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What about value driven by format legality? A lot of magic cards are valuable for format specific reasons.

My understanding is that Pokémon is surprisingly cheap if you want to actually play the game as they reprint staples to oblivion (often <100$ for tier one decks). It’s all collection based , which in and of itself is not necessarily an indictment on the value of Pokémon cards, but is much closer to greater fool theory than I’m comfortable with .

The main reason is that these days every rare collectible card in Pokémon is an alternate version of a cheaper card from the same set. For example, N's Zoroark ex ASC 286/217 is a $120 card, but the same set has a more common, mechanically identical $1 card numbered 137/217.

This is very much intended so that collectors chasing the nice full art / textured rare cards flood the second hand market with the less desirable cheaper versions. Players can then easily buy those cards for almost nothing and with ample volume available.

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