Welcome to Staten News, where the best deck in the format put three copies into a Top 8 and none of them took the trophy home.
Victor Carreira Rodrigues won the Recife Regional Championship last weekend with Ogerpon/Meganium. 1,074 players. Three of the other seven Top 8 seats belonged to Dragapult.
🏆 The Recife Top 8
1st: Victor Carreira Rodrigues, Ogerpon/Meganium
2nd: Fabrizio Inga Silva, Dragapult
3rd: Pedro Pertusi, Dragapult
4th: Marco Cifuentes Meta, N's Zoroark
5th: Riguel Assis, Mega Excadrill
6th: Rafael Yuiti, Dragapult
7th: Rafael Neto, Slowking
8th: Jose Santos, Honchkrow/Porygon2
Dragapult also finished 9th. So the deck put four players in the top nine and still lost to a grass deck.
🐉 One Deck, a Third of the Room
Per Limitless, Dragapult sits at 33.43% of the current Temporal Forces through 30th Celebration format. The next closest deck is N's Zoroark at 9.35%. After that it's Basic Box at 7.83%, Slowking at 7.79%, Festival Lead at 6.59%, and Alakazam at 6.44%.
One archetype above a third of the field. Nothing else in double digits.
That's the setup that rewards a counter-pick. When a third of the room is on one deck, you don't need the best deck. You need the deck that handles the best deck and doesn't fold to the other two-thirds. Recife says Ogerpon/Meganium might be that deck. One event isn't proof. It is a reason to watch the Louisville Regional this weekend, which starts Saturday, Oct. 10.
Dragapult still won Brisbane on Sept. 26, where Edmund Khoo took down an 817-player field with it. The deck isn't broken. It's just wearing a target now.
💰 Pikachu Fever Hit the Auction Block
On Sept. 28, Fanatics Collect sold two PSA 10 Pikachus for a combined $1.26 million.
2002 Legendary Collection Reverse Holo Pikachu, PSA 10: $780,000. The previous record was $264,000 in June. PSA 10 population: 35.
2006 Holon Phantoms Pikachu Gold Star, PSA 10: $480,000. The previous high was $174,999.99 in June. PSA 10 population: 119.
Both cards roughly tripled their prior high in about three months. Read that Gold Star pop count again. 119 copies in a 10 is not a scarcity story.
And here's the part that should bother 30th Celebration holders. On Monday we showed the Classic Collection singles down 24.1% since the Sept. 16 release, with Crystal Lugia, Base Set Charizard, and Gengar Prime all bleeding. Same anniversary, same month, and the money skipped right past the new reprints to buy 20-year-old Pikachus.
That's not a Pokémon boom. That's a vintage boom wearing a birthday hat.
📦 Delta Reign Is Already Priced In
Delta Reign releases Friday, Nov. 6, with Mega Rayquaza ex on the box alongside Mega Golurk ex, Mega Malamar ex, and Mega Golisopod ex. Miniature Market lists the 36-pack booster box at $209.99 on preorder, currently out of stock with a four-box limit per customer.
A sold-out preorder a month before release, at a price well north of what a booster box usually costs at retail, tells you where collectors think the next leg is. Possible they're right? Sure. But the 30th Celebration sealed product looked bulletproof a month before release too, and its singles are down almost a quarter since.
This is the month the market decides whether anniversary money flows forward into Delta Reign or keeps chasing Pikachus printed in 2002 and 2006.
Sources: Limitless: Regional Recife results, Limitless meta share, ComicBook.com on the Fanatics Collect Pikachu sales, Miniature Market Delta Reign listing
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before buying or selling collectibles.
— The Bandicoots 🃏🔥