This is the best place for Pokemon in San Diego county, period. They host fantastic events and foster a great community, they have great inventory while keeping their prices fair (and discouraging scalpers!), and the staff is fantastic with kids (my son is nine, everyone is so welcoming and friendly). We've been coming here for a year and a half now, and it's a pleasure every time. If you're a parent and want to find cards for your kids, this should be your first pick. If you're a grandparent of a Pokémon player and want to find a great a birthday gift, this should be your first pick. If you're an adult player and want to find a strong community, this should be your first pick. And if you're a scalper looking to buy up inventory to make a quick buck, don't come here because they can see you coming from a mile away and you'll waste your time (also, just stop scalping, it's so lame). read more

Do not come here for pre release. They will advise first come first serve, but in reality they have the seats already reserved. They don't respect your time and give out horrible information on how the event will take place. Additionally, place is located in an industrial area and you will sweat from the heat. read more

Came here for a Pokemon event while visiting the area, after searching the Play Pokemon website. Service: I thought it was great. The locals tournament organizer/judge was efficient and very friendly especially to kids which I really appreciated. Staff for buying products were also friendly and helpful. For the other comment about the kid selling a card and feeling like the kid got lowballed -- I haven't seen any card shop offer 100% market price or even close for people selling cards to any LCS. 40-60% seems the norm, and IMO reasonable given the risk that the shop is taking, and the convenience for the seller. If you want full market price, go ahead and grade it with someone like PSA and then sell on TCGplayer directly yourself. Bashing the store for a typical practice just seems petty. Value: I thought it was fair. Most Pokemon sealed products were at market price and I think it's worth supporting a small business that's part of the local community, especially with all the time/effort/expense of running events. The hours on Yelp are not accurate. I would follow them on Instagram since they update that regularly with hours and event info. I think it's worth coming here, and I would definitely come back when I'm in the area again. read more

This place seems like a cool card shop but the dudes working there will low ball the shit out of your cards. Don't think I'd be coming here again and advise others to not shop here. Overpriced and disrespectful read more

Rare & Sleeveless - Bought this from rare and sleeveless $750. Later found out that it's a fake card and they acting brand new when I brought it up - Hobby Shops Near Me - San Diego, California

This place is rad, I've been coming here for years and it's been the same solid crew since day one. They are fair in prices, care about the hobby, and are tentative to all the different TCG players. Shout out to Amar, Ron, Justin, and Ronald for always being patient and kind even when other people are being trolls. Support your local card shop! read more

Great place to place TCG. Highly recommend to come here to play if you play OPTCG. Customer service is excellent and the staff is friendly. Top 3 card shop to visit in San Diego. read more

Definitely not a store I would recommend, phone is disconnected so when you call, it goes straight to voicemail. The Bandi app says they have a tournament when you arrive. They said they don't have a tournament and they're closing at six. Holiday hours & changes for holidays not posted on location or website. All around unprofessional and a joke at best. read more

Rare & Sleeveless - This is the store. You enter from the back - Hobby Shops Near Me - San Diego, California

