With each passing day, you can witness different sort of games coming up. There are some of them that are not up to the mark in one way or the other.
Recently, League of Legends Trading Card Game Riftbound was released and suddenly, the demand for its physical units significantly outmatched the existing supply.
This was revealed via a post by Riot that said, “There was absolutely no matching between the demand and supply as it was far above our expectations.” Once it happened, it resulted in huge single card price rise.
The effects of Riftbound’s under-printing are clearly visible in Proving Grounds, its starter kit. You can find four introductory decks (Lux, Garen, Annie, and Master Yi) inside the Proving Grounds. These are basically created to help new and upcoming players to learn the game well.
In case, you missed the opportunity to pre-order Proving Grounds, you just failed to do so. It’s because the demand for the box has gone extremely high.
League of Legends Trading Card Game Riftbound: Supply Falls Short Amid Growing Demand
The demand surged within some time. And this didn’t happen in a day or two. As per reports, it grew consistently over the time. Well, most of the demand is reported to have come via the relative power of some of these cards.
For example, two of the most popular champion legends in the present current metagame include Annie and Master Yi. And so, you can easily grab them in Proving Grounds.
As per report, most of the cards that are printed don’t seem to appear in booster packs. It clearly means that all those passionate players are going after Proving Grounds in hopes of obtaining the exact cards they need for collection purposes or core deck builds.
Do you know that current MSRP of Proving Grounds happens to be $30. With supply running low, the meta cards found in Proving Grounds now command prices that overshadow the kit’s suggested retail price.
Three popular cards from Proving Grounds include the names like Flash ($34), Dark Child ($20), Annie, Wuju Bladesman ($19), and Master Yi. As most competitive decks require as many as 3 copies of Flash, buying those singles alone ends up costing three times more than the Proving Grounds box itself.
It actually happens at times, especially when you choose to keep cards out of booster packs, but you can find the underprint of these cards in the long run.
Demand Levels Outpace What Producers Can Deliver
Time Warp is a card that offers many benefits. For example, it helps you take at least two turns in a row. This card is categorized to be a non-cosmetic/non-limited card, apart from being the most expensive one.
It costs up to $100 per copy. This card is folowed by some other ones like Dazzling Aurora ($70), Whiteflame Protector ($71), Showstopper ($64), Kai’Sa, Survivor ($94), Deadbloom Predator ($93), and more.
On the other hand Flash, meta decks is seen to run as manyu as 3 copies of these cards. In case, you require all 3 copies of Kai’Sa, you need to spend $282 to purchase 3 singles. Although, you can find those who do this, most players are avoiding.
Please note that Riot’s goal was never to make standard playable cards too costly. The set already includes overnumbered, alternate-art, along with some signed variants meant to be the premium pulls. But with Origins products in short supply, competitive players are seeing essential cards spike in price.
As per reports, the above issue is not going to disappear in the time to come. Some of the games that are currently raking high in prices include Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon.
But the prices are not in the range of $50 as they have come down to $20. This mainly leads to cards like Kai’Sa that are bound to settle when the demad gets low.
Four new sets are expected in 2026, thanks to the brisk release rhythm of today’s TCGs. With such a tight schedule, it seems that Riot won’t be able to fix Origins’ printing woes before Spiritforged launches.
The company misread its playerbase’s enthusiasm, and with that understanding in hand, the best we can hope for is trouble-free releases in the future.
Also Read: Epic Games Recovers from Massive Server Crash Impacting Fortnite, Fall Guys, & Rocket League
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Vipul has a vast experience in creating valuable content to websites of different niches. He has special liking to write inside stories while covering news related to gaming and other entertainment topics.
