The Best & Worst TCG Moments of 2025

This is objectively the best looking Pokémon card of the year. This Yu-Gi-Oh set embarrassed everything that came after it. And this legal blunder, it shook the Magic the Gathering community to its core. Today, we're handing out the best of and worst of awards for 2025. What I genuinely believe to be one of the most ridiculous years in trading card history. Each category will have three trophies to give out. The Master Ball Award for Pokémon, the Millennium Trophy for Yu-Gi-Oh, and the Gilded Lotus Award for Magic the Gathering. And at the very end, I'll crown the absolute best set, single biggest embarrassment, and best card across all three games. And you absolutely must stay until the end because I'm going to crown the award for the absolute best thing that's happened to the TCG world in 2025. Okay, let's get started with what I believe are objectively the best sets of the year. Every TCG this year, well maybe aside from Yu-Gi-Oh, has had an absolutely incredible lineup of sets, but Pokémon, they were on another level. I honestly think that the Pokémon Company could have created a brand new poop themed Pokémon, built an entire set around it, released it on June 9th, and it still would have sold out instantly. Seriously, it's like Pokémon could do no wrong in 2025. Even the slower sets like Journey Together are still selling well above MSRP. And don't even get me started on Destin Rivals. Look, I know this might be a controversial take, but when we look back months or even years from now, there's going to be one clear winner, and it's not Destin Rivals. It is without a doubt Prismatic Evolutions. Anybody who doesn't believe Prismatic will go down as the next evolving skies, I don't know what to tell you. The nine evolutions alone make the set an alltimer. Combine that with pull rates that are, put lightly, absolutely atrocious, right in line with evolving skies, and you've got the recipe for long-term collectibility. Then add in the Pokeball and Master Ball reverse hollows, which yes, are a bit out of favor at the moment, but give it time. That kind of novelty always circles back. The biggest knock against it is that it did lack traditional illustration rares. But on the other hand, it had full-blown god packs with every single evolution s. That's right, a modern booster pack could contain literal thousands of dollars worth of cardboard. Insane. So, the Master Ball Award for best Pokémon set of the year goes to the very first release of 2025, Prismatic Evolutions. Now, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Yu-Gi-Oh has had a tough year. When it comes to its product lineup, Konami just hasn't done much for collectors lately. Outside of a few scattered quarter century secret rares and starlights, it's been pretty slim pickings. That means they rely heavily on playability to sell product. And if new cards don't impact the meta, yeah, the set tends to flop harder than anything we see in Pokémon or Magic. For the most part, that's been the story across the board this year, except for a few bright spots. One of them certainly being Quarter Century Stampede. This was, at least in theory, the final entry in the four-part rarity collection series. And just like its predecessors, it delivered. We got quarter century secret rare versions of Blue-Eyed White Dragon, Dark Magician, and Red Eyes Black Dragon, each in a number of different artworks. Now, I won't say it quite reached the heights of Quarter Century Bonanza from 2024, but it came very close. And considering the state of Yu-Gi-Oh this year, that's saying a lot. So, for bringing nostalgia, accessibility, and shockingly, boxes that actually sell for around MSRP, the Millennium Trophy for best Yu-Gi-Oh set of the year goes to Quarter Century Stampede. This one is so obvious that I'll just come right on out and say it. Spider-Man, better known as Through the Omen Paths, was an absolute home run. From an alltime draft format to the gorgeous artwork found throughout the set. Wait, what? [music] This set was a complete disaster. And we'll talk about how bad it was later in the video. Okay, I guess we'll move on to second best. >> Final Fantasy is coming to Magic the Gathering. Final Fantasy, the set that shattered every sales record known to man and some known only to Chocoo. A large portion of the community, myself included, thought Lord of the Rings would hold the crown as bestselling Magic set for a long time. But Final Fantasy didn't just break that record. It crushed it. If you've listened to any of Hasbro's recent earnings calls, you already know CEO Chris Cox sounds absolutely giddy. Like