History Main / JunkRare

** The worst Secret Rare of all time is likely [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Return_Zombie Return Zombie, released at Secret Rare in Premium Pack 6 (admittedly, the pack had shifted rarities, but still). Its effect is to return itself to the hand by paying LP, but only during your Standby Phase and only if you have no cards in your hand. As the Standby Phase happens right after the Draw Phase (where you draw a card), there are only two situations where this card can activate: either your Draw Phase was blocked somehow (i.e. your own [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reckless_Greed Reckless Greed]] or your opponent's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Time_Seal Time Seal]]), or the card was activated or discarded during your Draw Phase (i.e. it was a quick effect activating in the hand, or your opponent triggered [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Drop_Off Drop Off]]). These situations are ridiculously rare, most of the cards capable of causing them reliably are banned, and even ''in'' those situations, Return Zombie's stats are too bad for it to really do anything other than maybe block one attack.

** The game's creators had fun with this when they introduced secret rare ''XY-Evolutions Imakuni's Doduo''. It's power involves ''throwing the card across the room'' when retreating it, and the attack requires ''singing.'' And oh yeah. At the bottom is the red text, "This card cannot be used at official tournaments."

** Sealmaster Meisei from Ancient Sanctuary. A vanilla 1100 attack monster whose gimmick relies on two floodgate cards that contradict each other. It is simply insulting to see cards get this kind of rarity in sets released much later despite its potential support.

** There are plenty of rare {{Mons}} without much going for them in-battle: Tangela and Lickitung are this in the first generation, and subsequent games follow in their footsteps with such duds as Qwilfish and Dunsparce. However, Chimecho takes the cake here: In its [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire debut games]], it is located in a small area of a story location well off the beaten path, only has a 2% chance of appearing there, has a catch rate lower than some [[OlympusMons Legendary Pokémon]], and isn't used by any trainer in the game, so [[GuideDangIt you can't use the Pokédex to find it]]. If you somehow get lucky enough to find and catch it, you'll discover that it's one of the weakest Psychic-types ever introduced, with mediocre stats and a terrible movepool.

** The Generation 1 games had many Pokémon that were hard to find and get or limited to a single obtainable mon per file, but because of Gen 1's notoriously terrible balancing, just ended up being useless. Scyther and Pinsir, Aerodactyl, Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, Ditto, Magmar, and Marowak were all such Pokémon that were at least usable by the Gen 3 remakes (or in Ditto's case, gained a very valuable niche for breeding purposes), but in Gen 1 were useless to battle with and not remotely worth the effort of getting them beyond filling up your Pokédex.

** Supposedly, Farfetch'd is a [[PigInAPoke deliberate example]] of a rare junk. In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' it can only be gotten by trading a more-useful Spearow (who are thankfully common as all get out). While fine at lower levels, it isn't an especially useful Pokémon once it levels up more. It's a reference and parallel to a Japanese phrase "a duck comes bearing spring onions." Or a different interpretation which basically translates into "there's a sucker born every minute" -- much like how a more useful mon has to be traded for it in the first generation.

** The Generation 1 games had many Pokémon that were hard to find and get or limited to a single obtainable mon per file, but because of Gen 1's notoriously terrible balancing, just ended up being useless. Scyther and Pinsir, Aerodactyl, Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, Ditto, Magmar, and Marowak were all such Pokémon that were at least usable by the Gen 3 remakes (or in Ditto's case, gained a very valuable niche for breeding purposes), but in Gen 1 were useless to battle with and not remotely worth the effort of getting them beyond filling up your Pokedex.
** The most notorious example of a rare yet useless Pokémon spanning the series is Phione. Phione is technically a Mythical Pokémon, with the only way of obtaining it being through an [[GuideDangIt arcane method]], which requires geting a Manaphy (another mythical Pokémon that could only be obtained legitimately through the ''VideoGame/PokemonRanger'' game back in Gen 4 and in events in later Gens), and breeding it with a Ditto (when normally you can't breed legendary/mythical Pokémon at all, even those with genders). If you actually went through the trouble of getting a Manaphy and just somehow thought to try breeding it with a Ditto, your reward would be a Phione... which is a drastically weaker Pokémon with a more limited movepool (including losing Tail Glow, the main move that made Manaphy so good), and despite being bred from it Phione does not evolve into Manaphy nor anything else. With all its stats being a painfully mediocre 80 and lacking Tail Glow or anything else to give it real distinguished utility, Phione is a blatant MasterOfNone that is good at absolutely nothing and serves no purpose other than blatant Pokedex filler.

