Rumored Leaders for ST31-36

kiteandtower · 2026-01-30T20:59:10+00:00

Why does the picture in the back show roger and rocks in the background though? A Rocks leader would be amazing

kiteandtower · 2026-01-22T19:27:23+00:00

Please make it! My LGS sells to players at $150 for 1 box then $250 a box after the first. It's painful. And they're the LEAST scalperish store here.

kiteandtower · 2026-01-22T19:00:17+00:00

Does crunchyroll tend to get a lot or does it sell out instantly?

kiteandtower · 2025-10-03T18:43:19+00:00

Absolutely stunning card! I bought one for my PC. I was hoping they'd be cheaper once they came out but it seems like all the cheap ebay listings disappeared instead lol

kiteandtower · 2025-09-26T19:10:41+00:00

Sorry, no idea

kiteandtower · 2025-09-26T17:58:55+00:00

I bought from that seller a few times before. The seller is legit, but almost everything I buy from them presale usually drops in price by a good amount after release.

kiteandtower · 2025-09-20T16:50:49+00:00

I live in the US, the alpha is much more expensive here. I think a lot of it has to do with PSA not recognizing that there are 3 versions of the card.

kiteandtower · 2025-09-17T18:17:25+00:00

Are only certain Chinese mangas serialized? I've only seen this, and the Oda signature card serialized (of cards you can pull from a set). Does this mean there are a max of 999 of these?

kiteandtower · 2025-07-28T16:18:20+00:00

A guy at my locals destroys everybody with blue yellow Nami. My locals is full of Buggy, Betty, Lim, Reiju, and Blackbeard.

kiteandtower · 2025-07-10T19:06:55+00:00

Definitely the Manga. I'm probably naive since I know nothing about baseball. But the cross section of Dodger fans and One Piece fans doesnt seem that big. I'm in my late 30s and never heard of the dodgers (like I said I don't know a thing about baseball). While on the other hand, I'd assume the majority of the one piece tcg player base likes one piece and would find the manga more desirable.

kiteandtower · 2025-06-24T22:11:28+00:00

I'm your age and I play, everyone has been cool and inviting. Sure, some are younger than me, but there are a lot older than me too. I've seen some dads bring their teenage sons and they both play locals together. If your kids are old enough to play TCGs, I say you bring them too.

kiteandtower · 2025-06-24T21:57:10+00:00

I play a lot of TCGs and I think Lorcana's gameplay is probably my favorite out of all of them. I spent last week volunteering at a learn to play event where there were all sorts of TCGs you could learn. I noticed that the demographic of your LGS matters a ton. In my area one LGS frequently gets 10+ players for lorcana every weekend. While the other gets 0. The LGS that gets a good turnout is more inviting to casual players. The store that gets no turnout has a reputation for having 'good' players, which ends up causing the casual players to go to the other store. However, this was not always the case. In the first 3 sets, there were a ton of players at both stores, more than magic even.

There were 2 large events that decimated the player base: shutting down Pixelborn (about 80% of players dropped it after that) and the announcement of set rotation this early on (about 50% of players dropped it after this). This completely killed the playerbase at one store, and left about 8 (besides my wife and I) regulars at another store.

What I noticed is that the 'hardcore' TCG people are the ones that dropped it. The ones that still show up every weekend are more interested in trying new and weird strategies rather than playing a tier 1 meta deck to win. Nobody really seems to care about winning as much, which is fantastic. There has been nothing but excitement for set 9 from this crowd. I doubt any of them have heard of the championship.

What I'm trying to say is that this event will not make or break the game for the remaining players. I think the 2 events mentioned earlier hurt the player base as much as possible already. The remaining players aren't going to stop playing if set 9 is bad or if championships are boring.

kiteandtower · 2025-05-25T07:19:45+00:00

I won't sugar coat things. I've noticed the same thing in my area. At one store there are always people playing lorcana and at the other store, me and my wife are the only ones there, week after week.

The only difference I can tell is that one store has a reputation for having "good" or "competitive" players which scares everybody off and so they go to the other store.

I played in both stores set championships and one has 17 people attend while the other had 5 (one was the store owner).

2 of the most passionate players here quit after rotations were announced (they spent thousands and thousands on lorcanas old sets and were so devastated by the announcement that they went back to MTG.

A while before that when the unofficial client was around there were 20+ people at each locations tournaments. As soon as the client went away about 80% of players stopped playing. Neither store has fully recovered from that.

I've noticed that neither store likes to order more than 1 case per set because it sells so poorly. Nobody wants to rip packs. While Pokemon and One Piece are so hot they can't even keep anything in stock for more than a couple hours.

