Collector Profile
Mike Smaili
Breathing Fire into Dragon Ball Super Collecting
The next episode of Mike Smaili’s podcast should be called “How to Train Your Dragon Ball Super Collector.”
A trailblazer in the Dragon Ball collecting community, the 34-year-old San Jose, California, native is passionate about sharing his knowledge and introducing people to these cards. Not only does he host a podcast (One N Done on YouTube) devoted to the topic, he runs a Facebook group (Dragon Ball Super TCG Collectors), an Instagram account (@tcgkid) and a website (www.pulls.xyz) that offer valuable information.
It’s not a pastime he would’ve predicted for himself when he was younger. Sure, he played the Dragon Ball video games and was a fan of the TV show, but he was not drawn to the first Dragon Ball cards released by Score Entertainment from 2000 to 2006.
“I was just never attracted to Score cards,” said Smaili. “At the time, Pokémon cards were king. They looked cooler and stood out more because of their artwork. With Score, it was mostly copy and paste from the TV show, and so I never got into it, even though I loved the franchise and I loved the show. The cards just weren’t unique enough.”
His passion for cards was ignited in 2018 when he was introduced to a new Dragon Ball Super set at the San Diego Comic Con. Bandai, a toy maker and card manufacturer based in Japan, had a booth at the event and Smaili struck up a conversation with their sales rep.
“I asked him, ‘What does this game have to offer?’ and he said, ‘We just did this limited release set and you can’t find it anymore,’” recalled Smaili. “And as a collector, that’s one of the things that you love hearing.”
Smaili initially thought this might be just a sales pitch, but he took note of what he was being told and decided to investigate further once he got home. The set the sales rep had been heralding was the first Themed Booster: The Tournament of Power issue, and Smaili quickly found out the salesperson wasn’t lying. The set was, indeed, a single wave print run.
“Another thing that immediately stood out to me was that the art on the cards looked really, really good,” said Smaili. “I wasn’t that excited about the art on the modern cards of the other ‘big three’ [Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!] anymore, but the art on these cards was beautiful.”
And with this, Smaili’s infatuation with Dragon Ball Super cards began.
“Of all of the shows I watched as a kid, I would say the Dragon Ball show was probably the one that I watched the most, which is why I was so excited when I learned not just about this new set but the card game as a whole,” said Smaili.
Prior to that, he had been focusing his collection primarily on vintage Pokémon cards.
Mike Smaili with his prized DBS collection.
“I’ve been around cards my whole life it seems,” said Smaili, who was born and raised in California’s Bay Area. “It’s always something that I’ve enjoyed and had a passion for.”
Smaili still owns some high-end Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering cards.
“I definitely have Pokémon 1st Edition cards. That was a set I grew up with as a kid,” said Smaili, adding that he also owns some Pokémon Gold Star singles and rare Japanese promos.
Smaili took a break from collecting during his late high school years and while he was in college earning his degree in engineering. These days he’s a full-time engineer in Silicon Valley, and now armed with a stable income, he has decided to dive head-first back into collecting.
Dragon Ball was created by Akira Toriyama in Japan and was introduced as a manga series in 1984. It has since been expanded into a major media franchise that includes TV shows, movies, video games and branded merchandise.
The main story of Dragon Ball revolves around the travails of Son Goku, who practices martial arts and possesses supernatural strength. After a sheltered childhood, Goku comes in contact with a teenage girl named Bulma who convinces him to search for seven orbs known as Dragon Balls, which summon a wish-granting dragon. During his journey, Goku makes many acquaintances and friends, begins a family, learns about his roots and battles villains who also covet the Dragon Balls.
The original Dragon Ball series focused on the childhood of Goku. It was followed by the popular Dragon Ball Z, which shone the spotlight on Goku’s adult years, then the less esteemed Dragon Ball GT series. Excitement in the franchise was then restored with the well-received Dragon Ball Super series.
“Dragon Ball Super had more of the elements of Dragon Ball Z,” said Smaili. “It was extremely popular and did very well, so based on this, Bandai decided to create a card game out of it.”
Released on May 25, 2018, The Tournament of Power set is the most sought-after of the Dragon Ball Super card series, and it was the Secret Rare Son Goku – The Awakened Power single in particular that captivated Smaili.
“That card has essentially become the Charizard of the Dragon Ball trading card game,” said Smaili. “It’s rare. It’s the most iconic card in the set. It’s the most powerful, and you can even see similar features in the art itself to the original Charizard artwork.”
But while he has seen the value of that card rise substantially since he started purchasing examples, he hasn’t cashed in on them.
“I’m not heavily focused on the business side,” said Smaili. “I’ve been mostly focused on promoting Dragon Ball Super because these cards truly deserve collector recognition.”
Part of his promotional efforts have included the aforementioned Facebook group that now has more than 2,000 members. He also spreads the word through his podcast and Instagram account.
