Pokemon card resellers are ruining the hobby — making my own Pokedex helped

I've been an on-and-off Pokémon card collector for 13 years, but the hobby has shifted. Since around 2020, many releases are bought up and immediately resold, with packs and hits fetching inflated sums. New sets are often hard to find at launch; the latest one is only weeks away and Pitch Black is already proving difficult to buy at reasonable prices, with Walmart currently the most available option but overpriced.

Even non-reseller content that lists card values normalizes the idea that resale value matters more than the cards themselves. That change drained a lot of the fun for me, so I chose a different approach: appreciate my stacks of bulk. Those commons and non-hits that hit-chasers skip are usually worth pennies, but looking through mine I wondered how many entries in a complete Pokédex I could already cover.

I decided to make the project personal by picking a single favourite artwork for each Pokémon, assembling an eclectic collage built on years of fandom. Making that choice shifted how I open packs.

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