Gm, finally back from a 3 week vacation in Japan. As some of you might have heard, @Azuki went through a recent company restructuring with numerous employees being laid off, including myself. I thought I’d be more bitter about it but honestly, the last two and a half years working at Azuki have been an absolute blessing. Being able to move to LA, be surrounded by some of the kindest and most passionate individuals I’ve ever worked with, and having the privilege of learning and growing from tech and media professionals with decades of experience and excellence has been a dream. They say you should strive to never be the smartest person in the room, and at Azuki I never was - and it was awesome. You can’t buy that kind of learning and growing opportunity. I have nothing but appreciation and respect for Azuki and my former team for giving me the opportunity to grow, come in every day, and work my ass off doing work I love doing. Big love to @Zagabond, @locationtba, @2pmflow, and @hoshiboyzen for giving a bean like me a chance to be part of such an incredible journey. Huge thanks to @DemAzuki, @emilyrosemcg, @elaineazuki14, and @dgtlemissions for being such incredible bosses, mentors, and friends. The countless memories and hardships I shared with a dope team in the most battle-hardened NFT project and community will never be forgotten. Thank you, Azuki. ⛩️ All that being said, with 2 years of content creation and 3 years of Web3 community building, strategy, and business development under my belt, I’m now looking for new opportunities to pursue. My DM’s are open - and I’m ready to build. 🫡

Rotating from one card game to another today

What the FUCK is a “taco pizza” man 😭😭😭 Illinois, explain yourself.

Incredibly proud of my guy @Yq1119apzzQun. I remember at the previous regionals, he had his head down, having a run of horrendous TCG luck and not placing as well as he probably should have. Fast forward a few months, and this man has been preparing every week, constantly running matches with every person possible, while also sharing everything he learns with friends freely. I can think of nobody more deserving of this win than YQ. The greatest comeback story in Azuki TCG. Congrats brother 🔥

Ended up getting cooked for the second half of the tourney. Played great opponents, and I’m happy with the way I played, just super unlucky. Good luck to top cut 🔥 Will get em next time

So far 3-0 in my first 3 rounds of Azuki Regionals Hopefully the good luck continues 🙏

First time traveling for a TCG tournament. Got here early to prep. Time to lock in 🫡

Someone commented on my post yesterday asking why I didn’t just buy the card cheap from the kid, grade it, and resell it for thousands of dollars in profit. It reminded me of a rather common misconception that all card vendors are evil and only are around to profit off of unsuspecting customers. Yes, we obviously want to make money. But most of us not only feel that deceiving customers is wrong, but also understand that even just one example of breaking someone’s trust is a blemish on a vendor’s reputation as a seller indefinitely. There’s even platforms like @WhatsYourRefs out there now that exist to immortalize bad behavior in TCGs. Even if I was one of those greedy bastards who was short-sighted and morally corrupt enough to trick a kid for profit (they do exist!), nobody is dumb enough to risk months and countless hours building their vending clientele just to make one sale, in such a peer-to-peer business. And if they are, they don’t last long - the community is ruthless to bad actors in this space.

Weird as it sounds, I missed airports See you soon, Chicago 🫡

A kid walked up to my table and said he bought a collection from some guy on Facebook Marketplace for $200. This was one of the cards. I told him, don’t sell it raw no matter what a vendor offers, send it in to PSA, and then decide what to do with it. Insanity.

For those new to grading cards, here’s a quick rundown of the 4 top grading companies: • PSA: most popular, industry standard. Most liquid, but gets flack for inconsistent grading from time to time, and grading duration. Downside is no transparency on why cards get the grades they get • CGC: just about every CGC grade feels like one grade below its PSA equivalent. CGC Pristine 10 is usually still lower quality than a PSA 10. Nobody will give you a good deal for your CGC slabs at card shows • Beckett: most visible transparency on any slab. Annoyingly gives a lot of 9.5s, which hurts my OCD. Black Labels (perfect) BGS 10s give a huge premium, which is the main reason people submit, but they’re very strict with that grade. • TAG: most aesthetically beautiful slab, but the normal 10 grade is generally worse quality than the PSA and BGS equivalents. Casual collectors like the look, serious collectors still tend to prefer buying PSA. Most in-depth transparency with the TAG report on the QR code Unpopular opinion (on social media): PSA > all.

Jarlic.

Pre-grading is an underrated skill. Pack fresh is never a guarantee of a PSA 10; the reason why sealed promos are worth more than raw promos is because of the potential for it to grade into a PSA 10, not the guarantee. If you’re sending in your cards for grading, use a scope to look at the card. Surface scratching, holo scratches, edge whitening, corner whitening, centering, and any card blemishes are all extremely common reasons as to why a pack-fresh card may not translate into a PSA 10.

Yo @PSAcard take notes

Everyone has that one long-time friend who only texts you as an outlet for his bullshit

With all due respect, this is a pretty terrible comparison imo. You’re comparing digital packs airdropped for free to a limited group of NFT holders against a mass-produced physical TCG with global distribution. NFTs are inherently speculative and these packs are no different. When people receive something for free, they’re far more willing to sit on it because they’re in at zero cost. Many holders probably don’t even realize they have packs, limiting the circulating supply even further. Meanwhile, Pokémon packs aren’t free for anybody. People have actual skin in the game and are more inclined to sell to recover their investment or take profits. The supply, demand, and market dynamics are completely different. A $40 floor on a speculative digital collectible doesn’t demonstrate greater demand or a more successful launch. It just demonstrates how little people are currently willing to list them for. Comparing floor prices without accounting for any of this is incredibly misleading. I’ve always been a fan of BAYC, and probably always will be, but posts like these are why the TCG communities look at people in crypto with disdain and disgust. We gotta do better.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: Low pop only matters if people want a card. Sure your PSA 10 Bellsprout from Battle Styles has a population count of 1, but that means nothing if there’s no actual market demand for the card. Low pop vintage has been pumping as hard as it is because of the narrative that it’s scarce…but at a certain point, you gotta ask yourself, how many people are willing to buy some random obscure card for 5 figures? 6 figures? 7 figures? Collecting > Investing.

Yeah 30th Anniversary >>> Storm Emeralda

Do Japanese 30th anniversary packs have higher pull rates than the English versions? I just pulled these from just 9 booster packs 👀