** Another example from ''Pokemon GO'' is the exclusive Snorlax move from the Sleeping Snorlax event used to advertise ''Pokémon Sleep'': Yawn, a Fast Move that does absolutely nothing and is only in the game in the first place to counterbalance Slaking's immense stats.

** In some cases, Pokémon with Hidden Abilities can be this. Depending on the game you’re playing, getting a Pokémon with one can be relatively easy or a long, hard and tedious task [[note]] Special mention goes to the Max Raid Battles in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', where you have to find an active den in the wild area that casually has the Pokémon that you want, reunite a group of trainers online (which have its problems) or failing that, mostly useless NPC trainers, and THEN fight a long and difficult boss battle to have ONE chance to capture a Pokémon with a low catch rate. All for the slim chance that said Pokémon has the ability.[[/note]], but generally, the results are worth it since most of those abilities are more suitable for competitive battles. However, like the useless shinies mentioned above, it depends on the Pokémon species, as there are species that have hidden abilities that are worse than their regular ones, like Araquanid who, instead of an ability that boosts its Water attacks, makes it resistant to Fire, and grants it immunity to burn status, it gets one that makes it immune to a type that it's already resistant against. Other more evident examples are Audino with Klutz and Durant with Truant [[note]]Both can learn Entrainment and use it to pass the ability to other Pokémon, but these strategies need an elaborate setup to work since when the affected Pokémon is changed, the effect is neutralized.[[/note]]. And since it's not possible to exchange a normal ability for a hidden one, the reverse is also true. If you found a Pokémon with a worthless hidden ability, it's stuck with it. This is especially painful if it happens to also be a shiny. Even the Ability Patch introduced in Sword and Shield can only change a regular ability to a hidden ability.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' features a fishing mechanic which can be added in where fish caught can be exchanged for resources Zagreus can use to upgrade the Underworld, his weapons, and Nyx's mirror. The rarest fish in the game is the Voidskate, which can only be caught in Chaos' realm. It's incredibly rare for a fishing point to even spawn in Chaos' realm in the first place, making getting this specific fish even harder to come by. You'd think for it's rarity, it'd boast the best reward to compensate for it but instead you'll only get awarded 500 Darkness which, while useful for Upgrading Nyx's mirror, becomes rather worthless in the post-game if you have already managed to max it out, making Darkness only useful for [[CosmeticAward Cosmetic Awards]]. As a consolation, Darkness has the deepest and least fungible [[MoneySink sinks]] for those cosmetic awards, making the Voidskate desirable for collecting them, though even then the reward still comes up short relative to its rarity.

* ''VideoGame/KantaiCollection'': Quite a few rare (gold/rainbow background) ships are outclassed by its more common (blue/silver background) counterparts. This is most apparent in the Destroyer class, where the strongest ships in that particular class are almost all common drops with [[MagikarpPower second remodels]].

Naturally, one player's AwesomeButImpractical is another player's [[RuleOfCool Who Cares How Impractical It Is, It's Awesome!]] And one should never underestimate the power of NarmCharm. And HundredPercentCompletion. It's also possible that someone may even find a use for it and it turns out [[LethalJokeCharacter it's not as bad]] [[DifficultButAwesome as once thought]]. If it gains enough [[MemeticMutation notoriety]], it ensures that it'll never leave the players minds.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' features a fishing mechanic which can be added in where fish caught can be exchanged for resources Zagreus can use to upgrade the Underworld, his weapons, and Nyx's mirror. The rarest fish in the game is the Voidskate, which can only be caught in Chaos' realm. It's incredibly rare for a fishing point to even spawn in Chaos' realm in the first place, making getting this specific fish even harder to come by. You'd think for it's rarity , it'd boast the best reward to compensate for it but instead you'll only get awarded 500 Darkness which, while useful for Upgrading Nyx's mirror, becomes rather worthless in the post-game if you have already managed to max it out. By that point, the only thing Darkness is good for is buying a higher job title, which itself is only a CosmeticAward.