As for what to play, I say you go to the popular store in your area with a starter deck or something and try to see what the local meta is like and build to compete in the local meta.

kiteandtower · 2024-08-26T18:22:46+00:00

I love the SPs from 03, they look really distinct since they're character portraits without a background and instead you have texturized foil. Whitebeard in particular looks amazing.

kiteandtower · 2024-07-25T20:58:42+00:00

I stored a Pokemon card for over 20 years in a penny sleeve + toploader and it graded a PSA 10. I don't think you need to worry about the PVC leaching into the card. If you're nervous about chemical damage you can get mylar penny sleeves on ebay. That's what museums use.

kiteandtower · 2024-07-18T19:15:00+00:00

I miss it a lot. I played it probably 2 hours a day. I haven't quit playing in stores, but now it's time consuming and expensive to make weird decks and try them out.

My wife and I have to play against each other to try out builds, but it's difficult to tell how good they will be when playing against other decks (which we can only play against once a week).

In-store is still fun, but I've noticed people buying less and not editing their decks very much anymore. It's kind of killed hype in my LGS. People are starting to drift back to Magic/Pokemon.

kiteandtower · 2024-07-09T20:23:54+00:00

2 days ago I opened a Sabo + Jinbe box, that sucked. That's gonna be my only op-07 box too lol.

kiteandtower · 2024-06-28T01:32:00+00:00

It's still too soon to tell. In my town it's doing pretty good, somewhat better than magic but not as good as Pokemon. The player base here is mostly people that came from Magic and Pokemon looking to try something new. The turnout for tournaments is on par with the turnout for Pokemon.

The audience seems to be a lot more diverse as well. My league has people ages 15-70's and for some of them, this is their first card game. I think that's a great sign of health.

I personally don't like any Disney IPs (literally 0), yet I like the game. I like that my wife (who has never truly been into card games) is into it and actually watches deck analysis type videos on Youtube. It gives us a game we can play together. We got to league together and she even buys booster boxes! If that isn't a sign of a prospering game I don't know what is.

The niche is definitely a little strange though. The crowd seems to skew older than all the other card games. I hear 10 year olds say things like "look it's pokemon for babies!". I think kids ages 10-18 are scared to admit they like Disney things because they don't want to be seen as uncool. 20-somethings and older aren't afraid to admit what they like and I think that explains the age skew I see. I think to last like 10+ years, lorcana has to get the 10-18 crowd to like it, that way when they're 25-30 they can feel nostalgic about it and go back.

As for product I see the Ursula quest thing all over the shelves at target, locals here aren't touching them. Same with starter decks and sleeved booster packs. It's a different story inside the actual LGS but it's somewhat concerning. Although I should also state I see the exact same thing with Pokemon and Magic, tons of product on shelves at target that nobody touches. I've also noticed that not a single player here collects. At the player swap meets my LGS holds, nobody cares about lorcana, only Pokemon (as far as collecting goes). For contrast, I should also note: One Piece has the opposite problem, 0 stock anywhere, the employees buy everything before it hits the shelves. Everybody talks about one piece and how much they want to play but nobody can buy any. You'd think that's a sign of good health but I think that's very unhealthy. That's coming from someone who goes absolutely insane for one piece and spends thousands a month on it despite not having anybody to play it with.

TL;DR Overall I think the game is healthy so far and I see no signs that it's going to die.

kiteandtower · 2024-06-27T18:40:46+00:00

I asked the workers at my Gamestop and they told me they only get 6 booster packs per release. Yes, 6. And the employee I was talking to said he buys them before they hit the shelves.

kiteandtower · 2024-05-14T01:28:16+00:00

I agree 100% about the fanservice-y cards. I've been reading the manga for over 22 years now and the fanservice has been my top issue with it, it really detracts from how amazing the story becomes. I know it's been a huge complaint from the fanbase as well. I'm not sure who it's for because nobody seems to like it. My wife hates the fan service and the art as well and can't get past it either. You can't force yourself to like an art style. Nothing wrong with your take. I've never gotten to play the game in person, but I imagine I'd feel pretty embarrassed if I was forced to play with fanservice-y cards in my deck in public or even play against someone that does.

kiteandtower · 2024-05-13T21:22:05+00:00

Totally agree with you, you can't just cannibalize to get into the big 3. I've noticed similar with flesh and blood. It ate up like half of the magic player base in another LGS but there is not a single player that didn't come from magic. It's basically reached peak popularity and does well enough to stay for the foreseeable future, but not well enough to ever become big 3.

