So the card scans and translations for the latest Japanese set are out now and pretty much everyone is gushing about how ___ looks awesome and they really want the full art for ___.
Me personally? I think this set is ridiculous. Between Cold Flare and Freeze Bolt, we’re seriously looking at:
-4 ACE SPEC cards
-6 regular EX cards
-8 FULL ART EX cards
-4 shinies
Why is there not any outrage about this at all? That’s over twenty cards that are ridiculously harder to pull than even a holo. Are they losing their minds? Do they even want it to be possible for collectors to complete sets anymore??
I know, the argument is that I’m a collector! I should be happy that there’s more shinytastic stuff for me to collect! But… honestly, FOUR different levels of super rare cards? It really just makes me miss the days when holographic cards were the rarest things in a set and you could actually finish off the entire set without flushing a small fortune down the drain every three months.
Having one, even two different categories of premium cards worked for over a decade. Heck, it was even working as recently as Red Collection/Noble Victories! Why the sudden explosion of premium cards? Did the original BW sets bomb? Are the TCG companies just that shameless for more profit? Why do I feel like a huge weirdo for hating the direction the TCG has been taking?
It’s the newest thing they’ve trotted out for the latest Japanese set. Super special Trainer cards that you can only have 1 of in your deck, including other types of ACE SPEC cards I think(?).
See this is why 1996-2001 and wotc were the true “golden eras”. The sets had holo rares, and rares…that was it…maybe an occasional shinning pokemon. The true rarities were saved for the promo cards. But I have to agree…to have four tiers of “premium” cards is overkill. Not to mention the art work…yeah they are awesome…but it clearly has the look of being done on a computer.
Honestly for me to really like the new sets, two things need to happen:
1.) Make rarities special…a holo card should mean something…ditch this whole reverse holo thing as well.
I liked how the HGSS sets handled it, honestly. Two different levels of chase cards, but the Primes and the LEGEND pieces took up different slots in the packs themselves, and you could get almost all (but not literally all) of them in one booster box. So there was a variety of stuff to collect, but not a complete overburdening.
I can kind of see why collectors did not like the first two BW US sets, where there were literally two Full Art cards and in BW1 only, Pikachu. Noble Victories was a good balance because you couldn’t get all five FAs in a box like you could get both FAs in Emerging Powers. But the EX-era has just gone too far in the opposite direction IMO.
I’m with Mike on all points listed. Also I’m out of the loop as far as new cards go (because I don’t care for them) but 4 tiers of ultra rares? That is ridiculous! I’m glad I stick to what Mike and I consider the golden age of Pokemon cards.
I actually love it. I’m not that serious of a promo collector, but to me, some of the new set cards are beautiful. I love the UR Trainers, the shinies, and the FAs. They are all textured a ton, and they look really nice.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the printing techniques are awesome and have come along way…but with that being said it seems like the newer cards lack something, they seem almost too refined, too many bells and whistles. For me a simple holographic layer would suffice.
Ridiculously rare Trainer cards in particular drove me insane as soon as the full art N was revealed, and even WORSE when the shiny Pokemon Catcher came out. Was I the only one who thought getting a Trainer as the non-holo rare in old packs as a kid was the lamest thing ever? D: No amount of sparklies can prevent drudging up those traumatic childhood memories.
The full art cards are nice, but I think there’s too many of them for their pull rate. Ditto for the shinies.
I’m pretty sure that shinies are the rarest in both English and Japanese sets. In English sets they’re 1 in every two or three booster BOXES.
While I’m on the subject of pull rates, I should admit that it is a bit presumptuous of me to include ACE SPEC cards in my list of chase cards in the original post. I actually don’t know the pull rate for them but the fact that you can only use one ACE SPEC in your entire deck implies that they’re pretty rare. Even if you exclude them, though, this set has 18 chase cards, which is the most of the BW era. So far.
shinings are the rarest in both sets but the english versions are much much chepaer than the japanese counterpart but dont feel the same though.
ACE SPEC cards are just rares so they count as holos the only secrets are the full arts and shinings.But I will kinda agree with you on it Frost that the newer sets have become quite annoying to the point your going the hell is this.The fact N got a full art I went really a trainer card as a Full Art that went sure what the heck.But when GOLDEN CATCHER came in I really was annoyed to a point of wanting to ask pokemon is it really necessary for even item cards now to be that freakin hard to obtain.I know for the players everyone wants a dang golden catcher for their deck and its pretty stupid since already alot of players have their whole deck all in reverse holo now.The fact that the ACE SPEC cards are limited to only 1 per deck really does make me wonder will pokemon pull something else like this in the commin months of tcg playing wise.
