So I recently had this idea to come up with a full list of every Pokemon TCG Set Ranked From Worst To Best. All 91 Main Expansions, 9 Specials Sets & The VS & Vending Machine, totaling 102 Sets not including Astral Radiance. My goal is to eventually make a Full list of the sets and maybe make a video about it in the future for people to view. Im making this thread basically as a place for anyone interesting to express their opinions on any one of or multiple of the sets released over the years and use these opinions and others Iāve found to make a list that is as unbiased as possible. Donāt want all of one era at the top or bottom, want to make it as realistic as possible. It wonāt be perfect but I thought it would be a fun project to take on and entertaining for people to view in the future. Ty for any comments or advice:)
I like the video concept. What would your top 5 be?
I also think itās going to be really hard to place the middle 40-50 sets because so many are justā¦ average
Iāve made a VERY rough draft to this point. From 70-40 is almost interchangeable with how average they are so its harder to place them for sure. As for a top 5 I have 10 or so in that section of the lis. Those being, Hidden Fates, Neo Destiny, VS Set, Team Rocket, Aquapolis, Vending Machine Series, Expedition Base, EX Team Rocket Returns, Base Set & Skyridge. All of this is changeable but I think Iāve got a good starting point:)
Itās a fun idea! Any ranking of sets is going to have some subjectivity, but thatās alright. There are so many things to consider with a set: Rarity, holo pattern, holo artwork, non-holo artwork, border color, conditional rarity, the possibilities are endless! If you are feeling super ambitious, would be cool to see a weighted decision matrix for however you end up ranking things. Then again, Iām a nerd and think decision matrices are coolā¦
Sent a pm.
Ty for adding a few other factors for me to keep in mind! Im thinking of coming up with some sort of scoring system or something to give it some structure. Hoping to have it all done within a month or two!
Looking forward to it!
Neo Destiny. Skyridge. Aquapolis. Neo Genesis. Neo Revelation. Expedition, Neo Discovery. Base Set. Gym Challenge. Gym Heroes. Legendary Collection. Team Rocket. Fossil. Jungle. Base set 2.
Ex era is tricky so is platinum and heart gold era. I love the Exās and almost every set has good ones. For gold stars some sets obviously have better ones then others. Gotta love that Gold Star Ray! But this is all opinion based. There was a poll taken here by E4 members to select their favorite set. Thatās probably about as close as you can get to a accurate scale of what our favorite sets are. But thereās so many great sets and cards that everything pretty much becomes interchangeable. Like I go back and forth between Skyridge and Neo Destiny.
Maybe doing the top sets by era would be a good way to organize your thoughts
In no particular order for favorites:
Team Rocket, Neo Destiny, all 3 e-series sets, Team Rocket Returns, Team Magma vs Team Aqua, Double Crisis 
Holon Phantoms, Delta Species, Supreme Victors, Call of Legends, Hidden Fates, Celebrations
I donāt have a single favorite set, but I love WOTC through DPP era the most.
Leaving base set out of the top 10 āgreatest sets of all timeā is akin to leaving Thriller out of top 10 albums. You do that, you lose legitimacy for everything else you say;)
Except Michael Jackson is a pedophile so itās absolutely okay to leave any of his albums out of a top 10 album list.
Fair play, thatās a massive undertaking! Iām constantly changing favourites so will be interested to see what comes out on top.
Lots to balance and Iād be factoring in significance in the hobby, uniqueness and theme cohesion. For these reasons sets like Base, VS and Team Rocket/TRR are up there.
He mentioned itās his personal favorites, though. I donāt see him mention āgreatest setsā anywhere in his post.
The Base Set also wouldnāt be in my top 10 favorite sets, ngl. That doesnāt take away it would defintely be in the top 10 best sets in an unbiased ranking. Favorites ā best.
Greetz,
Quuador
It sounds like a fun idea, although itās defintely pretty difficult to rank ALL sets like that. If it helps anything, you can take a look at the 50 Set of the Fortnight posts thus far (see the Set Of The Fortnight forum section), to get some opinions on certain sets from Efour members. (That reminds me, Iāll post a new one today. )
PS: Emerging Powers is without a doubt at the very bottom. 
Greetz,
Quuador
Set up a bracket - like knockout tournament - where sets are pulled at random to compete with one another. Then set up a poll for a few days for people to vote on their favourite set out of the 2. If you did a new poll every 2 days, it would take approximately 115 days. This way it would be totally unbiased as youāre outwardly bringing in external forces to vote. Youāll have 102 so some sets will randomly get drawn to one another early, so whilst it might not give you a perfect spectrum of āwhat are the top 5ā - I should get you close & itāll give you what the forum considers to be the best set! Also could throw up some surprises!
Good thing these are āmyā favorites. Iāll make sure to include base set from now on so that the rest of my choices are legitimate. Thanks
Cool idea! Not sure your timeline on this project, but it may be neat to let Sword & Shield era finish out before finalizing your rankings to feel more ācompleteā (or at least give us an update!).
I think if you can find ways to bring some more objective measures to your ranking that would be great (and could perhaps help with ranking some of those middle-of-the-pack sets). One example might be to measure the variety of PokƩmon included in the set (more points to sets with more unique PokƩmon that are less featured in the TCG)?
If youāre looking for outside opinions E4 has plenty of threads about favorite sets:
Favorite WOTC sets:
www.elitefourum.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-wotc-set-poll/26123/1
Favorite EX Era sets:
www.elitefourum.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-ex-nintendo-set-poll/26297/1
Favorite set overall:
www.elitefourum.com/t/favorite-eng-pokemon-set-one-pick-only-no-other-words-please/18905/1
There are my many more by just searching favorite set here on the forum. Good luck with the list.