Yu-Gi-Oh's Quarter Century Bonanza: Key Highlights So Far

The end of the year is approaching and with it, unfortunately, also the end of the 25th Anniversary of Yu-Gi-Oh! the Trading Card Game. It seems yesterday we kicked off the celebration and the hunt for the Quarter Century Secret Rare cards that Konami released specifically to celebrate the amazing milestone of our beloved card game. All through the year, Konami caught the opportunity to also release a number of rare and nostalgia cards that made the history of the game together with reprints or great cards from old sets. I personally loved pulling cards from sets or the Rarity collections that I have only seen in the anime or re-prints of those I haven't seen in year. It brought back a lot of good memories and reminded me all the good things I loved in Yu-Gi-Oh! when I started playing it.

With the end of the Quarter Century celebrations fast approaching, Konami prepared THE final surprise for all Yu-Gi-Oh! Fans in the form of a new super collectible set. As the name suggests, “Quarter Century Bonanza Yu-Gi-Oh” is designed to allow all collectors to get their hands on a massive list of Quarter Century Secret Rare cards. The best part is that, this time, pulling this cards is not only easy but GUARANTEED! Let's review the set and how it has been designed.

Count down has started: Release timeline.

Quarter Century Bonanza will release on the 6th of November 2024 in all Official Tournament Store. The set will then be widely available from the 8th of November 2024. As usual, you will be able to purchase single Booster packs and Booster boxes of 24 packs. A few selected stores like Magic Madhouse also offer the possibility to purchase a full case of 12 Booster boxes for a total of 288 packs.

Quarter Century Bonanza: Set Anatomy

Bringing back the format of the first Rarity Collection, each Quarter Century Bonanza packs includes 5 cards per pack. However, 1 Super Rare in every pack has been replaced with a luxury Secret Rare (Platinum or Quarter Century). That's right, there will be one Secret Rare guaranteed in each pack. Moreover, these Secret Rare cards will belong to a special list of 200 Nostalgia cards that will only be printed in this Rarity.

The remaining 4 cards will include 1 Super Rare, 2 Ultra Rare (with 1 in 6 chances to be a Prismatic Ultimate or Collector's Rare) and one further Secret Rare slot (with 1 in 4 chances to become Platinum Secret or Quarter Secret Rare). All these cards, however, will belong to the main set card list that will include 78 cards. set that’s also in this pack. This essentially means that each pack will have one card among the 200 cards from the Nostalgia set and 4 cards from the Standard set of 78 cards. Konami has also made very clear that there will be no overlapping between the two lists thus no card will in the Nostalgia set list will be featured in the Standard set list. Moreover, cards that have been released before as Quarter Century Secret Rare will not be included in the Nostalgia list although they may be included in the Standard set list. This will be the case for example of “Super Polymerization”, “Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames”, and “Diabellstar, the Black Witch”.

Considering the Quarter Century Secret Rare cards have been designed specifically for the 25th Anniversary, they will never be re-printed again in this Rarity. The collectible value of the set is therefore quite high not only considering the amount of Quarter Century Secret Rare cards it will include but also because there are so many potential cards that can go in the Nostalgia. Apparently, the list will include cards that has not be printed in this Rarity through the celebration and therefore there is a potential for some very interesting cards.

We should also remind that “Prismatic Ultimate” and “Collector’s Rares” are two new type of Rarity that has also been featured for the first time in this year sets. As you may remember, these two technologies released first in the two Rarity Collections, and they will be used now in Quarter Century Bonanza. The presence of these two new type of Rare cards adds surely more collectible value to the Quarter Century Bonanza set as it is not clear if Konami will release more cards with these technologies in future sets.

What Cards can you pull from Quarter Century Bonanza?

Even if the release date of the set is fast approaching, currently there are not many details on which cards will be reprinted in Quarter Century Bonanza. What we surely do know is that there will be two separate pools and we can possibly make some guess for both of them.

The main set card pool will include as discussed 78 cards and Konami suggested a few cards that will be included in this pool in their official announcement (see previous section). We also just recently found out that “Knightmare Phoenix” and an alternate art of “House Dragonmaid” will also be included in the set. Basing on the cards that have been hinted, we may expect to see some other Diabellstar cards including perhaps some Sinful Spoils. Possibly even “Bonfire” may see a re-print in this set.  

Realistically, I think we are probably going to see some reprints of cards released earlier in the year that didn't make the cut for the 2024 Tins or collection sets. I am also thinking we may be (pleasantly) surprised by finding some good cards with actual competitive value in this card pool considering Konami has decided to have a proper “main set” together with the “nostalgia” one.

On the other hand, we know that the Nostalgia card pool will feature 200 cards that have meaning for their role in the Anime/Manga or in the story of the game. As per today we only know that this pool will include “"Dark Paladin”, "Elemental HERO Flame Wingman" and “Drill Warrior". Dark Paladin is pretty much a must for this set and I am thinking we will likely see many more cards connected to Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl as these are two of the most loved Archetype in the game. “Giant Soldier of Stone”, “Gemini Elf”, the five parts of the Forbidden or “Harpie Lady” will probably make their way in this set and I will not be surprised to see many more cards from the Duel Monster era. We also recently saw the release of the Legendary Dragon decks and I would love to see any of the Legendary Dragon cards in Quarter Century format. Any guess is as good as another and we will just need to wait a few more weeks to finally see the full card list.    

How to get the best out of your Quarter Century Bonanza

The main aspect to consider about Quarter Century Bonanza is that it will be the last set to include Quarter Century Secret Rares. Konami will obviously not reprint any card with this rarity as it was specifically designed to celebrate a massive milestone in the game. As the 25th Anniversary Celebrations are almost over, Quarter Century Bonanza is in fact the last chance to collect cards with this special once-in-a-lifetime rarity. Most important, the guaranteed Quarter Century Secret Rare per pack is potentially a great way for collectors to pull lots of cards with this Rarity.

However, securing all the valuable cards from this set may not be an easy challenge even with the good pull rates of Quarter Century Bonanza. The main challenge in collecting this set will be the very large pull set for the Nostalgia slot. It is true that each of them will be a Platinum or a Quarter Century Secret Rare but pulling all the 200 different cards will not be easy to achieve. If you are aiming to achieve this, you may want to seriously consider to purchase a full case of Quarter Century Bonanza as it will come with 12 Booster boxes of 24 packs each. Magic Madhouse is one of the few shop that offer this opportunity and opening a case has been historically the best way to even the odds and collect all the cards in a set. If you are looking to invest a bit less, I would still strongly recommend to go for the Booster boxes in an effort to obtain as many different cards from the set as possible. And let's not forget that sometimes the best pulls come from a few random boosters...

All of these products are still in pre-order at the moment and with a very good discount thus I would suggest to secure them as soon as possible as my guess is that stock will not last longer once the card list will be revealed. I have already ordered a few for my personal collection and I am very excited to open some packs and see how many good cards I can get. I am usually quite unlucky with my pulls but Quarter Century Bonanza seems a set specifically designed for people like me as despite my luck, I will always get at least a Quarter Century Secret Rare cards. Neat!