borderline embarrassingly so. >> Chris, I'm not going to ask you which set you think can beat Final Fantasy. It sounds like [laughter] >> I made an entire video about this set specifically and how ironically, in many ways, it marks the death of Magic the Gathering. It's a bold statement. Sure, and I'm pretty confident half of the commenters didn't actually watch the video, but my point still stands. After this level of success, there's no pot Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast won't dip their fingers into. To their credit, they usually do an incredible job. No other game can weave storytelling into artwork and mechanics quite like Magic. So, the Gilded Lotus Award for best Magic the Gathering set of the year goes, of course, to Final Fantasy. An incredible crossover and a terrifying glimpse into the future. Not every award today is going to the positive parts of the hobby. Take Pokémon for example, which has unfortunately been overrun by, let's just say, less than stellar human beings. We live in a strange time where Pokemon cards are viewed nearly as liquid as cash. And with the Pokemon TCG pocket inspired boom of 2025, demand has absolutely exploded, far beyond anything the Pokémon Company can realistically keep up with. Naturally, that kind of frenzy attracts opportunists. People lining up at dawn, scooping up everything they can, and flipping it in the parking lot for twice what they paid. It's scalping in its purest form, just like concert tickets, sneaker drops, or anything else where demand far outpaces supply. Now, here's the thing most people don't understand. This really isn't anyone's fault. Sure, scalping children's cards at retail stores is gross, and these people should absolutely be ashamed of themselves, but wherever there's a quick buck to be made, no matter how dirty, someone's going to make it. Just please, for the love of Archus, don't blame your local card stores for charging above MSRP, or the YouTubers cracking packs for entertainment, or even the Pokémon Company for not printing enough product. If they could flip a switch and double production, they would. Their printing facilities are already maxed out. I guarantee it. The scalpers only do what they do because the demand is that strong. If it weren't profitable, they move on to the next thing. That said, this behavior is still a massive embarrassment to the community as a whole. So, the Master Ball Award for the biggest embarrassment of the year goes to Pokemon's ongoing scalper saga. Now, that all sounds terrible, and it [music] is, but you don't also want the opposite problem either. While Pokémon and Magic can't keep their products on shelves, Yu-Gi-Oh can't seem to get theirs off the shelves. If you look at prices online, you'd think it barely matters what Konami charges because people just don't want it. Some of the weaker sets are selling so low that retailers are almost certainly taking a bath. I know it's just cardboard and production costs aren't that high, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if boxes are selling for barely more than the cost of the paper they're printed on. Just go to your local Walmart or Target and check the card aisle. If they haven't given up on stocking Pokémon altogether, that section's going to be wiped clean. Maybe there's some magic left, but Yu-Gi-Oh, you'll have your pick. It's wild. The collectibles market is booming, and yet Yu-Gi-Oh somehow feels like it's sliding backwards. So, the Millennium Trophy for the year's biggest embarrassment goes to Yu-Gi-Oh's 2025 Corset lineup. A reminder that the opposite of hype can be just as bad, if not worse. Magic, on the other hand, has had so much going for it this year. CEO Chris Cox can't stop bragging about how every IP on the planet is practically clawing at the door to join universes beyond. You think Wizards could afford to be picky, choose only the best partnerships, the cleanest deals, and the least legal red tape. But then they struck a deal with Marvel. And look, I think we're all a little burned out on superhero content, but still, Marvel has a massive, loyal fan base. