TCG terms, in plain English

Every hobby builds its own vocabulary, and trading cards have built more than most. Here’s what it all actually means, in plain English.

Missing something? Tell us and we’ll add it.

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Sealed product

Booster pack

The basic unit: a sealed foil packet of randomised cards. Contents vary by game — typically 10 to 12 cards with a guaranteed rare or better.

Booster box

A sealed case of booster packs, usually 24 or 36. Best cost per pack of any format, and the standard purchase for anyone opening seriously. See: Booster Box, ETB or Bundle?

Case

A sealed carton of booster boxes — typically 6 or 12. Mostly a shop-level unit, though collectors buy them for storage.

Display

Trade term for a booster box, more common in Europe than Britain. Same thing.

Elite Trainer Box (ETB)

Pokémon’s mid-tier product: 8–10 packs plus sleeves, dice, dividers, a promo and a storage box. Higher cost per pack, but you get the accessories. Popular as a gift for exactly that reason.

Illumineer’s Trove

Lorcana’s equivalent of an ETB — packs plus a storage box, lore counters and deck boxes. Games: Lorcana

Bundle

The middle option. Six to eight packs, a promo, minimal packaging. Sensible, and consequently under-discussed.

Blister

One to four packs plus a promo card or coin, on a hanging card. Worst cost per pack of any format; sometimes worth it purely for the exclusive promo.

Precon (preconstructed deck)

A ready-to-play deck straight out of the box. No deckbuilding required. Often the cheapest way into a game.

Starter deck

As above. Different games use different names for the same idea.

Prerelease kit

A sealed pack of packs used at prerelease events the week before a set launches. Usually includes a date-stamped promo card.

Collector booster

A premium pack with a higher concentration of foils, alt arts and special treatments. Costs considerably more; contains fewer playable staples.

Play booster

The standard, draftable pack. Built for gameplay rather than collecting.

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Rarity and card types

Common / Uncommon / Rare

The base rarity ladder, marked on most cards by a symbol near the set code.

Holo (holographic)

A card with a foil-treated illustration. Traditionally the rare slot.

Reverse holo

A card where the border is foiled rather than the artwork. Same card, different finish, usually a small premium.

Secret rare

A card numbered beyond the stated set size — 199/198, say. Deliberately scarce, usually valuable.

Alt art (alternate art)

The same card with entirely different artwork. Frequently the most valuable version, and the thing most people are actually chasing.

Full art

Artwork extended across the whole card face, with text overlaid rather than boxed.

Illustration Rare / Special Illustration Rare

Pokémon’s premium art treatments. Special Illustration Rares are the scarcer of the two and typically the set’s headline cards. Games: Pokémon

Enchanted

Lorcana’s rarest treatment — alternate art, full-card foil, pulled well below the standard rare rate. Games: Lorcana

Parallel / Manga rare

One Piece’s alternate-art treatments. Manga rares use panel artwork from the source manga and command significant premiums. Games: One Piece

Hyperspace / Showcase

Star Wars Unlimited’s alternate-art variants. Showcase is the rarer. Games: Star Wars Unlimited

Promo

A card distributed outside normal packs — events, prereleases, tins, magazine covers. Scarcity varies enormously.

Serialised

A card individually numbered out of a fixed print run, e.g. 12/250. The scarcest thing most sets contain.

God pack

A pack where every card is a rare or better. Rare enough that pulling one is a story.

Hit

Any card worth meaningfully more than the pack it came in. Informal, and the threshold moves with the person.

Chase card

The card a set is known for — the one driving demand for sealed product.

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Condition and grading

NM (Near Mint)

Effectively perfect. Minor manufacturing imperfections acceptable, no play wear.

LP (Lightly Played)

Light edge wear or surface marks visible on close inspection. Fine sleeved.

MP / HP (Moderately / Heavily Played)

Obvious wear — whitening, scratches, creasing. Playable, not collectible.

DMG (Damaged)

Water damage, tears, heavy creasing, writing. Value is functional only.

Grading

Submitting a card to a third party who authenticates it, assigns a numeric condition score and seals it in a tamper-evident case.

Slab

A graded card in its sealed case. Also used as a verb: “getting it slabbed.”

PSA

Professional Sports Authenticator — the most recognised grading company globally, and generally the one that adds most value. US-based, so UK submissions go through dealers and take time.

ACE Grading

UK-based grading company. Faster and cheaper than sending to PSA, with tiered turnaround options. Increasingly the default for mid-value UK cards.

BGS / Beckett

Grading company known for subgrades — separate scores for centring, corners, edges and surface.

Gem Mint

The top grade (PSA 10, BGS 9.5+). Commands a substantial premium over a 9.

Centring

How evenly the artwork sits within the borders. A major grading factor and the most common reason a visually perfect card fails to hit a 10.

Whitening

Pale wear along card edges where the coloured layer has rubbed through. Grading’s most common enemy.

Pop report

A grading company’s public count of how many copies of a card exist at each grade. Useful for judging genuine scarcity.

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Gameplay

TCG / CCG

Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game. Used interchangeably.

Meta

The decks and strategies currently dominating competitive play.

Format

The rules defining which cards are legal. Standard, Limited, and others depending on the game.

Standard

Constructed play using only recent sets. Keeps the card pool manageable and rotates over time.

Limited

Formats where you build from sealed product opened on the day — draft and sealed deck. Levels the playing field between wallets.

Draft

A Limited format: players open packs, pick a card, pass the rest, repeat. Builds a deck from what you’re passed.

Rotation

When older sets drop out of Standard legality. Cards remain playable in other formats but usually lose value.

Banlist

Cards prohibited in a given format, normally for being too strong. A ban can gut a card’s value overnight.

Leader card

The central card defining a deck’s identity and colours. Doesn’t sit in the main deck. Games: One Piece, Star Wars Unlimited (as Leader/Base)

DON!! card

One Piece’s resource cards, used to pay costs and boost characters. Games: One Piece

Ink / Inkable

Lorcana’s resource system. Inkable cards can be played face-down as resources; uninkable ones can’t, which is a real deckbuilding constraint. Games: Lorcana

Lore

Lorcana’s win condition. First to 20 lore takes it. Games: Lorcana

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Market and collecting

RRP / MSRP

Recommended Retail Price. What the publisher suggests. Not what scarce product actually sells for.

EV (Expected Value)

The average market value of a sealed product’s contents. Usually below the box price, for reasons that are arithmetic rather than sinister. See: Is a Booster Box Worth It?

Pull rate

How often a given rarity appears — “1 in 24 packs”. Sometimes published officially, more often crowd-sourced from thousands of opened packs.

Allocation

The quantity of a product a retailer is permitted to order. Set in advance by the distributor and frequently smaller than demand.

Scalper

Someone buying scarce product purely to resell at a markup, often using automated software. The reason allocation systems exist.

Bot

Automated software that buys product faster than a person can, typically the moment stock goes live.

Out of print

No longer being manufactured. Sealed product tends to appreciate from this point.

Reprint

A card or set being printed again. Good for players, less so for anyone holding the original as an investment.

Bulk

Low-value commons and uncommons. Sold by weight or by the thousand, rarely by the card.

Buylist

A shop’s standing offer to buy cards from the public, usually at 40–50% of market value in cash or a better rate in store credit.

Singles

Individual cards bought on their own rather than pulled from packs.

Sealed

Unopened product. Also used to describe collecting strategy: “I collect sealed.”

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