On top of his extensive collection of Tournament of Power cards, he’s also pursuing Dragon Ball Super trophy cards.
“In terms of sentimental value, The Awakened Power card is the card that really got me introduced to and excited about Dragon Ball. It’s the card that got me into chasing, and to this day, it’s still the card that means the most to me,” said Smaili. “But in terms of pure monetary value, the trophies that I have now are worth more.”
The Dragon Ball Super card game has only been around since 2017 and the first national tournament wasn’t held until the following year, so there aren’t a lot of trophy cards yet.
Smaili points out that there was only a national tournament held in the United States in 2018 and the first, second and third place finishers at that event received gold metal trophy cards, each picturing a different Dragon Ball Super character. Just one of each of these gold trophy cards was produced.
Smaili owns the second-place trophy card from the 2018 tournament that features Son Goku and it’s called “The Soul Striker.”
“I’d say out of everything, that’s my most prized card because it’s from the first championship, and, of course, it features a fearless title that embodies Goku perfectly. Because it was from the first year, only one was ever made in the world, a true one-of-one,” said Smaili.
With the game’s popularity growing, national championships were held in several different countries in 2019. Gold trophy cards were again awarded to the first, second and third place finishers at each event.
“The three different 2019 gold trophy cards pictured Vegito, Broly and Vegeta,” explained Smaili. “And the rules stated that whoever won first got to choose whichever metal card they wanted. Then whoever won second got to choose what they wanted, and the third-place winner would be left with the remaining card. So, for 2019, there was no official designation on the gold trophy cards to distinguish the first, second or third place cards.”
One additional appeal of the 2019 trophy cards is that they showcased original art.
“I’m a big fan of unique art,” said Smaili. “That was the difference between the 2019 trophy cards and the 2018 cards. For The Soul Striker [2018], that trophy card used the very same art as the original. But in 2019, they created exclusive art for the top three placer cards.”
Smaili points out that in 2019, along with the gold trophy cards, the winners also received stamped trading cards.
“For every gold metal card, they also had a regular cardboard card of it,” explained Smaili, who owns a PSA-graded example of each of these. “But that card actually has an official first, second or third place stamp on the card so the winners could not choose those.”
Smaili notes that the art on the stamped cards is the same as that on the gold trophy cards, but the stamped cards showcase the art in vibrant color.
“I have both the complete set of stamps and the complete set of golds from 2019,” said Smaili. “As far as I know, I’m the only person to own the top three master set. They’re really hard to come by because a lot of the players just don’t want to let go of them.”
As with many events around the world, the Dragon Ball Super national championships were cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, the only trophy cards handed out last year were distributed at a few regional events staged early in the year.
Despite the pandemic, the market for Dragon Ball Super cards has remained strong and Smaili adds that with the increased popularity of the card game, trophy cards are becoming even more difficult to obtain.
“In 2018, after the first national tournament, the three golds were sold within a week,” noted Smaili. “In 2019, that was not the case. With the success of the game, players are choosing to hold onto them. And with the pandemic of 2020, the unpredictability made it even harder.”
And there are pros and cons to this for Smaili.
“As someone who wants to see the game succeed, I’m happy,” he said. “But I also want to collect all of these cards. So, it’s kind of a double-edged sword.”
The ambitious collector discovered PSA grading about 10 years ago when he was collecting Pokémon cards.
“PSA has the reputation and history for being the best,” said Smaili. “I send cards to PSA all the time.”
The biggest reason he has his Dragon Ball Super cards graded by PSA is that he wants to preserve the artwork on the cards.
“Being a fan of the artwork, a fan of the details the cards have and how great they look from a collector’s perspective, I thought, ‘I want to keep these in mint condition. I want to preserve them.’ And that was the driving factor for having them graded,” said Smaili.
The veteran hobbyist says there has been a spike in Dragon Ball Super collectors in recent months, and in today’s competitive hobby landscape, he believes it would be very difficult to accumulate the number of cards he currently has.
“In 2018, when we first started our Facebook group, we had maybe 50 members. Now we have over 2,000,” said Smaili. “It has skyrocketed in growth.”
He also believes the demand for Dragon Ball Super cards will continue to increase.
“What people are starting to see is that if you were to put modern card games side by side, hands down Bandai is killing it with Dragon Ball,” said Smaili. “I still keep tabs on modern Pokémon and modern Magic, but in my opinion, the art continues to just not be as strong as it used to be, and until that changes, the Dragon Ball artwork is leaps and bounds above the competition.”
And with this growing interest in the collectability of Dragon Ball TCG cards, it’s only a matter of time before hobbyists will start heading to the PSA Set Registry to start cataloging their own card collections and competing with other like-minded TCG fans. Visit the site today to view the Dragon Ball sets currently available for collector participation or to request a new set for inclusion. Be one of the first to obtain 100% completion in your favorite Dragon Ball set!