Fuggler decks bring Labubu's blind-box chase to playing cards

Hong Kong's Room One Cards has opened pre-orders on a licensed Fuggler collection sold the way Pop Mart sells Labubu, one deck to unpack inside of a blind box. There are six regular designs and a secret rare that you can pull.¹ One box costs $16, a six-box set runs $96 and orders ship between late December and early January. Ocean Ng, Room One's head of marketing and sales, told us the company has "always believed playing cards can be much more than just something you pull out for game night. We want to make them fun, surprising, and collectible again."

The secret deck "has an approximate pull rate of 1 in 30 blind boxes, or roughly one in every five trays" of six boxes each, according to Ng, who called it "definitely something special for collectors to hunt for!" That works out to around $480 in boxes, on average, before you find one. CNN reported last year that Pop Mart advertises 1-in-72 odds on a secret Labubu, which at about $27 for a Big into Energy box on its US store puts the same hunt close to $2,000.²³

"It's definitely something special for collectors to hunt for!" said Ocean Ng of Room One Cards.

Ng said Fuggler, the funny-ugly monster brand, "felt like a perfect fit!" because its "quirky personalities and iconic human-like teeth gave us so many creative possibilities." Room One took the teeth literally, building false teeth right into three of the tuck boxes, Rabid Rabbit, Suspicious Fox and Indecisive Monster, while Oogah Boogah gets button eyes instead.¹

Room One says it is "bringing different communities together: Fuggler fans, playing card collectors, magicians, and even people who have never collected playing cards before." The pitch reaches past all of them to anyone with an old deck in a drawer at home, because in Ng's words, "We believe everyone deserves a better, more exciting deck of cards, one that brings people together, creates laughter, and makes spending time with friends and family even more special." Room One doesn't mind what buyers do with the box once it arrives: "Some people will want to keep them sealed and display them, while others will open them immediately and enjoy a game night with loved ones. We love both!"

Ocean Ng of Room One Cards: "At Room One, we've always believed playing cards can be much more than just something you pull out for game night."

Collectors have been buying playing card decks they never play for more than 500 years. Gas stations, hotel lobbies, and medieval marketplaces. The Cloisters Playing Cards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made around 1475 to 1480, are the only known complete deck of illuminated ordinary playing cards from the 15th century. The Met says they were "hardly used, if at all," and may have been made as a collector's curiosity rather than a deck for play.⁴

Asked how Room One's earlier chase decks have traded, Ng pointed back to the box itself: "For us, the excitement is really about the experience of opening a blind box, discovering something unexpected, and enjoying the collection rather than its potential resale value." Room One prints the decks on its house 290gsm Afflux stock, which it says is made to be "shuffled, fanned, and abused without falling apart."¹

I respect the swing. Room One took the format that turned Labubu into a craze, gave it better odds than Pop Mart has advertised and pointed it at the deck sitting in a drawer at home. Ng told us more Fuggler drops are "planned through the first half of 2027." It all comes down to the chase and the product quality.