I want to speak to other people in the TCG communities about some guidances I use to keep my collections reasonable and manageable.
As most people in The Scene™, I loathe The Scalpers™. Less commonly tho, I also have some serious reservations on the paper of The Collectors™ on the whole environment.
1 - Pick a theme.
One of the most common mistakes for aspiring collectors is wanting to collect it all.
Master Sets are tempting, alluring even, and I won't judge anyone for doing that when I myself have a master set for each of the standard sets in Flesh And Blood.
Rather the contrary, I speak from a place of experience :')
As a game develops and grows it's natural for the companies to try new avenues and create new products, so even a collection that seems quite manageable in the first 2 or 3 years of a game can grow into a monster later in life.
Take FaB as an example: My collection began shortly after Everfest release when we had only the main sets in First and Unlimited formats, with no marvels, no extended arts, just two types of foiling and that's it. (Except a few alt cards from the first editions, but those were THE chase cards at the time).
Fast forward 2 years and we have Marvels, we have gem pack alters, we have A LOT of promos, we have Mastery Packs, Armory Decks, Sage Decks, Smash Palace, Round the Table, and even Blitz decks. It forced me to narrow the scope lest I spend all my money into just keeping up.
Choosing a theme before hand let you answer a very fundamental question that is often overlook: Why are the cards important to you?
You want to collect all cards from a specific artist? All cards from a specific type? All cards with girls eating burgers? With chairs in the images? This makes your collection yours, while also establishing limits on what you want to get. And speaking of limits:
2 - Define your guidelines
When Riftbound came up, a friend of mine set out to make a "Top Laners" collection. I was quite simple, just get the legends of each top laner, as he always played top.
Then we decided to fuck with him a bit. "What about Vayne? She's and ADC but people play her top.", "What about Kat? She was viable top on early seasons before the rework.", "You're getting Shyvana? She got the Victorious skin on top.".
It turns out that if you don't set a clear line on what are you collecting, scope creep will get you as more and more cards that "kinda fits" appear your way. And the easiest concession to make is always the next one.
3 - Set a budget
Setting a budget comes in two parts: Planning how much you want to spend in general (macro), and planning how much you want to spend in each item (micro).
I will be very clear here: Both of those will hurt you, and both of these will save you money.
Knowing how much you can spend on your collection in a month will help you strategize and prioritize things that are likely to increase in price. It helps you overcome FOMO and make sure you don't compromise your bills and savings on a pet project.
Your budget is the thing that makes you look into the things that you want to pick ASAP, and the bulk rest that will be inevitably cheaper in 1 or 2 months.
Having to contain yourself to not overspend may feel a bit sour every now and then, specially if you think you found a very good deal. But I can guarantee the hardest budget to abide by is the micro.
Stipulating how much are you willing to pay and adhering to it is hard and takes practice, as the value of a collection object is largely sentimental.
The best example of this I've seen so far comes from a post on the Furby reddit. It may not be the best methodology ever but it is very concise and easily explained, hence why the best example.
You'll have to adjust expectations every now and then, but for some of us getting to know how much something is worth and having a rule on how to appraise something becomes fun in itself.
What never gets fun is having to cut an object from your collection because they are objectively overpriced.
Once again, I speak from experience on this one: There is one specific Halloween promo for Hololive TCG that usually goes for about 300 dol each. This is more than every other card in the binder combined, on a game that I don't trust will last long outside JP.
4 - Have fun.
Arguably the most important rule in the list. It sounds like feel-good bullshittery, but I assure it isn't.
If you feel compelled to buy something you don't want, if you feel your project is hurting you financially, or even if you just lose interest and doesn't really care about it anymore, don't be ashamed to pause or drop your collection.
I have a friend that saw their One Piece collection turn from joy to sorrow when prices kept rising and keeping up turned synonymous with dealing with scalpers and buyouts.
I myself used to collect MtG legendary creatures back in the early days of commander purely because I liked whimsical commanders such as Pheldagriff and Skeleton Ship. There were 804 legendary creatures when I dropped the game in 2019, there were 1098 legendary creatures released in 2026 so far.
If collecting is making you bored, tired, or even resentful, just drop it. You don't own anything to any company.
