Ranking Every Rarity In The YGO TCG

Summary

• Common cards have a positive impact on the market by making cards more accessible to new players and improving deck building.
• Rare cards offer a slight upgrade from common cards with reflective designs and colored text, but may have compressed text at times.
• Super rare cards trade shiny text for luxury holographic effects on card art, making some designs stand out more than others.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is abundant with cards of all rarities. This includes common cards that you probably have a bulk of in your collection, and special rarities that can only be found in special sets. Whether you love to play Yu-Gi-Oh! or just enjoy collecting the cards, rarity can be what stops you from getting your hands on certain cards.

So which rarities are the best to keep an eye out for? Some are rare but don’t look too appealing. Meanwhile, there are some rarities that you just love seeing in the stack when you open a fresh pack of cards.

10

Common

Great For Reprint Prices

Common is the standard rarity for most bulk cards. These don’t have any holo foiling, special text, or textures to make them stand out. While this might seem like it would make the common rarity the worst of the bunch, it is great as a form of improving the market.

High-rarity cards getting common reprints makes it easier for new players to get a hold of them. It also evens the playing field when trying to build a competitive deck. At the end of the day, common cards are not so bad.

9

Rare

Rare cards have a decent design. The lettering for the name has reflective properties, making them a neat little upgrade from your standard common card. These rarities are abundant in deck build packs.

Rare cards are not much different from commons. However, the text comes in a variety of different colors. Some rare cards come with a silver name text while others come in gold if they are gold rare. Which detail you get depends on the set that they came from. The only downside to rare card text is that at times, the text will look compressed due to the extra detail.

8

Super Rare

Holographic Effects

If holographic foiling is more to your taste, then super rares will trade in the shiny text for a more luxury art box. This will give the design a reflective foiling on the card art. If it is a Monster Card, the reflective design is included in the monster’s Level and Attribute bubble.

Depending on the card, some designs will have the monster’s body standing out while the reflective effects remain in the background. In other cases, the monster’s body will also have this trait, making some cards look better as super rares than others.

7

Ultra Rare

Premium Text And Holographic Art

Aside from secret rare, ultra-rare cards can be some of the more difficult cards to pull. However, their designs blend the card text of rares and the holo foiling of super rares. This gives them a luxury look reserved for some of the more powerful cards in a set.

Every box has around four ultra-rare cards if you’re lucky. If you like your card art clean, then this is a great in-between before you start hitting those secret rare printings.

6

Premium Gold Rare

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold

Premium gold rare can either look amazing or fall a bit flat. These card rarities are unique due to their exclusivity in the El Dorado sets. These cards feature golden text, card borders, and outlines on the art design. You even get to feel a bit of elevation when you brush your fingers across the surface.

The biggest downside to gold rare cards is that the cardboard can seem a bit stiff due to the design. This can make it slightly more difficult to sleeve. It can also make the card stand out within the deck itself, though it is not illegal to play it.

5

Collector’s Rare

A Rarity That Could Be Better

Deck build packs such as Wild Survivors or Crossover Breakers contain collector’s rare cards. While having cards with textured bodies sounds good on paper, the execution is not as good. This is because the design is barely noticeable unless viewed at a specific angle.

Collector’s rare printings have textured borders, card art, and Attribute bubbles. Ideally, you want a high rarity card to flex on your opponent. When sleeved, a collector’s rare card loses its most defining trait, which is the texture.

4

Secret Rare

Reserved For The Best Cards Of The Set

There are two types of secret rare cards worth looking at. Every core set will give you around two standard secret rares. These cards have a sparkling foil. When tilted in the light, you will see a streak appear. Secret rares also have prismatic text and the same foiling on Levels and Attribute bubbles.

Prismatic secret rare cards have a very similar design. The only difference is in the streak. Rather than being a straight line, it will have square patterns. Ideally, the standard secret rares look better but prismatics can often be cheaper to obtain.

3

Ghost Rare

The Ghosts Of Yu-Gi-Oh!

Ghost rare cards are an excellent rarity to look at. For these cards, the entire art box will be given a silvery reflective appearance that obscures the monster at first glance. You can reveal it by tilting the card side to side.

This design gives the monster a bit more depth, almost making it seem like a 3D card. Ghost rare is often reserved for some of the more classic monsters. While they could be found in core sets in the past, they are mostly reserved to special sets.

2

Quarter Century Secret Rare

Celebrating Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Long History

To celebrate Yu-Gi-Oh!’s 25th anniversary, quarter century secret rare were introduced in the Duelist Nexus set. This rarity gives cards the prismatic secret rare effect but is applied to the entire card instead of just the art box.

In addition to this design change, the card’s text box will have the words “Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game 25th Quarter Century” stamped on it. This card looks amazing and some would consider it the maximum rarity. There are even some cards that are exclusive to this rarity group.

1

Ultimate Rare

The Best Yu-Gi-Oh! Rarity

Ultimate rare cards are considered the cream of the crop. The textured card foilings and embossed card art make for a very premium-looking card. Unlike the collector’s rare, these are more noticeable even when sleeved.

Very few cards have ultimate rare printings and, unlike other rarities, they don’t get printed in sets anymore, unless you count the prismatic ultimate rares which swap out textures for foiling. If you want a true ultimate rare, OTS packs will give you a chance to obtain them.