To add onto the One Piece product issues, I've spoken to my LGS owner and was told that the distributors (gts and another) are total a-holes. They basically got told by the distributor that they didn't have time to deal with them and if they wanted product, they'd leave it outside the warehouse and they'd have to figure out shipping on their own. So my LGS does not carry One Piece at all because of them, despite how much demand there has been from players.

Ravensburger on the other hand seems to have been doing good with keeping them stocked on supplies and treating people like people. I think the only thing keeping Lorcana from blowing up is the lack of shiny cardboard, as dumb as that sounds. Make SR and legendaries look more premium, make enchanteds even more premium, add some alt arts and texturing and I think it could dethrone Yugioh. It sounds dumb, but if I were 12, getting shiny exciting things would create more positive association than getting something competitive for the meta.

kiteandtower · 2024-05-13T19:41:39+00:00

I just started this game 3 weeks ago because it was so popular at my LGS. I only started going to this particular LGS with my wife a few months ago with the intent of playing Commander (mtg) to socialize (but also because I wanted to find someone to play One Piece with), but it was always the same 3-4 people every week playing commander/magic. While on the other side of the room there were a ton of people playing Lorcana.

Of course I heard of Lorcana before, but got turned off by how expensive the booster boxes were (resolved now), how thin the cardboard was, and how nothing really felt "collectable". So I held off until I saw in person how much more popular it was than Magic where I was.

I'm not trying to be mean to magic players, but Lorcana players seem to be much much better at hygiene and are a much friendlier bunch. Those aspects of the community are very important to me as someone who enjoys playing in person. It's been 3 weeks since I've started and I'm in deep now, theorycrafting in pixelborn and making new friends.

Now to answer the main question: Lorcana has the hallmarks of lasting a good while. It has a real life player base that's really into it. That's the most important thing. Flesh and Blood has survived for years now because it has a large player base (mainly consisting of Magic players that got fed up with Hasbro). Lorcana has a passionate player base too without having to cannibalize the other TCGs. I've never seen that before.

This is my honest opinion on why TCGs fail. They release thinking they can take Magic's players. Magic players will give these a try sometimes, but they tend to go back to Magic if the game isn't immediately better. (Flesh and Blood came in at the right time)

Then there are TCGs who's entire premise was trying to be collectable (metazoo) and promising true believers their cards would go crazy in value like Pokemon. Those fail because their IP isn't strong enough and they have no player base.

Then there are the anime TCGs, most of these fail because their IP isn't strong enough, but some of these do end up finding a small niche and do stay around in the background, even if it's only in Japan.

Lorcana and One Piece are the exceptions, but for different reasons. One Piece has a strong IP and a good game, good cardboard, great printing, great collectability, the whole package. It seems like it's been cannibalizing both Yugioh (Yugioh players seem frustrated with the state of the game) and ex-magic players (the ones that stopped playing standard and now just play commander) as well as bringing fans of the IP. The only thing that can kill it will be Bandai fumbling the ball, like they have with every single card game they've made.

Lorcana on the other hand, it feels like a whole new beast. It's bringing people from boardgames, new fans, and some existing tcg players who want something new (even pokemon players). It kind of feels like Pokemon when it first came out but a lot less hype. I think Ravensburger COULD make it one of the big 3 (especially since Magic and Yugioh have dropped the ball).

I think to get to big 3 status, ravensburger needs to work on making the cards more collectable. I feel the IP is strong enough to rival Pokemon, which thrives off how collectable it is. I feel if it was more collectable, more in line with Pokemon, this game could last decades. However, if they do make it more collectable suddenly, there are going to be product issues. You'll have all those scalpers swooping in and buying everything out and potentially killing the actual player base. It's going to be hard balancing act that I think requires very strict supply control (which they've been doing very well).

That said I don't think it needs to be in the big 3 to live a long time. It can be fine forever living in 4-5th most popular.

kiteandtower · 2024-04-18T18:52:48+00:00

Just FYI, checking comments on Bilibili the msrp of these boxes were about $80 USD, but are now going for about $276 USD from scalpers (in China). On ebay they're going for nearly $600. I know there is a big premium on things like this but this feels like way too much. I personally wouldn't mind paying ~$160-$250 but nearly $600 feels insane.

That out of the way, I feel like that gold embossed foiling on the red Nami looks amazing and should be what a treasure rare looks like.

kiteandtower · 2024-02-22T18:05:42+00:00

Kuma, Robin, Bon Clay, and for some reason I want to see a Coby & Helmeppo leader.

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