A Glittery Cube Full of SCP Foundation Trading Cards

Time to get back to the content nobody but me is here for, SCP Foundation trading cards! I know most people are here for the Anime cards, like Dragon Ball, One Piece and Demon Slayer. I’ve got all those bases covered, but my own personal indulgence, the cards I put in their own special binder I like them so much are these SCP cards. Yes, I know the artwork is stolen, I wish the creators had been paid – but the product exists now, somebody might as well enjoy it.

The Box

Being the 5-yuan box from the first series, YSCR1, you should expect something eye catching. This delivers. Although my copy was severely damaged during shipping – all the packs are here, and I can still show you what it looks like. I’ll likely re-order this and the 10-yuan box at some point from a vendor I trust just so I have an undamaged copy of each. I have no clue how they will ship that triangular 10-yuan box without damaging it, but I know a few vendors who could figure it out.

I bought this one from Shop5298002 on AliExpress, it was one of the very first orders I ever put in, before I had any cards at all in my possession. I remember thinking that this is basically a 100$ gamble, maybe I get something cool, maybe I get ripped off, but I can’t go through life without knowing. Would not recommend this vendor, I’ve never ordered from them again and I don’t intend to. Their shipping was terrible and led to the damage you see on this box.

And look at that box! Even with all this damage it looks like total chaos, which is exactly what you want from a higher tier SCP set. Every surface is covered with various kinds of foil lettering, there is even a sticker of SCP-173 on the box and every pack. The artwork, although mostly stolen from users, is incredibly well presented here. This would certainly catch your eye on any retail shelf, which is exactly it’s intended purpose.

The box has a complex foldout/pop-out system like all these 5-yuan cube boxes do, this one is too damaged to put together correctly. The intention is for that multi-color bird-like thing’s head to pop-out as a relief, and then the front of the box partially pops out to reveal the single row of 20 packs. The packs are supported underneath by a foiled cardboard ramp that will keep them forward so it always looks full on the shelf.

On the box many SCP are featured, including SCP-173 having it’s own entire panel. That particular SCP seems especially popular in the Chinese community, you will find many items with that image on it being sold on AliExpress beyond trading cards. This property is popular enough amongst the general population to have multiple series of products created for it. Compare that with here where in a room of 100 people, none of them would know what SCP was unless you get really lucky.

We also see SCP001-22 which is a recurring entity called the Crimson or Scarlet King, this one gets a panel on the outside and another full panel on the interior fold.

The Set of SCP Foundation Trading Cards

On the back of the cube is the manufacturing labeling and a handy guide to the cards in this set. This is set YCSR01’s 5-yuan box, you could combine this list with the YSCX01 list here, but you’ll have to wait until I open the YSCR01 1-yuan box for the real complete list. This list is just the special prints, or new rarities found in the 5-yuan packs. Often the higher tier packs don’t just have more rare cards, they will have entirely new cards that are not available at all in the lower tiers. This is why I bought each box, and not just multiple 1-yuan boxes. The LR rarity is exclusive to 5-yuan in this set, and then we see there are 8 reprinted/upgraded GR cards in these packs.

Look at those packs, these are really colorful, these both look and feel like significant upgrades over the 2-yuan packs we saw before. The packs are covered with text saying they are “higher secrets” and things like that. The SCP173 is a special chase card in these 5-yuan packs, that’s why it has a whole section on there. The big letters at the bottom say something like “Containment Breach” which is how this set is often translated, however the 2-yuan box has this translated as “Failure of Reception” in english letters so I use that name. It’s weird but both translations are completely valid for those characters, Chinese is a difficult and complex language.

Also on the packs is that handy set guide so you know generally how much of each rarity is in these. From that guide I can tell these packs are adding quite a bit to set 1. We’ve got the new LR of course, 4 more GRs, 5 more SSRs and an entire new subset rarity in CR with 17 cards! Given I’m only getting 20 packs in this box, that’s even more reason for me to order a second box and hope the shipping isn’t as rough on it. That said there are 8 cards in each of these packs so maybe my luck will be better than I expect.