| RECON // NEWSLETTER NO. 005 |
FRI OCT 16, 2026 |
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Know the market. Collect with conviction.
TCG · VIDEO GAMES · ANIME
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Konami reveals an emergency Yu-Gi-Oh! ban list at YCS Houston this weekend: 34 cards forbidden, 8 limited, in five parts
| LIST | 34 FORBIDDEN · 8 LIMITED · NAMES NOT YET OUT |
| REVEAL | YCS HOUSTON · OCT 16–18 · FIVE PARTS |
| NEXT SET | MAGNIFICENT MAESTROS · NOV 13 |
34 CARDS NEWLY FORBIDDEN · 8 LIMITED
Konami’s Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG accounts said on Oct 14 that a Forbidden & Limited list update is coming to make room for Magnificent Maestros, with 34 newly forbidden cards and 8 limited, revealed in five parts at YCS Houston at NRG Park: one Friday, two Saturday, two Sunday, per YGOrganization. GamesRadar calls it emergency action for a format that creator Joseph ‘MBT’ Rothschild says has hit a singularity, with regional attendance falling; no card names or effective date are out yet, and Magnificent Maestros lands Nov 13 per ICv2. For scale on what a ban does to a price, Magic’s September 2024 Commander bans cut Dockside Extortionist by about 75% and Mana Crypt by 53.8% the same day, per MTG Insider via PureGrail, so the first full week under the new list, from Monday, is where the 34 names get repriced.
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The market skipped Sword & Shield: a box from each of its sets costs $8,022, down 9% since June, while the Sun & Moon run costs $33,868, up 7%
Chase Society priced one booster box per set on June 24 and again on Oct 14: XY $22,432 to $24,054 (+7%), Sun & Moon $31,780 to $33,868 (+7%, eleven of twelve boxes up), Sword & Shield $8,838 to $8,022 (−9%) and Scarlet & Violet’s first eight sets $2,852 to $2,656 (−7%). Evolving Skies, the era’s chase box, fell 17% to $2,238, Fusion Strike 12% to $974 and Brilliant Stars 11% to $559, while Sun & Moon’s Unified Minds and Crimson Invasion each rose 21%. Chase Society cites Fortune’s 9 billion cards printed from March 2021 to March 2022; the two eras printed before that spike are the two that rose. Tracked market prices, not completed sales.
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PSA graded 2,642,498 items in 30 days, up 16%, as its backlog fell to 8.2 million from a 12.4 million July peak
GemRate’s PSA tracker, updated Oct 15, shows 2,642,498 items graded in the trailing 30 days, up 16% from 2,259,876, a daily average of 88,083 against 75,329 the prior 30 days and a pace of 31.5 million a year; the trailing week is 592,617, down 8%. PSA put its backlog at 8.2 million units on Oct 6, down from 9 million on Sept 22 and a 12.4 million peak on July 28, per Sports Collectors Daily and PureGrail; the phased reopening that began Sept 14 added a $59.99 Standard tier while the four Value tiers paused on June 2 stay closed. The counts cover every PSA category, sports included, and every one of them adds to the population a graded price is set against.
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| TCG |
Goldin’s Pokémon week ending Oct 12 closed at $2,036,444 across 336 lots with a $491 median, against $1,148,817, 395 lots and a $207 median the week before, per What The Slab. The $1,037,000 Art Academy Pikachu (No. 004) was about half of the week; the next four lots were a TAG 10 Skyridge Gengar at $268,400, a CGC 10 Legendary Collection Psyduck at $86,620, a PSA 10 Crystal Lugia at $65,884 and a TAG 10 Skyridge Vaporeon at $56,120. (What The Slab, Oct 14) |
| TCG |
Pokémon sealed had its thinnest month in the eighteen months Chase Society has tracked it: 7 of 124 boxes, ETBs and bundles rose 5% or more over 30 days and 51 fell, per its Oct 13 Market Movers column. The 30th Celebration ETB printed a $134 low on Oct 9 against a $173 release price, and the Journey Together booster box sits at $191 from $241. (Chase Society, Oct 13) |
| TCG |
24/7 Wall St walks a $2.8 million CGC 9 Pikachu Illustrator (Goldin) and a $2.2 million Black Lotus (September 2026) through the 28% top long-term capital gains rate on collectibles, and notes that Section 408(m) lists coins, stamps, art, antiques, gems and alcohol but never names trading cards; the PSA 9 Illustrator’s $5 million at Heritage gets the same treatment. (24/7 Wall St, Oct 14) |
| Video Games |
Heritage’s Aug 29 sale put sealed N64 at the 9.8 A++ tier well under 2021: Super Mario 64 (PSA) $225,000 against $1,560,000 for a Wata copy in July 2021, Ocarina of Time $81,250 against $228,000, and GoldenEye 007 $125,000 against $192,000, per What The Slab, Nintendo Wire and Overstreet Access. Different copies and different graders, so a run of public sales rather than a like-for-like comp; a Mario Bros. PSA 9.2 A++ made $450,000 in the same sale. (What The Slab · Nintendo Wire, Jul 12, 2021 · Overstreet Access, Nov 2, 2021) |
| Video Games |