Duplicate of my review from Google: Just to start I only collect Pokemon and don't play the game so I can't speak on the tournament atmosphere, just from a collector's standpoint. I have been to this shop 5 times in the past few months, and I have to say that every single time I do not enjoy it. The regular staff are quite nice and pleasant, and they have good service, but the issues outweigh that. First and most importantly, the prices are terrible. I don't expect discounts, and don't think I'm entitled to anything, but when pricing out modern cards I have consistently had to ask to go down to market value, and oftentimes we are unable to reach that point. For both cheap and expensive cards, I have been told by staff there that they can't match the lowest NM TCGPlayer (reputable seller) listing/market price due to other listings being higher or cards having lower population. Just a note, these are for sub 50 dollar modern/mid-era cards, not vintage, and by no means extraordinarily rare. For example, today I was looking at a card with a listing at 9.99 NM, but the staff told me they would only be able to do 11 because the next listings were 12 and 13, which was not even true as there were 3 listings under 10 dollars. It should not be this hard to get the store to meet market. To add onto that, the owner is just greedy and has a terrible attitude. I have only had very negative interactions with them, but looking at a full art with an agreed upon NM value of 35, I noticed the store was selling a damaged version (multiple large dents on the front and back, as if someone had taken a stick and dragged it along the bottom). Easily considered damaged, with notable frontal issues, a lift on a corner, and a very much not straight edge on the bottom due to the 6-7 surface dents. Owner would not go below 18, as there were no damaged listings on TCGPlayer as the excuse. Now I understand that price negotiations can go this way, and they are under no obligation to price things fairly, but with that degree of damage on the card it was frankly an insulting offer. To support that, every interaction I have ever had with the owner, he has been generally very cold and unfriendly and unapproachable. Not a horrible thing, I'm sure he's busy, but it doesn't leave a good impression on the store. I've been to many shops and vendors over the years, and I'm perfectly willing to pay sticker or even higher than market if I have a good time with the staff and owner, or if I feel the store has good business practices, but in this case I just can't even bring myself to give them the benefit of the doubt. Very inflexible and difficult to work with. Almost all the sealed product in the store is priced above market, even the stock they obtain through distribution. I don't expect stores to sell at MSRP with the horrible allocation stores are getting, but game stores should have enough pride and shame to not sell at such blatant prices. I confirmed this by asking the employees where they got their sealed for sale from, whether it was from people coming in to sell or from distribution, and they said it was nearly all from distribution. Finally, it just feels like the store just does not care about Pokemon. It just sees it as an avenue for profit. I know the market is crazy right now, but I feel literally zero of the friendly TCG shop atmosphere I feel in nearly every other store. It feels like everything is just about the money, from the prices to the attitude. I asked for a condition check on a 4 dollar card since it looked LP, to which the manager simply said "it's a 4 dollar card, it doesn't matter" which is just disrespectful for a hobby where condition is so important. Almost none of the employees know much about Pokemon, and the few who are seem disillusioned. This store is the exact kind of TCG store that is plaguing the Pokemon TCG landscape right now. It's clear Pokemon is just money to them, and I will encourage anyone to go literally anywhere else. All my experiences at NinaExchange, Cultured Vibe, or most other locally owned TCG stores have been better. The last 3 times I have gone, even though I have wanted to buy cards and had a stack, I ended up putting all the cards away because I couldn't bring myself to support this business. Do yourself and the hobby a favor, and find another place for your cards. read more

Justin and Kellie are great! The shop serves the Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh!, and One Piece community currently and hosts tournaments regularly so you can get some live practice in with your decks. Buy ins are reasonable and the prizes are often worth it! They are working out ways to smooth out the operations for better customer service it seems but you can see they really care about the communities they are a part of. Get your cardboard crack fix here read more

Terrible store with false advertising. I went in for a Union Arena Store Tournament and the pricing for entry is $5. When I get there they lied and canceled it, now charging me for $25 for a different event (which was a Release Event for Kaiju that I couldn't care less about) they decided to do it at the same time as they advertised for the Store Tournament. I drove for an hour to this place just to walk out disappointed and frustrated because I had signed up thru Bandai TCG Plus App and that's how you find out about the tournaments, pricing & rewards. I did the legit way and everything right through the app, and in their store they lied about not hosting the tournament and instead they're doing the Kaiju tournament. Like wtf? I wasted hella time driving there for nothing. What's worse is in the app they advertised $15 entry for that stupid event but in person they're charging $25? Again fake advertisement. read more

See all

Great and helpful staff, they were very friendly and knowledgeable and patient with me as I looked through every pokemon single they had.

Everyone is cool and welcoming. They charge tcg price on pokemon cards and will cut u a deal if u bundle a few. Once a month they organize a trade night at ale smith brewery that really awesome. read more

Justin and Kellie are my favorite shop owners! They offer a welcoming environment for TCG players and hobbyists. They have a great selection of Yugioh, Pokemon and One Piece singles. If you're looking for a great place to learn and play card games, this is the spot. Plenty of space to play, free parking, bathroom available, and lots of people around to meet and learn from. Highly recommend! read more

They are all over the place with their pricing. I went in a week ago and they listed damaged cards at near-mint-graded prices. I believe that they do not have much knowledge of trading cards and will try to fetch the highest price possible for them. read more