Sold out within an hour after going live last Friday. Singlehandedly melted their servers too. While I was suffering in the pits of Tartarus trying to pre-order Black for more than 45 minutes, I checked on the other "popular" figures that went up for order alongside him - Gundam, Marvel, Star Wars... everything was still available.

Which both impresses and frightens me.

The thing is...I'm not new...but seriously I'm pissed now >.>
I completely forgot it was yesterday that it came for preorder....damn.

Where can I view the current top 5 for the vote?

They're only posting them at the end of each day, so the latest one was here.
https://twitter.com/t_features/statu...444236288?s=20

Cross-Z, Evol, Ohma Zi-O, Drive Tridoron and Blade King. Yesterday was the same but with Lazer Level 2 instead of Blade King.

If you're trying to figure out who to vote for; it's noted here that places 5-10 are extremely contested for fifth place. The other 5 likely to get fifth place are Lazer Level 2, Blood Stalk, Grease, Grease Blizzard and Zangetsu Shin.

https://twitter.com/t_features/statu...809722880?s=20

If he wins I might actually go for the Level 2 lazer since I have no clue if and when Figure Rise gets to secondary riders, not even talking about quadritiary bike riders!

It makes a lot of sense too -- of the main four Riders, Lazer was the only one that didn't get a retail release (disregarding his, uh, unconventional nature) and it completes that one iconic shot.

It's definitely a good choice, as are most things here -- a lot of them fall under stuff that had something really stupid and limited about their release (Evol, Ohma Zi-O) or are so important and prominent to the point they never should have been exclusive in the first place (Cross-Z, Zangetsu Shin, Grease, Lazer). And just about all of them are very expensive to get on the aftermarket. It's also why so much stuff here is Build -- that's the line where things REALLY started to get piled onto Premium Bandai, and at least Zi-O and Ghost got all their main ones at retail.

Bit surprised at a lack of Ex-Aid beyond Lazer though, especially absolutely no Genm. Maybe his popularity's finally starting to wear off? Machine Builder, Rogue, Chaser and Necrom also shock me in their absence given Machine Builder's accessory pack nature and the others' importance and popularity - they certainly fall under 'why is this not retail' - though I bet a lot of these are in the 11th-15th places.

Ex-Aid stuff isn't really hard to get on the aftermarket, aside from Level 2 Lazer. Not a single Genm release right now is expensive nor hard to find. Same with Rogue, Chaser, and Necrom. Genm Level X-0 just barely came out less than 2 months ago. There's no reason to reissue that aside from catering to people who really want level X, which has dropped in price significantly since X-0's announcement. I've seen Necrom for as low as 40 USD which is actually below the original MSRP. Chaser is a highly outdated mold, using the same proportions as the Gaim line, so it really isn't too expensive despite being such an important character.

Bike prices have always been fucked, but I guess since bikes aren't as prominent anymore nowadays the only reason anyone would vote for them is if they were also a Rider lol

Knowing Cross-Z and Ohma Zi-O are in the top 4 and are pretty much locked in so far makes me happy in ways that are hard to express...

And neither is Zangetsu Shin, but he's still there. My point is that these are extremely prominent characters that were left out of the line's retail releases, especially in Necrom and Chaser's cases where the rest of the important stuff was all retail; and in Rogue's case all his fellow riders except Mad Rogue are present on this list. I'm going by popularity and what the trends are on the list, not what is or isn't actually difficult to find or expensive.

I'm curious where you're finding Rogue for good prices though because I've had no luck -- he's consistently around 9000 Yen and even then when a listing goes up he sells out in seconds.

It's fantastic. All of the top 4 are stuff that is among some of the most infamously hard-to-get SHF exclusives, and going by the current top 10 whatever makes it to fifth place should be along the same lines. This is gonna be a pretty exciting time for collectors