** Cards that are complicated in some way (like weird rules interactions or even just a WallOfText) are rare in order to avoid overwhelming beginner players with advanced concepts. On that note, [[https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/new-world-order-2011-12-05 the designers later instituted a rule]] that any cards with a unique mechanic designed for the current block usually go into rare (or at least uncommon) to keep commons newbie-friendly.

** In some cases, Pokémon with Hidden Abilities can be this. Depending on the game you’re playing, getting a Pokémon with one can be relatively easy or a long, hard and tedious task [[note]] Special mention goes to the Max Raid Battles in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', where you have to find an active den in the wild area that casually has the Pokémon that you want, reunite a group of trainers online (which have its problems) or failing that, mostly useless NPC trainers, and THEN fight a long and difficult boss battle to have ONE chance to capture a Pokémon with a low catch rate. All for the slim chance that said Pokémon has the ability.[[/note]], but generally, the results are worth it since most of those abilities are more suitable for competitive battles. However, like the useless shinies mentioned above, it depends on the Pokémon species, as there are species that have hidden abilities that are worse than their regular ones, like Araquanid who, instead of an ability that boosts its Water attacks, makes it resistant to Fire, and grants it immunity to burn status, it gets one that makes it immune to a type that it's already resistant against. Other more evident examples are Audino with Klutz and Durant with Truant [[note]]Both can learn Entrainment and use it to pass the ability to other Pokémon, but these strategies need an elaborate setup to work since when the affected Pokémon is changed, the effect is neutralized.[[/note]]. And since it's not possible to exchange a normal ability for a hidden one, the reverse is also true. If you found a Pokémon with a worthless hidden ability, it's stuck with it. This is especially painful if it happens to also be a shiny. Fortunately, Sword and Shield's second batch of DownloadableContent introduced the Ability Patch item, which allows a Pokémon to switch from its normal ability to its hidden ability and vice versa.

** In some cases, Pokémon with Hidden Abilities can be this. Depending on the game you’re playing, getting a Pokémon with one can be relatively easy or a long, hard and tedious task [[note]] Special mention goes to the Max Raid Battles in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', where you have to find an active den in the wild area that casually has the Pokémon that you want, reunite a group of trainers online (which have its problems) or failing that, mostly useless NPC trainers, and THEN fight a long and difficult boss battle to have ONE chance to capture a Pokémon with a low catch rate. All for the slim chance that said Pokémon has the ability.[[/note]], but generally, the results are worth it since most of those abilities are more suitable for competitive battles. However, like the useless shinies mentioned above, it depends on the Pokémon species, as there are species that have hidden abilities that are worse than their regular ones, like Araquanid who, instead of an ability that boosts its Water attacks, makes it resistant to Fire, and grants it immunity to burn status, it gets one that makes it immune to a type that it's already resistant against. Other more evident examples are Audino with Klutz and Durant with Truant [[note]]Both can learn Entrainment and use it to pass the ability to other Pokémon, but these strategies need an elaborate setup to work since when the affected Pokémon is changed, the effect is neutralized.[[/note]]. And since it's not possible to exchange a normal ability for a hidden one, the reverse is also true. If you found a Pokémon with a worthless hidden ability, it's stuck with it. This is especially painful if it happens to also be a shiny.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' features a fishing mechanic which can be added in where fish caught can be exchanged for resources Zagreus can use to upgrade the Underworld, his weapons, and Nyx's mirror. The rarest fish in the game is the Voidskate, which can only be caught in Chaos' realm. It's incredibly rare for a fishing point to even spawn in Chaos' realm in the first place, making getting this specific fish even harder to come by. You'd think for it's rarity , it'd boast the best reward to compensate for it but instead you'll only get awarded 500 Darkness which, while useful for Upgrading Nyx's mirror, becomes rather worthless in the post-game if you have already managed to max it out. By that point, the only thing Darkness is good for is buying a higher job title, which itself is only a CosmeticReward.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' features a fishing mechanic which can be added in where fish caught can be exchanged for resources Zagreus can use to upgrade the Underworld, his weapons, and Nyx's mirror. The rarest fish in the game is the Voidskate, which can only be caught in Chaos' realm. It's incredibly rare for a fishing point to even spawn in Chaos' realm in the first place, making getting this specific fish even harder to come by. You'd think for it's rarity , it'd boast the best reward to compensate for it but instead you'll only get awarded 500 Darkness which, while useful for Upgrading Nyx's mirror, becomes rather worthless in the post-game if you have already managed to max it out. By that point, the only thing Darkness is good for is buying a higher job title, [[BraggingRightsReward which itself is only a superficial reward]].

