History Main / JunkRare

** [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Millhouse_Manastorm Millhouse Manastorm]] from the classic set is an overstatted 4/4 minion with the derimetral battlecry effect of making any spell your opponent has in his hand free during his turn. The sheer amount of value your opponent can gain from free spells is capable of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HbCgY2b9v8 making you lose as soon as you play Millhouse]], as about every class use many spells in their decks. The only time this was averted was during the era of the [[GameBreaker/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft infamous Call To Armas Paladin]] was reigning the meta, and thats because of a [[LoopholeAbuse Loophole Abuse]] more than anything else (when call to arms summons millhouse from the deck, his battlecry doesn't apply and is otherwise a strong 4/4).

** [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Millhouse_Manastorm Millhouse Manastorm]] from the classic set is an overstatted 4/4 minion with the derimetral battlecry effect of making any spell your opponent has in his hand free during his turn.

** Gargantuar's Feast. A Legendary trick that summons 3 random, hard-hitting Gargantuars that the Plant Hero can't do anything about would be cool. But the fact that it's so expensive (12 brains) that you'll hardly ever get a chance to play it. In order to be viable, you basically need to combo it with an Event card, Gargologist, which means using a low-tier TierInducedScrappy.

* Some Servants in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' [[TierInducedScrappy can fall behind their comrades]] due to their skill-set or stats not living up to their rarity status, but the majority are still decent. When it comes to truly Junk Rare status, these Servants take it to an art form:

* Anchors are the rarest items in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'': every other world has a level where collecting [[GuideDangIt an untold number of coins]] spawns a White Mushroom House that gives you an anchor. All the anchor does is stop the airship from changing its place on the map if you die. The airship moving can only really hinder your progress if you skipped stages after getting a GameOver in the current world. A rare glitch in World 5 (fixed in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioAllStars'' and ''Super Mario Advance 4'') can make the airship fly to an [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable unreachable square]], so it's probably most useful there.
* In ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', Red Diamonds are tied with Gold Diamonds as the rarest treasure in the game, with only two found, and one of them is literally ''[[FinalBoss King Boo]]’s crown''. However, unlike the incredibly valuable Blue and Gold Diamonds (2,000,000G and a whopping ''20,000,000G'' [the game’s highest] respectively), Red Diamonds fall straight-up flat as they are just worth ''5,000G, same as a coin no less''!

*** Many shinies that are not obtained by hatching eggs or by completing tasks (Pokémon obtained through these methods generally have good IV's) tend to be this, with their poor IV's making them little more than something nice to show off at gyms.

** Spinda in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl]]''. While many Pokémon that used to be exclusive to the "swarms" mechanic in the original Gen IV games have become available in the Grand Underground in the remakes, Spinda is not one of them. To makes things worse, thanks to an incompatibility related to Spinda's spots, [[note]] Spinda is a unique Pokémon that can have over 4 billion different spot patterns. The position of its four spots is determined by its personality value, which is a 32-bit number. Technical issues regarding how the games render the spots have caused an incompatibility between them, thus Spinda has been restricted from being moved between the games using Home.[[/note]] Spinda cannot be transferred from Pokémon HOME to ''Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl'' or vice-versa, which means that not even obtaining Spinda from a previous generation, Pokémon GO, or the GTS can be used to fill its Pokédex entry. Therefore, the only way to obtain Spinda in BDSP aside from link trades with other players is by waiting for it to be the swarming Pokémon of the day. The odds of it being Spinda are 1/28, so it can take weeks for it to appear. All of this for a Pokémon with an awful spread of 60 points on every base stat.

