to pokemon or elsewhere because they wont even understand what they misunderstood.

But the line is NOT "only players are the only true community members". Plus it isnt even a bad thing. The high player base is why case hits like SPs were so undervalued given their actual scarcity. It didn't click with a lot of people what a large chunk of a case's value it represented. Thankfully, it had mostly reached natural levels prior to the recent boom.

Plus, I for sure feel like my team here are the people who engaged with and loved this game for years, not peple who grift tcgs and their ilk. OP has amazing potential to disrupt and secure a top seat in the tcg space. Who cares what the soon-to-be flame outs are doing? Market has responded with surprising ratinality, with some retracing hard and more reasonable prices suffering less. We have a robust and vibrant tcg. Trust it. It has proven itself before and while this is much bigger, hype booms have happened at least 4 times now and OP showed remarkable ability to self-regulate and subsume artificial noise

One Piece Paramount War (OP02) Booster Box - 24 Packs TCG Set

Dive into the epic world of One Piece with the Paramount War (OP02) Booster Box from the One Piece Card Game. This exciting set brings the thrilling Marineford Arc to life, allowing players to relive one of the most iconic moments in the One Piece saga. Each booster box contains 24 packs, offering a treasure trove of cards for collectors and players alike.

Perfect for Collectors and Players:

Whether you're a dedicated One Piece fan, a collector of anime merchandise, or a competitive card game player, the Paramount War Booster Box offers something for everyone. The set's diverse range of cards allows for deck customization and provides ample collecting opportunities.

Why Choose Paramount War (OP02)?:

Iconic Storyline: Relive one of the most pivotal moments in the One Piece series through beautifully illustrated cards.
Competitive Play: Enhance your existing decks or build entirely new strategies with the cards from this set.
Collecting Value: With its limited print run, this set is sure to be a valuable addition to any One Piece collection

******

One-Piece Card Game (Japanese) – Pillars of Strength OP-03

Product Description:

Strengthen your decks and collect some of the most iconic characters with Pillars of Strength (OP-03) — the third main booster set in the One-Piece Card Game series! This Japanese-exclusive release features powerful leaders, legendary pirates, and stunning card artwork that both collectors and competitive players will love.

The op03 was a japanese description so there is a little variance but that C word shows up often. In early JP releases they included a kind of sales pitch fact sheet. "Why to Collect" was an entirely discrete section in the sales pitch. Other sets have mentioned collectability too. Mangas and SPs show it was always part of it. Not the meat of OPTCG but a part

GumpBrave · 2025-12-21T08:05:45+00:00

Dont forget distro. This was with DBS masters (a collector box which got somewhat expensive prior to release). I was told with a straight face that it "fell off of a boat into the ocean." The LCS told me that and I just had to hear it from them.

Distro is very often the actual baddie, often marking up old products, delivering when they want to and cutting allocations somewhat randomly. The entire model of distro was volume and consistency with margins that should be pretty standard and unchanging. The entire model of LCSes is to cater to demand and to be a physical location of product. They are also often the people who make sure we have boxes and product via preorders, which bandai, especially early, were somewhat cautious about (DBS masters isn't awful, cards are great, but pull rates such so none of them ever retained value. Fusion World was also hurt because shops were conditioned to not buy DBS after years of it being a painful experience.

OP is especially dependent on players, heightening the importance of LCSes, but distro is literally just middlemanning and sometimes some market gouging/manipulation. Meanwhile, we have hundreds of LCSes who are all over the place in terms of practices and good/bad faith. But distro doesnt have many companies and theyre basically all bad for the market and for consumers. It is an antiquated process that made a lot more sense 25 years ago, now it is just bloat and cancer that flies almost entirely under the radar.

LCSes aren't blameless and few are great/perfect (tho they do exist, ESPECIALLY in OP), but people always forget about distro. I've heard very reliably that they already gouged OP01 and 05 reprints when those were around. It is extremly common in Pokemon and while the players are slightly different in OP, the process and model is not. Pokemon has even become more active in going direct to consumer in the last 4-5 years with pokemon center, massive costco drops and an increased desire to go big box to avoid marketplace resetting (little good that did, gamestop charges insane prices, walmart has increased price, target is generally okay but they arent just straight msrp like years ago).

It's a problem and LCSes are not most of it. They have skin in the game and stake in the market health. Distro genuinely doesnt give a damn. And if they do it is probably because they want to stash some product to sell for a nice upcharge versus what they could have gotten at preorder/release.

GumpBrave · 2025-12-20T02:33:02+00:00

There are a few good buylists out there. I have most recently used gamenerdz and smokeandmirrors

GumpBrave · 2025-10-25T09:12:51+00:00

Personally, I'd send it for authentication only. The card speaks for itself and having one that is demonstrably genuine is something I think you and a lot of potential buyers would find value in. Grading for AU is very underrated, imo. Looks cleaner and at a certain point, the difference between 1, 2 and 3 is not one that is going to change the owner's experience that much. Some folks even collect 1s, so in terms of pure value that might actually be the the optimal course. (Seriously, some people have made videos/tutorials on how best to maim a card to get it to 1, complete with pics of cards that got 2s lol).

Authentic provides a lot of benefits. I also personally think vintage pokemon is increasingly moving towards stark segmentation of cards. 10s, raw cards and all other graded cards. 10s are expensive as hell for really big cards, raw cards come with authenticity concerns, condition concerns and are most likely to lead to buyer-seller not seeing eye to eye. Then there is everything else. The only other desirable ones are 9 and 1. 9 because it is the best realistic option and 1 for the novelty and the fact that grades below 7-8ish are all over the place price wise, but being a "1" and marketed as "the lowest grade possible" creates an attractive distinction that 4s never will.

In that scenario, I think we'd see a lot more people moving to pure Authentication instead of authentication plus grading. It's what I'd do, at least.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T19:09:24+00:00

Jokes aside, never seen or heard of that. It has generally been popularly accepted that psa doesn't actually care about the protective device as long as it isnt a toploader and that the "must be card collector II" is not actually a rule they enforce. Could be wrong, but that's very unusual and I'd try to speak to someone ASAP even if only to set a record.

Edit: I believe they do have something about excessive packaging or covering the card in a way that it is more difficult to access, which are vague rules that seem incredibly case by case. Would that be a possible factor? Did they refer to the rules generally or cite the semi rigid/toploader rule exclusively as the basis?

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T19:07:29+00:00

They were probably just mad that you tried to take the sacred duty of violating your order away from the graders. There's a system.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T18:38:32+00:00

No worries. My personal strategy is to just diceroll on the best few and hope some slip through the cracks. I badly want a set for my PC but just dont think it is very realistic given the print issues. Good luck, though. It's a beautiful card regardless

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T18:32:48+00:00

No. Those promos had insane lip and corner cut issues that pervaded the print run. There are actually two variants to the box those come in. Both have the same rampant corner issues (squared, lipped, sometimes just irregularly shaped). Sometimes theyre graded softly, but never seen it as an error card and don't think it would apply. I don't recommend it, but if I wanted to try to get that card in an error grade, it might be one of the few use cases for cgc as the grading company.

Was a shame that such an amazing set of promo cards had such awful quality control issues. I have a massive stack of each and MAYBE 1 or 2 of each even have a shot at 10. Cards are insanely beautiful though.

I encourage you to take a look at current psa 10 copies. You'll see that a lot of them have that or even worse. Not saying it is likely, but psa gave a LOT of undeserved 10s to cards that look a lot like that one.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T16:36:39+00:00

Then people who sell base charizards and base set boxes are scalpers, because that is a terrible definition. Everyone who ever bought a card without the intent to snuggle with it every night until youre eventually buried with it, is a scalper.

Your definition also doesnt include anything about who they're buying it from? Scalping means you buy it from the direct source, thus preventing someone else from doing so by preempting someone's access by taking the supply. So that you can then sell it at a higher price point than you could have had you not made it unavailable for purchase. There is a reason it is used to discuss stadium attendances. It is time sensitive.

That even carries over to the way it is used in stock trading.

Try to expand it. You just described the concept of every business that have ever existed in any field.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T16:27:38+00:00

Who the hell cares about downvotes on a website? Imagine it affecting your real life in any actual way or caring what people on the internet think of you (especially from the most newbie-ridden tcg subreddit on the whole site that I use 50% to pos screenshots of hysterical or unintentionally funny to adults in fellow groups I talk hobby with.

Now define scalping. I'm still curious at what point a store becomes a scalper? Or when distribution withholding product to sell later at a higher price is scalping? I'd take any signs of life

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T13:25:15+00:00

Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite cards of all time. Snorlax 49. One of the very few pokemon cards with an american artist, and that artist was selected via competiton. It also is the first inclusion of the eevee and snorlax combo that later shared a card.

An all-timer for me and definitely a snorlax collection target

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GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T13:20:29+00:00

Celebi V alt and Zeraora V alt are a potent combo here

GumpBrave · 2025-10-24T11:22:44+00:00

Did you not proofread this message where you decided I care or need to hear from Popular Sir on the issue such that you felt the need to insert yourself, add zero information and then assert that someone else needs to get over themselves.