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has a lot of these, usually [[IntendedAudienceReaction on purpose]]. Mark Rosewater, the game's head designer, wrote a lengthy defense of the practice titled [[http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/rare-well-done-2002-02-25-0 "Rare, but Well Done,"]] in which he discusses in great detail why "bad" cards can be designated rare:
** Cards that are complicated in some way are rare in order to avoid overwhelming beginner players with advanced concepts.
** Building on the above, [[WallOfText any cards that require a lot of text automatically go into rare.]]

** If a card is too niche or too powerful for game formats with more limited card pools, then they're made rare to limit the disruption. On that note, any cards with a unique mechanic designed for the current block usually go into rare.

** And the designers can't just stick all the "good" cards in rare; they want some of the good stuff available in common and uncommon as well.
** And sometimes a JunkRare is shown not to be Junk. Necropotence was considered a useless card until a couple of players realized that one card is worth a lot more than one life, and the only life that counts is your last one. Necropotence is banned in most formats as it broke the Meta.

* Thanks to random loot rolls, it's possible in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' fifth edition to end up with magical equipment that nobody in the party can get much use of. Of particular note is +1 equipment, as it can either show up on weapons nobody in the party uses or on lower tier armor (Effectively making it the same as the tier above but worth significantly more if sold).

** Despite being a 4*, Artoria Lily was added to the normally 3*-and-under Friend Point gacha in 2020, with a 0.05% appearance rate. While this seems like a godsend to a lucky player, the reason Lily got added in the first place was that she's considered the worst 4* by a wide margin--she was deliberately undertuned statwise due to being initially given away for free as a PreOrderBonus, and even in comparison to her free peers, her skillset is completely unremarkable and her costs to upgrade and use are higher than the 3* Servants. And even if you do want Lily, the Saber Wars event and its rerun let you get your hands on five free copies of her anyway, so someone playing since launch would have ''eleven'' Lilies already!

** There is a "Short Print" rarity of card (or "Normal Rare" in Japan) where, even if the cards don't appear to be Rare, they are ''very'' hard to find. Often, Short Print cards are ''worse than your ordinary Commons''. [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Self-Mummification Just]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Localized_Tornado see]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Sound_the_Retreat! for]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_Shiver yourself.]]

** The most infamously bad rare card to date is a card called [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fusionist "Fusionist"]]. While all fusion monsters were Rare at the time, Fusionist stands out as not only is it weak (even for a fusion monster at the time) and is a Rare, but it actually has ''lower stats'' than Mystical Sheep #2, one of its component parts. And Mystical Sheep #2 has bad stats to begin with! Its only use is being an Instant Fusion target in Rank 3-focused decks.

** If a card is too niche or too powerful for game formats with more limited card pools, then they're made rare to limit the disruption.

** Angra Mainyu is the rarest thing that can be summoned in the game (to put it in perspective, he's 100x as rare as a 5 Star Servant!) as well as being the game's only 0* Servant, and he's a [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall self-admitted]] JokeCharacter. His stats are in line with the common 2* Servant, his skills don't provide much survivability (in fact, his most useful one also ''kills him'' after a few turns), and his Noble Phantasm is an unblockable AttackReflector that requires him to both survive the enemy's attack while also being dealt enough damage to actually do anything useful. His Bond Craft Essence gives him the ability to [[BackFromTheDead revive from the dead once during a fight]], but one can't help but feel like they're just putting him through more torture. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools This isn't a bad thing however]], as he really does suck that bad in-story as well [[EnsembleDarkhorse and it only contributes to his popularity]].

*** Klink would later pick up Eevee's slack, becoming one of the most common Pokémon in the 10k egg-pool when added to the game. Unlike Eevee, it's generally agreed to not be particularly great in the game, even when evolved all the way to Klinklang, and is extremely common in Raids on top of that.

** Doubled Mint. Legendary card, and hypothetically capable of [[GameBreaker having the highest stats in the game]]. But due to this, the chances ''anybody'' will let it survive even one turn are nonexistent, and thu it's entirely negated.