Cardinal is a cool new card rips site that stocks Pokemon, sports, One Piece, Riftbound and Lorcana cards. It offers much more than your regular randomized pack rips, too - including head-to-head battles, and unique mini games. In today’s Cardinal review, I’ll unbox the site’s services, and give you my thoughts on what I think is shaping up to be one of the best ripping platforms around.
First Things First - a Few Cardinal Basics…
For those of you who haven’t ripped randomized card packs online before, let me quickly run through how it works with Cardinal.
Cardinal’s primary service is simple. It offers site-curated, single card packs from popular Collectible Card Games (CCGs) like Pokemon and Riftbound. You can pay to open these packs digitally, after reviewing transparent probabilities of potential hits, then choose what to do with your physical card pulls afterwards.
Each time you rip a pack, you’ll get the following choices:
- Shipping
- first and foremost, Cardinal lets you ship physical cards direct to your door. Prominent third parties, including Collector Crypt and others, are used for shipping. So, fees and processing times vary.
- Sell-Back
- alternatively, you can flog unwanted pulls back to Cardinal for 85% of their Full Market Value (FMV). This is real reasonable, but not the best rate I’ve seen. There are other sites offering 95-100% if you’re willing to shop around. While it’s worth noting that Cardinal also charges a 2% Sell-Back fee.
Cardinal’s main T&Cs page states that normally, you’ll have 72 hours to decide what to do with your card after each pull. Although separate info I saw on their “Fairness” page suggests that some site-branded Packs might come with a tighter window of just three minutes. So, I’d recommend paying close attention to Pack-specific T&Cs ahead of each pull.
WELCOME OFFER FOR: MYSTERYBOXES, CARDRIPS
Open packs. Pull real slabs.
18+, Other T&Cs Apply
What Kinds of Cards Can You Rip at Cardinal?
As I said above, Cardinal covers quite a few different CCGs and trading card categories. These include Pokemon, sports, One Piece, Riftbound and Lorcana - with a multi-franchise “Anime” section available on the main “Packs” page, too. But no non-card mystery boxes were offered at the time of writing.
I found that Cardinal caters to all sorts of different spenders with its pricing, though. There are entry level “Chance” packs up for grabs from just $5, where you can pull either a Pokemon card or a site credit. This is great for beginners, but not quite as competitive as the $1 packs I found in my recent
Pickem Ripping Packs review. On the upside, spending $25 at Cardinal can get you either a “Silver”, “Creepy”, “Japan”, “Mega” or “Throwback” pack with better probabilities of pulling a grail, and a broader mix of rarer cards in the running.
Meanwhile, at the upper end of the price scale, you can purchase One Piece packs for $1,000+, or $5,000 Pokemon “Master” packs, which offer slim chances of pulling pro-graded “Top Pulls” with FMVs of $45,000 and $150,000, respectively, at the time of writing. Think first editions and ultra-rare slabs with PSA grade 10s -
if
you manage to hit ‘these, of course, because pulls are always completely randomized, remember?
Here’s a look at all the different types of packs available, their prices, and some of the site’s most exciting-looking potential pulls:
| Card pack category | Number of pack options | Price range | Potential high-value pulls |
Cardinal’s pack options definitely cater more toward Pokemon lovers than other collectors, then. The site’s a dream come true if you’re chasing shiny Japanese grail cards or trying to complete a 1996 Base Set. But it doesn’t shape up quite as well as competitors if you’re trying to lock down coveted Riftbound or One Piece slabs.
Other Services Up for Grabs at Cardinal
One thing I love about Cardinal is that the site ain’t all about randomized card pulls. In addition to its “Packs”, I found that the brand serves up these other cool services:
- Battles
- you can open packs as part of competitive player versus player (PvP) Battle games, with 1v1, 1v1v1v1 and 2v2 options available.
- Upgrader
- this mini game offers opportunities to potentially upgrade your existing pulls for more valuable cards, by playing a wheel-spinning game with switchable odds modes.
- Games
- this newly-launched site area offers a road crossing-themed mini game with switchable Pokemon play characters and difficulty settings.
- Trade
- here, you can browse single card sale listings, and make offers on any slabs you’re interested in. There’s also an option to “Stake” your own cards as target slabs for other users playing the Upgrader game.
- Chat and social features
- last but not least, you can chat with other collectors on-site, set up social media-style profile pages for flaunting your pulls, and compete on leaderboards.
In all fairness, I uncovered a pretty similar offering to Cardinal’s Battles in my recent
Unbox.gg review. But the other fun features up for grabs over here properly make Cardinal stand out from other card rips platforms I’ve seen, adding entirely new layers of entertainment and PvP interaction.
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Explore rare collectibles on Cardinal
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Chase Pokémon card drops at Cardinal
Who Can Rip Cards, Battle and Play Games with Cardinal?
Cardinal’s Packs, Battles and other services are currently available in all US states. But you’ll need to be 18+ to set up an account. While Cardinal requires email verification to sign up, and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks later, too. These are usually triggered when you request your first card shipment or withdrawal from the site. So, it pays to be prepared.
Availability is top of the class, then. And I found the site offers some sweet security features, too. Cardinal uses a provably fair system to ensure all pulls are verifiably randomized, for example. And the brand uses the Solana blockchain for its hashed seeds, too.
Cardinal’s site also has Transport Layer Security (TLS) style SSL encryption. And you can also set up Two Factor Authentication (2FA) with passkey security on sign up. This offers verification via Solana Web3 blockchain wallets rather than your usual, more generic SMS messages or authenticator apps.