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. As it turns out, Spider-Man was never meant to be a full release. It started as a small add-on set, a lot like March of the Machine: Aftermath, but since Aftermath tanked, Wizards and Hasbro made the last minute call to blow it up into a mainline release. The result, a bloated, directionless set with a miserable draft environment. In other words, a flop and a big one. But it gets so much worse. Because of licensing issues, likely thanks to Marvel Snap, Wizards couldn't secure the digital rights to any of the cards. So for Magic the Gathering Arena, the game's online client, they had to reimagine every single one. New names, new art, functionally the same, but an entirely different set. They called it through the Omen Paths. And in doing so, they split the paper and digital versions of Magic the Gathering forever. Cards that exist in paper won't match the ones online and vice versa. It's an organizational nightmare that's already confusing players and collectors, and it's only going to get worse the more these cards see play in older formats. So, yeah, the Guilded Lotus Award for biggest embarrassment of the year goes to Universes Beyond Marvel Spider-Man, a crossover that somehow managed to break magic in more ways than one. Whether it's the artwork, the playability, or a mix of both, every game this year has produced some absolutely incredible cards. But it's no secret that Pokémon TCG has been going through a full-on art renaissance. Long gone are the days of those flat, mono colorful arts that were somehow both boring and absurdly expensive. Well, okay, we still have those, but that's no longer all we have because the Scarlet and Violet era, especially its illustration rares and special illustration rares, took the alt art idea from Sword and Shield and really took it to the next level. These cards aren't just pictures of Pokémon anymore. They're stories printed on cardboard. Now, when it came to picking a favorite, this was the hardest choice of the three games, but a few things helped narrow it down. First, terrailization. Look, I get it. It's a new mechanic, but I'm sorry. Glittery skin and jewel hats. Yeah, not so much. So, I apologize to all the Eevee Lucian fans out there. Those are out. Second, this year marked the long-awaited return of something we hadn't seen in decades. Trainers Pokémon. These are the perfect combination of the incredible sir artwork that we're used to alongside adorable storytelling moments that look like they're straight from the anime. That said, the ultimate winner of the Master Ball Award for Pokémon card of the year goes to Lily's Clefairy from Journey Together. This set was a rare bright spot amid the chaos of 2025. Smaller, more accessible, and slightly easier to find. Because of that, prices for the top chases never reached the ridiculous highs of Destin rivals, and collectors actually had a chance to enjoy it. Honestly, it was a tough call between all four trainer sirs from Journey together. Each one had the storytelling and quality that defined this year's art direction. And to be honest, all of them had the potential to earn this year's top spot. Across all of the reprint sets Yu-Gi-Oh has released this year, Konami has printed some truly stunning cards. The quarter century secret rare, which is of course very similar to the Starlight rare, remains one of the most divisive foil treatments ever printed. Back when I started playing, secret rares were the king of the hill. There was something so clean and so timeless about that diagonal foil pattern. And for some cards, it's still the best looking version that exists. But when it comes to QCRs and Starlights, it feels like Konami just asked one question. How shiny can we possibly make this piece of cardboard? And the answer was apparently yes. I'll admit I was a QCR skeptic for a long time. For the first year or so, I didn't love the treatment, but once I finally got a few in hand, they started to grow on me. They don't photograph particularly well. They don't film particularly well either. But when you hold one yourself, it's hard not to be impressed. So, I was very close to giving the award to one of the many gorgeous QCRs Konami released in 2025. But then they did something unexpected. Because for anyone who's been playing this game for 15 years or more, you already know that one foil treatment stands above the rest. The ultimate rare. When Konami announced OTS Pack 28 and revealed its big chase, the ultimate rare Blue Eyes White Dragon, for me, it instantly became the card of the year. This isn't just nostalgia. It's a direct call back to the Japanese SM51 Blue Eyes White Dragon, one of the most beautiful and sought-after cards in the game's history. It took Konami almost three decades to finally print Blue Eyes as an ultimate rare in English, and the result is absolutely gorgeous. So, the Millennium Trophy for Yu-Gi-Oh card of the year goes easily to the ultimate rare, Blue Eyes White Dragon. All right, let me start by saying there's absolutely no winning for me with this pick because at this point in Magic's history, favorite card basically means