Should I buy? Fusion strike sleeved booster pack | Pokemon TCG investing

Hello everyone! This series focuses on finding available Pokemon TCG products and whether they could be a good longer term investment. I am a collector and like to fund my hobby by selling a little on the side. I also like investing generally so this combines some of my hobbies in a fun way for me and hopefully this is interesting for you. As we brace for tropical storm Beryl I am hoping we don't have as long an electrical outage as with the Tornado that landed 6 weeks ago (5 days without air conditioning in Texas is not an experience i want to repeat).

I thought I'd better put another post together in case i don't get a chance for a few more days.

Fusion Strike sleeved booster pack

Thankfully Pokemon center website has obliged with a potential beauty. They have added stock for the Fusion Strike sleeved booster packs and as its Pokemon center everything is at the MSRP price, in this case $3.99. Currently this same product is seliing for $5.80 on TCGPlayer, that's a massive 45% differential.

Why the Fusion Strike sleeved booster pack for Pokemon TCG investing?

There are 2 main reasons you might invest in a Pokemon TCG product.

1. It's related to a desirable set.

2. There's something about the product itself that is desirable.

Yesterday we looked at the latter with the Charizard ex Paldean Fates tin.

Paldean Fates is as yet an unproven set in terms of if it will hold long term value. However, Charizard is the undisputed king of Pokemon TCG and always holds a greater desirability.

Today's product doesn't fit into the latter. It's purely a Sleeved booster pack, the only desirability it can have is the set it is from. Luckily it may just be one of the most desirable sets from the SWSH era. The last couple of months has seen many SWSH booster boxes go out of stock, and the prices have been increasing rapidly. Any chance to pick up SWSH products at MSRP at retail price may soon be the last. That said, I only want to stock up on the most desirable, so let's see if Fusion Strike has what it takes.

How is the set doing?

As mentioned, a lot of SWSH sets went out of stock in the last few months and prices have been climbing since. Fusion Strike is no different. The chart below shows the price trend of all cards in the set. We can see the average price has risen dramatically over the last few months to over $4.

Fusion Strike card prices trend

Don't think you can buy a $4 booster though and make a profit. The average prices are heavily skewed towards the few chase cards in the set and we see the median price slightly decreasing over time still (expected for an older set where people aren't collecting so much just going for the major chase cards).

Speaking of the chase cards this set has a few with the Celebi and Mew V alt art cards both increasing to the $30-$40 range and the Mew Vmax card now reaching $100. Genesect V and Inteleon Vmax also are increasing to the $15-$25. Having a high selection of chase cards is important for the long term desirability of a set as it means people will be breaking boxes and doing rips for a long time to come to try and find them. Thankfully Fusion strike has not 1 but 2 of the biggest in the entire SWSH series. Gengar VMAX and Espeon VMax.

Gengar Vmax and Espeon Vmax chase cards

The Espeon is now going for over $200 ungraded and Gengar over $300. Outside of the ridiculous Evolving Skies set only Lost Origin has a comparable chase to the Gengar in terms of pure valuation with the mighty Giratina V and the Espeon is quickly closing the gap giving Fusion strike a compelling case as the number 2 set in the series.

I truly believe because of this strength in cards this will remain in the top 2 or 3 sets in the SWSH era going forward. The only reason i see this not being the case is it's depth is not as good as some of the other series that have some really nice trainer galleries. However the 2 big chase cards are just too strong IMO.

What could the future value be?

To look at potential future values we will take the top 3 sets based on booster box valuations from X and Y and Sun and Moon, take out the top set as evolving skies already has that sown up for SWSH and will likely inflate oyr predictions and look at the sleeved booster prices for those sets.

The top 3 valuable sets in Sun and Moon are

1. Team Up

2. Cosmic Eclipse

3. Celestial Storm

The top 3 valuable sets in X and Y are

1. Flashfire

2. Phantom Forces

3. XY base
   

Product	Release date	TCGplayer current price	Yearly % increase
Celestial storm sleeved booster	Aug 2018	$18.00	28%
Phantom forces sleeved booster	Nov 2014	$45.00	28%
XY base sleeved booster	Feb 2014	$40.00	26%
Cosmic eclipse sleeved booster	Nov 2019	$34.00	54%

Note we used a base price of $4 for each product, Phantom forces is also not available on TCGplayer currently so we used ebay prices for that.

If we assume the median price increase of 28% and extrapolate it out for this product we would get $18 price for this in 3 years and $45 a pack in 8 years. Fusion Strike is already nearly 3 years old, however as we see it is in stock so that may hold back the prices from increasing this quickly. Now these are only predictions that can be wrong for many reasons but we are seeing a pattern of high increases in the prices for these top tier sets.

Pokemon TCG investment Conclusion: Buy

Price target: $18 Time frame: 3 years

Is it out of stock at the Pokemon center?
Can get it for MSRP or less?
Is the product increasing in value?
Is the set increasing in value?
Are the comparisons up in value?

I've bought 72 (the limit for a single order on Pokemon center) and may get more. The risks are if the product remains in stock for a long period the time frames may get longer, although i am guessing they will run out fairly quickly as a lot of SWSH product is being bought up right now. The other risk is if Fusion strike does not remain a top 3 set in SWSH. I think Chilling Reign, base set and Lost origin are the only other competitors for this (ignoring evolving skies). Fusion Strike is the only set with 2 big chase cards although it is lacking depth (trainer galleries came later) so we'll need to keep an eye on that.

Overall I rate this product a buy at this price. Even if it does not remain a top 3 set it will remain a top set and will increase in value just not as highly and the chance to get sleeved boosters at this stage in the SWSH lifecycle on a top tier set is to good to pass up.

If you would like some yourself here is the link to the listing and if you find it cheaper anywhere else and like Pokemon TCG investing, buy it!