Other peace of mind features I uncovered during today’s Cardinal review, were as follows:
- All cards are pro-graded
- usually by PSA, CGC or BGS.
- Moonpay is used for fiat payments
- meaning your billing data is never shared with Cardinal’s internal servers.
- Collector Crypt is a key fulfillment partner
- and they use temperature-controlled vault storage.
- Transparent pulling odds
- all packs get four tiers, with transparent percentage chances of pulling “Legendary”, “Epic”, “Rare” and “Common” cards, and potential card values clearly stated, too.
Payment Options - How Are Cards Purchased at Cardinal?
Cardinal runs on a virtual currency called “Credits”. And this means you’ll need to make a deposit into your account to get Credits before you can rip Packs, participate in Battles and buy into other on-site features.
Deposit methods include USDC and SOL, both processed via the Solana crypto network. You can also pick from fiat payment options, too. These include most popular debit cards, and are processed via Moonpay. $1 USD equals 1 Credit, and deposit limits vary between payment methods - Solana has a minimum of 0.01 SOL, for example.
The latest T&Cs suggest that eligible Credits can be withdrawn as USDC, subject to network costs and processing times. Meanwhile, your physical trading card pulls are handed and shipped via third party providers. So, you should make a point of checking shipping costs, packaging and insurance T&Cs on a card by card basis before requesting deliveries. Collector Crypt seems to be the site’s main fulfillment partner, though - which is great news, because their storage and shipping policies are transparent and highly sought after.
Are there any special offers for new customers at Cardinal? Well, unfortunately, no, there aren’t any new player
bonus on Cardinal. And this is a shame, because some competitors offer complimentary pack openings on sign up. Although to be fair, you
can buy “Chance” packs from just $5 here, while other promotions are available in the longer-term.
I didn’t spy any VIP or loyalty programs on Cardinal’s site right now. But I did run into a pretty competitive refer a friend program, which currently offers you the following three layers of perks:
- Up to 15% of your direct referrals’ losses
- 3% of any losses logged by players that your referrals have invited
- 1% of the losses accumulated by players referred another layer deep
You’ll need to generate a unique link from the “Referrals” page to grab a slice of the action. While I’d also recommend giving the program’s T&Cs a good, thorough read-through before giving it a go.
Site Design and Layout - How Easy Is Cardinal to Use?
Cardinal’s site does a grand job of making everything painlessly easy to find. Every webpage has single click tabs for “Packs”, “Battles”, “Games” and other features, while your “Vault” page makes keeping track of your pulls and requesting shipping and “Sell-Backs” a cinch.
With its bright white background and constant chat box refreshes, some collectors might find the dash a bit harsh on the eyes to be fair. But there are no annoying popups or banner ads to speak of. What’s more, the site has adjustable volume settings for all its sound effects, and there’s a cool “Fast Animation” function you can toggle on to turn down its energy-intensive card reveal animations a notch.
As already discussed, the site’s full of super-fun social features as well - including “Battles”, a “Leaderboard” and your own personal “Gallery”. But as it stands, there’s no iOS or Android app available for Cardinal. So, ripping from a smartphone or tablet means using your device’s browser to access their mobile-friendly site, instead.
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Enjoy Cardinal’s mobile-friendly site anywhere
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Discover card upgrades on Cardinal
Customer Support Options - How to Reach Out to Cardinal’s Team
In Cardinal’s site footer, you’ll find a link to the brand’s main “Contact” page. This acts as a hub for all things you need to know T&Cs, privacy and odds and fairness-wise.
The page is pretty limited in terms of actual contact options, though. At the time of writing there’s just one contact option available - and that’s email, which offers up replies within three business days. This is pretty disappointing to be honest. As most competitors offer real-time live chat, social media DMs and other contact options. But in Cardinal’s case, the link to their X page wasn’t working at the time of writing. And I couldn’t locate any social media presence for the brand elsewhere, either.
| Customer Service |
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| Available Languages: |
English
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Final Thoughts - a Fun Card Rips Site Full of Unique Features
Cardinal undeniably disappoints somewhat on the customer service and bonus fronts. But I think that the site’s far-reaching CCG options, competitive pricing and completely unique social and mini game features more than make up for this.
What you’re ultimately looking at here is a transparent, easy to use card rips platform. And not just that, but one that pairs with prominent fulfillment partners, properly pushes the boat out with its Pokemon card pack options, and offers competitive Battle and Upgrader modes and fair buyback policies to boot.
Don’t believe me? Try out Cardinal for yourself today by clicking the banners on this page.
Open packs. Pull real slabs.
Cardinal Review FAQ
🗂️ What Types of Card Packs Does Cardinal Offer?
Cardinal covers a lot of CCGs. These include Pokemon, One Piece, Riftbound and Lorcana. While sports cards get solid coverage, too, with football, basketball, soccer and multi-card packs all currently available.
🤔 Is Cardinal Any Good for Pokemon Fans?
Yup - absolutely. At the time of writing, Pokemon is by far the best-represented CCG on the platform, with 23 different card pack options available. These are priced from just $5 for a “Chance” pack, all the way up to $5,000 for a top-end “Master” pack.
❌ Does Cardinal Have Any Bonus Pack Offers?
Nope - not at the time of writing, I’m afraid. Although the site does have a competitive refer a friend program. And there’s no telling whether other promotions might make appearances in future.
Available with Dimers Pro
