Half tongue-in-cheek, half rant about how TPC plans their sets for the collector side of things.
Having really enjoyed playing Pokemon Scarlet, two of the casual collecting goals I thought I could set were 1) collecting all Pokemon in the Paldea Pokedex 2) Collecting all the FA Supporters featured in Paldea
Generally these should have been achievable based on previous set/era designs, since (1) both SM and SWSH had all the main named characters receiving FA cards and (2) sets released after a new game release feature only Pokemon found in the game, but with Y1 SV having ended, both those goals may not be reached.
Of the 400 Pokemon in the Paldea Pokedex, 88 are yet to receive a card with the last 3 sets adding 0 non-Gen 9 Pokemon. A common argument is that TPC needs to start releasing more popular Pokemon but that doesn’t really hold up when it’s Pokemon like the elemental monkeys and Dwebble getting in while Dragapult and Haxorus are left out. A Pokemon like Gulpin having not even got a single card in Gen 8, proceeds to then get ignored for the first year despite being in the Dex.
Then, in Shiny Treasure ex, they broke tradition by not including full arts of Brassius and Atticus (gym leader/team star leader in SV) both of which came out as gym promos during the year.
There’s still time for both of these to still happen, but the signs don’t look great. TPC/I have had previous history of this kind of ‘design’ of course, and I actually had compiled a list, but thought it might be more fun to let people weigh in with their experiences instead.
I’ll start with the Kanto Gym Leaders.
Starting in SM9 Tag Bolt and up until SM11 Miracle Twin, TPC started releasing new FAs of Kanto Gym Leaders - coinciding with or based off Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee. (Technically Blaine was released in Dragon Storm before LGPE released.)
They even released Janine, who took over Koga’s gym in Gen 2, but then never completed the set leaving out a single gym leader, Vermillion City’s Lt. Surge.
The card itself (Lt. Surge’s Strategy) was banned but only for the Expanded format and 9 months after it came out. Also in the previous set Brock, Erika and Sabrina all got cards so there wasn’t any excuse to leave Lt. Surge out in Night Unison (Koga and Janine got the FAs).
It’s been 4.5 years and Lt. Surge has not received another card, even being skipped in Pokemon 151 where Bill and Daisy of all characters were given priority instead. The wait for completion goes on…
