Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection – Is It Worth It?
Wondering what’s inside the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection and if it lives up to the hype?
Below, we’ll be looking at the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection I opened, what’s inside it, what pulls I got, and whether or not it’s worth the hefty market price right now.
What’s included in the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection
After you see what’s inside this box, you might begin to understand why people are waiting all night outside of stores in hopes of bagging this incredible product. I will say that after opening it, it’s easily one of the very best Pokemon TCG premium products I’ve opened, and improves on the Ultra Premium formula in several important ways.
The Pokémon TCG: Mega Charizard X ex Ultra-Premium Collection includes:
• 1 foil promo card featuring Mega Charizard X ex
• 1 foil promo card featuring Oricorio ex
• 65 card sleeves featuring Mega Charizard X
• 1 playmat featuring Mega Charizard X
• 1 deck box featuring Mega Charizard X
• 1 metal coin featuring Mega Charizard X
• 6 damage-counter dice
• 18 Pokémon TCG booster packs
• A code card for Pokémon TCG Live
What’s improved in the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection?
Other than the gorgeous colors that match Mega Charizard X ex’s iconic color palette, the biggest improvement in this year’s UPC versus previous ones for me is the deck box. As a competitive TCG player, I love a good deck box, and previous year’s deck boxes were too small to be usable for most competitive, sleeved decks.
The deck box in the Ultra Premium Collection, however, is a standard-sized deck box that you would expect out of a high quality TCG product. This is really exciting to me and grants me added value out of this product. Not only do I have a handy box to store cards in at my next tournament, but it looks absolutely epic. I can’t wait to pack my favorite deck into this sucker.
The sleeves also match the deck box and look really, really solid. Although you will want to double sleeve these as they’re meant more for fashion than utility.
The other unique improvement that I wasn’t expecting is the new, bigger damage counter dice that it comes with. They’re blue, of course, to match Mega Charizard X, but the selling point is how unique they are compared to past dice damage counters, and I could see them being an instant favorite for players.
Finally, I have to talk about the playmat. Although recent UPCs have had decent playmats, when I compare this Charizard UPC to the last one we got, it’s pretty incredible to see just how much better Pokemon TCG products have gotten in a short amount of time.
Unlike the small, narrow-style Gigantamax Charizard playmat we got before (one that never worked great for competitive play for me due to its size but also one that I’m currently using as a handy workplace mat under my laptop as I write this article), the Mega Charizard X ex is a fantastic playmat both in terms of quality and artwork. It really feels like a product in-and-of-itself – something you would purchase online to have it as opposed to a low-quality add-on the way these sorts of items have felt in the past.
The Charizard X Ultra Premium Collection has one of the best UPC promos of all time
Finally, we have to talk about the promos. Although the Oricorio SIR-style card is fantastic, the real chase here is the Mega Charizard X ex promo that is absolutely fire. It’s a huge step up from the promos we’ve had in years, and undoubtedly one of the biggest draws to hunting for this product of them all.
Can you pull anything good?
Now onto the best part of this review: what did I pull from the packs included in the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection?
Before I show you what I got, I just want to say that if you’re purchasing this product expecting it to be filled with the latest set, know that the 18 booster packs included in the UPC are actually a collection of the latest and greatest Pokemon TCG packs.
With that being said, our pulls – while not anything crazy – were incredibly solid, as you’ll see below.
While we may not have gotten the Mega Charizard X ex SIR that’s the most expensive Phantasmal Flames card, the Mega Venusaur ex Ultra Rare is a gorgeous card and one of the more valuable Mega Evolution cards, while N’s Reshiram IR is also a highly sought after card from Journey Together. All-in-all while we didn’t hit anything that’s going to let me retire tomorrow, you can’t be disappointed with that collection of pulls and the high quality card accessories included in the UPC.
Is the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection worth it?
Now that I’ve shared my general impression and review of the Ultra Premium Collection (a solid 10/10 based on the product itself), we do have to address the elephant in the room: its price. While you might get lucky and find this product in the wild for a much more affordable price than what you can get it for online, currently online it’s going for $215. That’s almost $100 more than what it’s supposed to be based on MSRP.
So how does what you get in this product stand up to that kind of market price? Is it worth it to pick this up or is it only worth it if you pick it up at MSRP?
To find that answer, let’s do something that everyone (including this English major) loves to do: math.
Mega Charizard ex Ultra Premium Collection market value breakdown
So to start with, the easiest way to asses the market price/value ratio is to simply look at the packs. While I’m not sure if this is standardized across all UPCs, mine came with the following packs:
2 Surging Sparks
4 Phantasmal Flames
4 Mega Evolution
4 Destined Rivals
4 Journey Together
Based on current market trends for these packs, the packs alone are netting you a combined total of roughly $140. So already that alone puts you above the MSRP you would pay at a store, and just $75 short of the current $215 market price.
But, of course, you aren’t just getting the packs. The other items of primary value here (although I would defintely consider the epic playmat and deck box to be of at least some value) are the two promos. How much are those cards going for, and what is their potential resell value?
Well here the pot gets a whole lot sweeter: the gorgeous Mega Charizard X ex promo I showed earlier in the article is fetching an incredible $65 on the secondary card market. Now all of a sudden you are swinging much closer within range of breaking even on market value.
But don’t forget about the Oricorio ex! And while we don’t currently have a complete idea of what this card is worth, even if it were worth just $10 you would be at market price already. I don’t think the Oricorio ex is likely to hit $10 anytime soon, however, and would set a conservative price for it at $25, bringing your total value at this point up to $230.
So to answer the original question at the start of this article, even at full market price right now, the Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Premium Collection is indeed worth it.
Personally, I love Mega Charizard X ex. He’s easily one of my favorite Pokemon right now, and this product is hands down my favorite Pokemon TCG product of all time. Buy it at MSRP, buy it at market price via my friends at TCGPlayer – however you do it it’s a fantastic product that is sure to bring joy to any Pokemon TCG collector who doesn’t mind investing a little more time or money into bagging it.