This set I like the artwork on some of the cards but yes alot of people are going OMG over the cards too soon and knowing people on youtube they will be going nuts over the openings of who pulls what out.Now what i kinda dont like alot is how all the ex’s in the bw sets are all legendary pokemon none of them have been regular pokes like they originally did em arcanine armaldo and alll those.Seeing how we have a dang shining rocky helmet makes me just think next set shining evolite or full art juniper.When i saw Biana and Cheren FA’s I just felt so sad that people will pay top dollar for a card that just is a full art rather than have the common version of it.The new black kyurem and white kyrem are pretty broken with their item in play.
Well, it’s a bit of a relief if the ACE SPECs are the same rarity as holos… sure, I wouldn’t like getting them in place of a holo of a Pokemon, but they could be the same rarity as an EX card or something ridiculous, so I can live with it.
I agree that the shiny Rocky Helmet is just so sad. Even a shiny Eviolite would have made more sense because that’s a card that players actually use, like Pokemon Catcher is. And I can even live with Full Arts of N, Cheren and Bianca because they’re really the three central characters of BW and BW2… but if they go and make something like a FA Skyla card or something, gah. People are actually annoyed they didn’t. >_>
I saw a picture of the new FA EX cards, and quite a few of them look gross. But regardless, I think all these new Ultra Rares are just ridiculous.
I really think it officially started going downhill when they brought back EX cards. Why? I have two reasons:
Now it’s impossible to ask anyone for an ex card and not get it confused with an EX card. It’s retarded. I don’t want these dumb inflated EX cards with all their holographicness. I would a good old ex card. Goodness.
They’ve put like 5 in each set. What kind of crap is that? I thought that 7 Lv. X cards in a set was bad, but now they have 5 EX 5 FA and 2 Shinies in one set? AND they all are valued over $20? WTF
I understand the need to keep coming up with a new and more amazing ultra rare, but seriously? We don’t need 20 of them in a set! That’s how you run out of ideas! Pokemon needs to learn to milk their ideas for as long as possible. Because before they know it, they are going to be out of ideas for new Ultra Rares, and then out of ideas for new Pokemon, and then just give up. Kinda like the video games. Everyone was like “Well, they used all the gems, so what now?” Then they came up with Black & White. But what next?
A lot of people say WoTC era was the “golden era” but I disagree. I think everything pre D&P was the golden era (so primarily the ex series). If you opened a box, you were guaranteed 1-2 ex cards, and more-or-less one gold star card. But not everyone could open a box, so a lot of people pulled ex cards from packs. I think this was the best because it gave everyone the opportunity to have 1 or 2 actual Ultra Rares, but still want have the desire to obtain the Ultra Ultra Rare Gold Star cards. Yeah, there is still this desire in the sets today, but since there are thrice as many cards, it’s a bit overwhelming for anyone who can’t afford to drop a few bills on some boxes or singles.
you were guarentee 1-2 ex cards but do remember not every set had a gold star only certain sets did and later ones after fr/lg but also some had secret rare ex’s.most ex’s back in the day were the top value card but also now there is at least 1 EX in a set that is the most wanted/valueable one till it gets reprinted.many people will say WOTC was the “golden era” in some senses it was cause majority of everyone started the pokemon tcg with that era and dont forget it was the time where 1st editions existed compared to now.sure the gold star’s and ex’s are nice to collect but many of the older boxes now tend to get harder and harder to find and many collectors now are comming back into the game and want to relive their experience as a child opening old school stuff.
I always see collectors say that they like sets with a lot of expensive cards for that very reason. I can kind of understand the logic, since there were a bunch of people who thought BW1 and EP were pretty lame as one box could complete them, but it doesn’t apply to me personally. I felt just as much achievement completing Secret Wonders and its whopping two super rares as I did for HGSS’s 6 Primes, 4 LEGENDs, 1 shiny and 1 Alph Lithograph. :S
Well how many people do you know that have complete sets at all? I am an avid Pokemon Youtuber (PokeTuber) and I’ve rarely seen anyone with a single complete set. I have noticed a lot of people try and complete HGSS sets though, ionno why.
So I really think that for a high majority of collectors, the less expense the better because completing sets is hard enough. I still don’t know a single person that has every complete set released to date. Oh yeah, I know there are people like that out there, but I have yet to confirm someone.
There’s at least one person on Youtube who has completed every English set. It’s one long video.
Personally I have been aiming to complete more of my sets throughout 2012. The sets that I haven’t completed are from A) Generation II due to the Shinings/Crystal cards, B) Generation III because of the more expensive exs, and all of the gold stars, or C) the EX-era of Generation V because of the really expensive EXs on the secondary market (i.e., Mewtwo, Darkrai, Tornadus).
Even then, getting the rest of the chase cards in Next Destinies/Dark Explorers was a pain compared to DP-Call of Legends. So, yeah… seeing more and more full arts coming isn’t so joyous for me, as cool as some of them look.
It’s still better then Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Common, Rare, Super Rare, Ultra Rare, Secret Rare, Ultimate Rare, Parallel Rare, Starfoil Rare, Ghost Rare, Gold Ultra Rare. There are probably some more.
