The curse of the rarity bump in the OCG
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, a friend and I were discussing BURP (officially BPRO) and he mentioned the card "Sheena the Twin Storm Deities of Divine Thunder" is a secret in the lowest rarity. For the longest time, secret has been a rarity bump in the OCG, with no cards being exclusively secret in the way the Konami absolutely screws the TCG over.
So I went and took a look, and sure enough, it's secret/ultimate/prismatic. Not only that, 3 other cards are like that. Went back a couple more sets, and DOOD is the same way with a group of 4, and even DUAD had a set of 4 that were explicitly ultimate/prismatic. It seems this trend started with DUAD as the first set in the post Quarter Century Anniversary era.
So for the OCG players on this sub, what are your thoughts on this? For the longest time, TCG has been clamoring for our core set rarity layout to match the OCG to make things more accessible, but it seems Konami did the exact opposite and actively made things WORSE for you guys (although your sealed product is still far cheaper at retail). Do you all like having things exclusively in a higher rarity? Or has there been a backlash among the player base about it? Have pull rates (more secrets/ultimates per box) gone up? I'm curious to hear your thoughts, and from anyone else that's noticed this. Pic added to illustrate what I mean.
Posted Dec 1, 2025, 3:09 AM UTC