As someone who has played card game for many years, reprints were always something that got me excited. Reprints allow players to pick up a deck, that they at one time could not afford. Or recirculate an old card back into the player base. Or even allow you to get a second playset of a card, so you don’t have to move your Senzu Beans from one deck to another every week. But how do reprints affect the meta? And for that matter, how does the scarcity of some cards affect the meta? Using examples from DBS Card game, as well as others, Ill go into those ideas.

Vegeta, Wallet Regulator

Before we can talk about reprints, we first have to talk about card scarcity. Scarcity is the driving factor behind every economic system in the world. It’s the reason why you need to pay money for water, while breathing air is free. Card games are no different. If Bandai just sent every card shop an infinite supply of Vegeta Time Regulator, then the card wouldn’t be worth $35. At the same time, if the card was complete trash, it also would be worth almost nothing. The value of all cards is determined by some function of how good the card is (demand) and how many of them are out there (supply). And the reality is, that for most people, a card like Vegeta Time Regulator, is out of the picture. It costs too much money, and buying a playset isn’t worth it for them.

The Kozmo Dream Let’s take another example from Yugioh. The Kozmo archetype came out in Clash of Rebellions way back in 2015. They were a very popular archetype, that was exclusive to the west at the time. The theme was a mix of Wizard of Oz and Star Wars, and became a fan favorite. The archetype was also incredibly strong, especially once they got more support in the following set. Because of all these factors, the archetype was extremely expensive. Farmgirl was a $30 card, Kozmojo a $20 card, and Dark Destroyer hit a staggering $120 for months. And many of these cards were needed to run at 3 in the deck, making it very expensive. As someone who was not willing to spend that much money, Kozmos were not something I could think about, even thought the art and playstyle appealed to me. That wasn’t until the 2016 pack “Premium Gold: Infinite Gold” was released, which reprinted every single Kozmo card up until the set before. Dark Destroyer was now $5, Farmgirl now just $1. I could now build the deck that I wanted to build. So I did. I built the deck, playtested it online, bought the cards, took them to locals, and what do I see? Every other person and their dog had a Kozmo deck ready to play. On a local level, the deck was everywhere. For about a month, half my games at locals were against Kozmo players (and Burning Abyss, which is pretty much the same story).

Boss Bitch

The scarcity of the archetype, was essentially keeping the deck in check. While it wasn’t necessarily overpowered, it was very strong, and people liked the design of it. Lets compare that example to everyone’s favorite leader Towa. On a major level, she is very dominant. Taking a good percentage of the tops, and getting a couple 1st places on the way. But on a local level, the deck is not that common. Due to the prices of cards like Towa, Vegeta, and Mira; more casual players tend to stay away from the deck. A reprint of any of these card (especially Vegeta), would definitely boost the popularity of the deck on a local level, and increase its prevalence in the Meta. Just like it did for Kozmos back in 2016. While there is proof of this happening time and time again in Yugioh, DBS is a different story.

Prefer this artwork over the original

As of now, there have been very few reprints in the Dragonball Super card game. Championship packs and Judge packs don’t really count since those cards are much harder to get than originals. That really only leaves us with the Anniversary box as the only impactful reprint set for us. But how did that affect our meta? It is really hard to say, and a few problems occur when trying to analyze it. Of the cards that were reprinted, only Scientist Fu, Foreseeing Hit, and Senzu Bean were pricey beforehand. Scientist Fu and Senzu Bean also aren’t really specific to an archetype. So that just leaves us with Foreseeing Hit, one of Pan’s big finishing plays. But, Hit wasn’t the only card printed in that set that helps Pan. Trunks, Surge of Energy likely did far more to boost the popularity of Pan than the Hit reprint did. So now we are left with nothing. No examples of a reprint affecting the meta in DBS. But isn’t that the point?

The Dragonball Super card game is different from Yugioh, for better or for worse (for better). Bandai is different from Konami, thank Zen-oh. Bandai doesn’t have dedicated reprint sets, where the only valuable cards are just easier to get versions of older cards. The point of a set like the Anniversary box is to bring new life into older archetypes. While a reprint can help with that, designing a new card that slots PERFECTLY into that archetype is much better. This isn’t to say that reprints are unhealthy for the game, in some places they are very healthy. But reprinting cards without thinking of the consequences can have bigger impacts on the game than one would initially think. Bandai seems to get that, while Konami doesn’t.