When the 25th Anniversary Rarity Collection released for the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG in November 2023, duelists of all kinds agreed it was possibly the best set Konami had ever released. Now, Konami has released Rarity Collection II and it’s time to see how it measures up. Rarity Collection II officially dropped on May 24, 2024 and like the first set included 79 total cards each available in all seven rarities: three standard rarities (Super, Ultra, and Secret) and four luxury rarities (Quarter Century Secret, Platinum Secret, “Prismatic”-style Ultimate, and “Prismatic”-style Collector’s). For the second time around though, Konami filled each pack with nine cards instead of five, increased the chance for you to pull luxury rarities, and increased the cost per pack from $4.99 to $9.99. So far, nothing too controversial really.
As duelists became more aware of the contents of Rarity Collection II though, more confusion and worry settled in. I think we all knew since its announcement that it would not be as crazy as the first Rarity Collection, and as more details came out we became more divided in our opinion of it. I want to dive deeper into this, but before we get there I will disclose that Konami sent me a box of 18 packs and you can watch my pulls below. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the set down in the comments as well.
We first learned of the full set contents for Rarity Collection II on May 13, so I’ve had about 11 days where I’ve been thinking about it. If Rarity Collection was S-tier (which it 100% was), then in my opinion Rarity Collection II is a solid B-tier and a case could maybe be made for A-tier. Let’s talk about the cards though and how they fit into the three main pillars of Yu-Gi-Oh! consumers: competitive, casual, and collectors.
I went through every card in Rarity Collection II to see how competitive the cards actually are. For a card to meet the criteria for “competitive” it had to be included in the main, side, or extra deck of several tournament meta decks per YGOPRODECK in 2024 events, typically championships, YCSes, and regionals. I also want to state that the seven alternate artwork cards are not included in this count. Out of the 72 cards left to count, 50 of them met this qualification. That means that 50 cards in this set are being used in competitive decks this year. This is in stark contrast to the attitude many have had and the narrative they’ve created regarding the set. Now, I will admit that many of these “competitive” cards are not big deals. That includes Mystical Space Typhoon which has been printed in 55 sets prior, Book of Moon which has been printed in 33 sets prior, and several more in the double digits of prior sets (15 to be precise).
If a card didn’t qualify for the “competitive” moniker, I labeled it as “casual” or “Edison.” There are five cards from Rarity Collection II that were not competitive in today’s format, but tend to be popular in Edison Format. If you don’t know what Edison Format is, it’s an incredibly popular format based on the forbidden and limited list for SJC Edison in April 2010. It and Goat Format are the two most popular formats for Time Wizard tournaments. That means that there are only 17 cards that I labeled as “casual.” This included Blue-Eyes support, fan favorite archetypes like Traptrix, etc.
What about collectors? Well, I didn’t label any specific card for collectors only because I figured that collectors are targeting every card for one reason or another. Every card in the set is available in seven different rarities and collectors are going to be hunting for cards in the four luxury rarities, particularly the QCSE. In addition, everyone wants alternate artwork cards, but especially collectors.
So there you have it. Rarity Collection II does offer a fair amount of cards for everyone. The difference is that the big names like Accesscode Talker, Crossout Designator, and I:P Masquerena don’t sound as good in the current format as the deluge of big name meta staples from November. That said, I do want to share two interesting tidbits about Rarity Collection II.
There are 13 cards which have only had one printing prior to Rarity Collection II regardless of their competitive status.
Xyz Encore has the largest gap between its last reprint in 2014 and Rarity Collection II in 2024.
Now, I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of defending of Rarity Collection II so far and admit that I think it’s not as bad as many in the community say. However, there are some changes that I would have liked to see big time. For starters, I think most, if not all, of the cards with double digit reprints prior to Rarity Collection II should have been left out and replaced with some other cards. What are those cards? I’m so glad you asked.
I really think Visas Starfrost should have been included. We have the four planet Field Spells and so I think it just makes sense to include this card. Also, Aromaseraphy Jasmine has become a big player in Plant focused strategies and only has a single printing from 2019! Especially with the recent release of the Ragnaraika archetype which includes Plant strategies, this would have been a big win. In addition, I think at least the Fusion Tearlaments should have been included. Branded Fusion is a card exclusive to Structure Deck: Albaz Strikes and that released back in 2022. I think a reprint was due, especially since the Branded strategy is still very popular. Trident Dragion was a no-brainer that Konami messed up with. Tenpai is a massive strategy, they knew that Trident Dragion was a huge part of said strategy, and then they decided to not include it in Rarity Collection II even though it hasn’t been printed since 2014. This one card alone would sell tons of Rarity Collection II without interfering with sales of recent sets. Finally, the big wishlist items that everyone knew were not going to be included: S:P Little Knight, Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis, and any cards for the Snake-Eyes strategy. Once again, these would have been huge inclusions, but are also the least likely from this list to have been included since they just released in Age of Overlord in October, but it would have been crazy to see them re-released seven months later. Of course, we know most of these cards are getting reprints in the upcoming 25th Anniversary Tin: Dueling Mirrors, but modern tins have huge problems that should be addressed in a future article.
At the end of the day, I stand by my statement that Rarity Collection II is a solid B-tier set. I hope that Konami is able to find a better balance and continue the Rarity Collection series with more A-tier card lists in the future. Let me know what you think of Rarity Collection II in the comments below including your favorite cards, your ideas of missed opportunities, and what you think Konami should do going forward.
Tommy Williams
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