On the Issue of Power Creep and How It Relates to Nexon

Extra Credits is a really amazing series. I mean, really. They're episode on "The Heroes Journey" was fantastic.

There's kind of a point in MapleStory, where, even though everything more or less can be done with in-game currency, it becomes increasingly hard to stay a competitive player. Eventually, you just end up as someone who's going to do sub-par damage unless you start springing for cubes and some NX.

Interestingly, the Pokemon TCG has one of the worst examples of Power Creeping in TCG's that I've ever seen. There are so few cards from any of it's many early sets that are usable at this point. Things just keep getting replaced. It's too the point where competitive decks only use cards from the last three or four sets, though this happens in Yu-Gi-Oh! as well. At least YGO has some viable cards from early on. But still, to stay competitive, you have to buy the most expensive cards on the market. Remember Cyber End before it was limited? Ouch.

I think you were kinda hinting at it, but the pokemon TCG official tournaments actually don't even ALLOW older deck sets to be used. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think only the 3 or 4 most recent sets are even allowed to be played with at all. Pretty cheap means of forcing competitive players to buy more cards.