* This happens due to random assignment tables in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': just because you got assigned an extremely rare 'Mech is no indicator of its usefulness or battlefield prowess. The ''Ostscout'', for instance, is one of the rarest 'Mechs in the game, but is a FragileSpeedster that carries almost no effective weaponry or armor and is relegated to a passive reconaissance role at best. This extended to the rarity system in the ''Battletech'' CCG, where it was possible for the rare card in a booster to be a LightningBruiser such as the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ryoken_B_%28Stormcrow%29_%28CCG_-_Counterstrike%29 Ryoken B]]''...or a nearly pointless JokeCharacter like the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Baboon_%28Howler%29_%28CCG_-_Mercenaries%29 Baboon]].'' This gets even worse if the random table includes things like prototypes or primitive tech--it's possible to get assigned ''the very first 'Mech design ever built'' that way. Hope you like having a slow, inefficient, underarmed museum piece!

** 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."

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 as once thought]]. If it gains enough [[MemeticMutation notoriety]], it ensures that it'll never leave the players minds.

** 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 getting 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 Pokédex filler.

** Most baby Pokémon are also this in the earlier generations. Many of them require you to capture and breed their evolved form(s), sometimes after obtaining a rare item, and then carry an egg around in one of your party slots until it hatches, for a Pokémon that is ultimately weaker than the one you started with due to being unevolved and baby Pokémon often having pitiful stats. Even raised up baby Pokémon are often worthless, as statistically there's no difference between a Raichu that started as a Pikachu and a Raichu that started as a Pichu. However, some Pokémon do have moves they can only learn in their baby forms (Wobbuffet, for example, can only learn Encore as a Wynaut) so there is some occasional use for them. Some appear in the wild like regular Pokémon in later games, though, and starting in Gen 6 baby Pokémon will always have at least three max [=IVs=], making it worth your effort to try getting a Pokémon in its baby form, as unless you're breeding Pokémon with multiple maxed [=IVs=] already, it's extremely unlikely you'll find a non-baby Pokémon with multiple max [=IVs=].

** First of all, maybe they're not objectively "bad", they're just not for you. ''Magic'' has a lot of demographics to cater to, so not all cards will be a good match for everyone. Some people even ''like'' "bad" cards for the puzzle of trying to make them work -- and sometimes they succeed and prove they were never "bad" after all. (Example: 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.)

May be AwesomeButImpractical, CoolButInefficient, or a UselessUsefulSpell. If it's only available through a special promotion, it's a PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage. Not to be confused with CommonplaceRare, which is when something that would be worthless junk in real life is useful and difficult to obtain in a game.

This is not exclusive to {{Collectible Card Game}}s--RandomDrops can qualify as well, and when they do they are often also VendorTrash.

** Thanks to random loot rolls, it's possible to end up with magical equipment that nobody in the party can get much use of. Of particular note is enhancement bonuses on weapons and armor, 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 [[VendorTrash worth significantly more if sold]]).

** Back in the days of vanilla ''World of Warcraft'', Molten Core's Sulfuron Harbinger encounter occasionally ended in disappointment when one of the items dropped was [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=17074 Shadowstrike.]] Sure, it had the gimmick of transforming into [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=17223 Thunderstrike]] and back. But it was a Polearm (so Priests, Mages, Warlocks, and Rogues couldn't use it) with inferior DPS to [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=18822 other two-handers]] (so Warriors and Paladins didn't want it) and no [[StatSticks stat bonuses]] (so Hunters, Druids, and Shamans didn't want it either). No surprise that its nickname became "[[VendorTrash Vendorstrike]]", and later "Nexusstrike," as it became a reliable source of Nexus Crystals from disenchanting.

* Several named weapons in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' have unique appearances, occasionally special effects, and are slightly better than their baseline counterparts, but are underpowered compared to most regular weapons. You'll be happy to claim Pacer's straight razor "Figaro", but you won't be fighting any serious battles with it. There are also a number of very rare yet worthless VendorTrash items, such as the Rake.

* Any game with a loot system, such as the ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Torchlight}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series, will fall into this sooner or later thanks to the RandomNumberGod. Particularly noticeable in Borderlands, where quests will often reward you with unique, named guns which statistically are nothing more than VendorTrash.