favorite IP crossover. Everyone just collects the worlds they enjoyed the most and ignores the others. So, your favorite card of the year is probably tied to your favorite movie, show, or game, and that's totally fine. I'm not even going to try to pretend to be different here. In fact, I even kind of hate what I'm about to say because by far my favorite crossover of the year was Avatar the Last Airbender. I grew up with the show. My wife and I still watch it every couple of years. And now I can't wait for the day my daughter's old enough to watch it with us. If you remember hearing that iconic intro as a kid, >> water, earth, fire, air, >> then you might be able to guess which cards I'm talking about. For me at least, it's kind of impossible not to love them. It's the elemental combat pose, full art, textless versions of the show's main characters. The only problem, Wizards made them the ultimate chase of pet. They're absolutely impossible to pull. And if you want to buy them on the secondary market, yeah, good luck explaining that purchase to your significant other. >> Huh? >> Still, as much as it pains me to admit, these cards are breathtaking. the designs, the flavor, the nostalgia. To me, it's everything Universes Beyond should be. So, even though I will almost certainly never own one myself, I've got to say, objectively, unequivocally, and without regard for your incorrect opinion, the Gilded Lotus Award for Magic card of the year goes to the Avatar: The Last Airbender Neon Inc. Chase cards. Now, it's time to crown the ultimate winners across all three games. Starting with the best set of the year. Pokémon did have some incredible releases, and Yu-Gi-Oh had one or two, but honestly, it's impossible to give this award to anything other than Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy. I played a few Final Fantasy titles when I was younger, and while I liked them, the series today doesn't really hit me in my brain's nostalgia glance. That said, what Wizards of the Coast did with this crossover was incredible. They managed to capture the story, the essence of the characters, and the themes of Final Fantasy through mechanics and car design in a way that felt seamless. And that's not even mentioning the artwork, which was also in a league of its own. So, the CCTCG set of the year award goes to Final Fantasy. An easy win and honestly a well-deserved one. Now, for the biggest embarrassment of the year. Yu-Gi-Oh's 2025 corset lineup was pretty rough. No arguments there. and Magic's absolute butchering of the Spider-Man set, not to mention the permanent separation of paper and digital play, would normally be a runaway winner here. But I'm sorry, Pokemon, this one's on you. Because when grown adults are pushing children and grandmothers out of the way just to flip packs for a quick buck, that's got to be the worst look of the year. I know it's not the core Pokémon community doing it, but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily make that distinction. As a result, Pokémon collectors as a whole have gotten a pretty bad rap. So, the CCTCG award for most embarrassing situation of the year goes to Pokemon's neverending scalping fiasco. And last but not least, card of the year. Now, Lily Clefairy is an all-timer, no question. [music] And Avatar the Last Air Bender chase cards are stunning enough to make me want to cry, mostly because I'll never actually own one. But when it comes to pure nostalgia, elegance, and timeless design, one card stood above them all. The OTS28 Ultimate Rare Blue-Eyed White Dragon. It's everything Yu-Gi-Oh collectors have ever wanted. The perfect combination of history, rarity, and design. And even if Yu-Gi-Oh collecting as a whole isn't in the best place right now, it doesn't matter. This card is in a class of its own. So, the CCTCG card of the year award goes to the ultimate rare, Blue Eyes White Dragon. Now, for the absolute best thing to happen to the trading card world in all of 2025. It's a little obvious, so I'm guessing most of you got it by this point. But of course, it is without a doubt the creation of this YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe.

Join me as we run down the best and worst of 2025 in the trading card world. 👉 If you LIKED this video, you will LOVE this one (The True TCG Grails): https://youtu.be/zSh6tzhST8g?si=7Jl7k7pR0NDs6JBr ✉️ Reach out to me directly at CollectorsCornerTCG@Yahoo.com! Chapters Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:50 Best Sets of the Year 5:10 Worst Embarrassments of the Year 9:27 Best Cards of the Year 14:35 Best of the Best 16:47 Award of 2025 #Pokemon #yugioh #mtg