A sealed Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis) at PSA 9.6 made $25,000 on eBay in August, the week’s top graded game sale per The Graded Games Report, against $50,400 for a CGC 9.6 A at Heritage in January 2023, $360,000 for a Wata 9.8 A+ early production copy in April 2022 and $430,500 for a WATA 9.4 at Goldin in September 2021. Grades, graders and print runs differ across the ladder. (The Graded Games Report, Aug 18 · CGC, Jul 31, 2023 · Antiques and The Arts Weekly, May 10, 2022 · Sonic Stadium, Sept 2021) |
| Anime |
Heritage’s May Art of Anime sale put a Cowboy Bebop Spike Spiegel cel from the finale at $20,740 and an End of Evangelion Asuka and Shinji cel at $19,520, per Heritage’s release via Anime News Network. Propstore listed an episode 10 Spike cel with its douga at $1,056–$2,112 for its July sale; the result isn’t in the coverage we read. (Anime News Network, May 20 · KDH News (Propstore release), Jul 2) |
| TCG |
Nashville police arrested Philip Clodfelter on Oct 12 over the September 2024 Game Cave break-in, in which the owner put the loss at more than $31,000 in Pokémon and Magic cards; police say the cards were resold to two Alabama card shops, one batch for $2,375, per WSMV. (WSMV, Oct 13) |
| Memorabilia |
Hunt Auctions announced a $14 million private sale, closed in September, of Michael Jordan’s signed Game 2 1998 Finals jersey, a basketball memorabilia record, per Sports Collectors Daily. The Game 3 jersey brought $12,260,000 at JOOPITER on Sept 29 and the Game 1 jersey $10,091,000 at Sotheby’s in 2022; outside our lanes, but it is the ceiling the hobby’s seven-figure card results get measured against. (Sports Collectors Daily, Oct 12) |
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LIVE
OCT 9–22 |
Christie’s anime & manga sale (online) →
Featured in No. 004 · about 130 lots, an Akira Kaneda cel est. $5,000–7,000 · online bidding closes Oct 22 |
EST $344K–$523K |
LIVE
OCT 7–18 |
Goldin TCG Weekly: 72 Legendary Collection packs →
Each sealed 2002 Legendary Collection booster pack sells as its own lot; Logan Paul opens them for the winners on a YouTube livestream Oct 29, per Collectibles News (Oct 13) |
72 PACKS · CLOSES SUNDAY |
LIVE
THRU OCT 25 |
Goldin Pokémon 30th Anniversary auction →
Pre-bids open; the PSA 8 1997 Gold 1st Place Trophy Pikachu stood at $2,348,500 with premium on Oct 8, per Star City Games · ICv2 withdrew its Oct 15 start line as a typo, so only the Oct 25 close is confirmed |
LEAD LOT $2.35M BID |
STARTS
OCT 18 |
Art Animation VII: Monstres, Méchants et Antagonistes (Art Animation Auction, via Drouot) →
185 lots of villain-themed production art: a Dragon Ball Z Piccolo vs Nappa cel with douga (lot 164), a Hokuto no Ken Raoh vs Kenshiro genga (lot 93), Saint Seiya, Bleach and Tokyo Ghoul; no estimates in the preview, per im-a-collector (sponsored, Oct 12) |
185 LOTS |
STARTS
OCT 19 |
Propstore: Space Jam 30th Anniversary animation art →
Timed online sale of original animation art, prints and one-off pieces from the Warner Bros. Archives; opens 9 AM PT Oct 19, closes 9 AM PT Nov 2; catalog not yet published, per Propstore |
CLOSES NOV 2 |
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| UPCOMING RELEASES |
DROP DATES |
| OCT 23 |
Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle (Magic): Strange School and Duality Distorted drops, $29.99 non-foil / $39.99 foil; bundles $159.98–$234.99
LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
DIRECT FROM WIZARDS |
| OCT 30 |
One Piece Card Game EB-05 Heroines Edition vol. 2 (English): 75+2 types, $4.99 a pack
LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
BANDAI |
| NOV 6 |
Delta Reign (Pokémon TCG, English): ETB, booster bundle, booster box
LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
PRE-ORDERS OPEN |
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| RELEVANT CONTENT |
PODCASTS |
| TCG |
YGO Fresh Off The Press · BIGGEST EMERGENCY BANLIST In Yu-Gi-Oh! HISTORY!
The host opens with the five-part reveal at YCS Houston and works through which decks and rarities the 34 forbidden cards could reach, the market-watch take on The Lead; the price moves he cites for single cards are not confirmed in writing.
LISTEN AT 0:00 → |
| TCG |
PokeBeard · SURGING SPARKS MARKET REVIEW!
PokeBeard walks the set’s PSA 10 illustration rares and its sealed product off their summer highs, a single-set view of the thin sealed month in The Tape and the era repricing in Big News.
LISTEN AT 4:25 → |
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FIELD NOTE
Legality is the floor. Players set the bid.
A ban removes the buyers who had to own a card to play it, and the collectors left behind rarely hold the price on their own. When Magic banned Dockside Extortionist and Mana Crypt in September 2024, the two lost about 75% and 53.8% the same day, per MTG Insider via PureGrail, and talk of a reprieve has since moved Jeweled Lotus from about $31 to $83 and back. Konami’s 34 names arrive in five parts through Sunday, so the first full week of Yu-Gi-Oh! prices under the new list starts Monday.
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