*** The construction update would later give a use to these jars (as well as other jars introduced for other bosses): they're used to create boss statues in your house's achievement gallery. You need to have killed said boss at least once to erect a stature and they don't do anything outside of looking cool and serving as [[CosmeticAward displayable proof that you defeated the boss.]] The fact that you can just buy the jars means you don't even need to grind the bosses to get these displays either; just kill a boss once and buy its jar off of someone.

* [[SuperBoss Omega Mk. XII]] on ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has an insanely low chance of dropping a Mythril Sword. The most basic sword on the game which you start with. It's also the only place in the game to get a second one as no shops sell them.

* Thanks to random loot rolls, it's possible in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 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).

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', Karla is a character whose recruitment requirements are [[ThatOneSidequest so wonky and obscure]] that [[GuideDangIt many blind players never even learn she exists]]. Recruiting her requires you to a) be playing Hector Mode, which can only be done on at least your third playthrough, b) have Bartre, a seriously mediocre axe fighter with the worst base Speed in the game, survive to Chapter 31x, which is basically the end of the game, c) train Bartre to at least level 10, promote him, and then keep training him until he gets to level 5 of his new class, d) bring him to Chapter 31x, e) have him engage Karla in battle while armed, and f) have both survive that round of combat. So with all that in mind, Karla should be an amazing character, right? Wrong: she's a swordmaster (arguably the worst melee combat class in the game) who has abysmal damage output and range, dies in two hits to many enemies, has mediocre-at-best growth rates and no time to train her, and despite being designed as a FragileSpeedster, is actually slow enough that she not only fails to double the endgame bosses, but can be doubled by some of them in return.

** In general, any shiny Pokémon that is useless in battle. Shiny Luvdisc sure looks pretty, but it will end up in a PC box immediately after anyway. Also unless meticulously bred a shiny Pokémon will probably have an unfitting nature and/or not good [=IVs=] that makes it not optimal for actual battling or even useless; that shiny Sneasel sure is nice to have, but it has a Quiet nature reducing its most valuable asset in its Speed while raising its nearly non-existent Special Attack? Into the PC it immediately goes to only ever be gawked at for eternity. Starting in Gen 7, however, Hyper Training was introduced, where in exchange for a Bottle Cap, you can make any of a Pokémon's [=IVs=] function effectively at the max of 31 and for a Gold Bottle Cap make all their [=IVs=] be effectively maxed, and starting in Gen 8, there are Mints that can change which stats get increased and decreased by nature to any corresponding nature you want, so now you do have a workaround to salvage the battle usefulness of any shiny that got an undesirable nature or [=IVs=], at least for postgame usage.

** One of the rarest cards to ever hit mass retail is Ten Thousand Dragon, a card created to commemorate its status as the ten thousandth card ever released. It was released in Starfoil Rare (one copy per two cases, each one of which contains 288 booster packs), and it wasn't even the only card in its set released at that rarity. Unlike most cards released at that rarity, it wasn't printed at anything lower, either, so the high-rarity version is the only option. So what does it do? Well, you summon it by tributing monsters whose combined ATK and DEF equals 10,000 or more, and its stats become 10,000 upon being summoned. While this is a rather absurdly high value, the card has no other effects or protection and is nigh-on guaranteed to not survive the next turn (or even the same turn), there are many easier ways to bring a monster up to a similarly high value with far less risk or investment, and its summoning condition requires giving up monsters with high stats anyway.

* Anchors are the rarest items in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'': every other world has a level where collecting [[GuideDangIt an untold number of coins]] spawns a White Mushroom House that gives you an anchor. All the anchor does is stop the airship from changing its place on the map if you die. The airship moving can only really hinder your progress if you skipped stages after getting a GameOver in the current world. A rare glitch in World 5 (fixed in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioAllStars'' and ''Super Mario Advance 4'') can make the airship fly to an [[UnwinnableByMistake unreachable square]], so it's probably most useful there.

May be AwesomeButImpractical, CoolButInefficient, or a UselessUsefulSpell. If it's only available through a special promotion, it's a PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage.