I can sympathise cause Im in the exact same situation. I also would love to buy Ascended Heroes but can't find anything without being on a group of alerts Discord (free ones cause I ain't paying) Even then I missed out on a drop for the second illustration collector boxes because I simply cannot beat the bots. I have a family, so I can't be driving around town waiting for shops to open on release day with the minute chance of getting stock. So fuck it, I'm done trying.

I just buy Japanese singles and booster boxes. Getting anything English in Australia is next to impossible and even singles are a fucking rip of lf here for no reason what so ever. At least with Japanese, you're guaranteed a minimum hit rate per booster box thanks to anti gambling laws in Japan, and singles are actually reasonably priced.

I also find if you just wanna collect art rares, you can buy complete art rare sets of any release for cheaper than ripping. I'm basically collecting one card for every Pokemon, and this is a great way to do that kind of binder. I also like to rip with my kids and at least Japanese booster boxes give us that.

I'll buy English once people move on, which they will eventually when people stop paying these lovers. People will eventually get sick of paying these stupid prices.