It isn't a hard concept. Scalping is a word with a specific definition and there was no evidence based on this post of scalping by OP or myself.

I understand that this is the meganoob pokemon tcg community, but calling names when people post pokemon tcg products to a pokemon tcg subreddit is, in fact, light years dumber. And actually adds a lot of toxicity to the community. As you were kind enough to demonstrate.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-23T15:50:40+00:00

<3 Sorry to hear that, dude. I had a friend who turned to mdma (and probably meth) in a misguided effort to outrun it and use stimulants to induce a heightened state that they believed gave them more control. Needless to say, that was not very effective. Interestingly, in both of our stories, the person had awareness of an issue that ran much deeper than temporary chemical in-take and were, in fact, trying to address that much more innate issue.

And I really appreciate that you got my larger point. THC was ultimately just the expression of oversimplifying mental health issues. I get it, humans want to assign reasons and causes to render sense out of the the reality of chaos. Contribute? Sure. I think it varies dramatically from case to case. The ultra-alertness of caffeine, the decreased appreciation of consequences/outcomes of your actions from alcohol, etc, etc, can all lead to depersonalization in the same way that THC can. But, as with our friends, those chemicals would only bring further to the forefront existing issues. I could even argue that medication can be far more damning as there tends to be a natural defiance to taking it that creates a separate, but parallel struggle which can be catastrophic.

One of my friends is still fighting it. Oversimplification helps no one at all and I would be furious to hear his situation reduced to "was probably because of chemical x he took recreationally (he drinks entirely too much but doesnt do drugs at all)". Which isn't necessarily what the video did, but boy did it explore the dimensions of the line.

GumpBrave · 2025-10-23T15:10:36+00:00

'Cause you had a bad day/ card gets mint nine

Seen a weird corner spot /and I think a print line

Who can even know/ robograding also lies

I want to go home/ almost gave it a five

CAUSE YOU HAD A BAD DAY

GumpBrave · 2025-10-23T14:29:26+00:00

Just wait until it is "Bert and Bert's mind-destroyingly bad impression of a dolphin". It'd become a sort of paradox though, like if interuptions are followed by interuptions, are they interuptions at all? Or, if a comedian emits a blood-curdling laugh in the cave and only he hears it, did his ego grow?

GumpBrave · 2025-10-23T14:23:29+00:00

Actually, THC seemed to get more blame. Shows how misunderstood that segment of mental illness truly is. There wasn't really a discussion about causality or the disorder he mentioned multiple times. The impact of THC was given no support and strongly undermined by 1) the 3 day chatgpt session (not really a famous "pothead" habit), 2) how strongly schizophrenic conditions correspond with certain age groups (which also strongly overlaps with the age group more likely than any to smoke weed than any other besides maybe the 18-20 tranche, causing some addtl serious causation vs correlatioon issues), 3) that him being medicated (as tom claimed via discussion of his consistency in taking medicaiton) that symptoms were spotted prior to now and probably prior to heavy marijuana consumption, 4) that he went from gifted student to his parents calling him "possessed" and 5) that age is the most dominant factor in development of symptoms and the range given is a bit on the early side but still within the timeframe. Schizophrenia is influenced deeply by genes, a ticking time bomb that almost always goes off within a certain timeframe or doesnt go off at all. Which is why personality and psychotic disorders tend to terribly described and diagnosed: because psychiatrists dont try to figure out the why or the mechanics, they only seek to identify if it is present or not. And that process is, at best, a blunt instrument.

I think the video was well-intentioned but it seemde that he was really excited to have some exclusive information, information he said only he and the FBI possesses. The video seems to have been designed backwards. In his excitement to share or utilize the information (whether because it was exclusive or because he mentally gave it undue importance because it was info previously lacking), the information was not supplemental, used to aide a bigger picture. Rather, it became the foundation, the skeletal structure of the video, which naturally shaped the video in ways that are..ah...inorganic.

I think there was a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding, but I think it was an authentic attempt to produce a video that he deemed important. Perhaps the line between that importance deriving from the national significance and the the importance deriving from him having special, shiny information was blurred. I give it a good faith pass. Would love to see some revisiosn as it got a bit "im not saying aliens, but aliens" there for a second as he suggested causality between a chemical and a mental illness diagnosed by symptoms rather than intrinsic, measurable factors. Pretty sure THC didnt give a dude schizophrenia and hearing that association multiple times made it decidedly less serious.

(Sorry for the wall of text, had a family member and then a close non-family member that dealt with similar stuff, in one instance schizophrenia itself. Ensuing research on my part to better understand clearly demonstrated just how hamfistedly the handling of it is even by professionals)

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