There are so many incredible pack artworks from the original ex era. Here are just a couple of my favorites, while also showing off the lustrous wrapper and calming Midori Harada pieces from EX Dragon. I like artworks that seemingly tell a story or take a snapshot of time; Mewtwo looks like it just burst from its cell and is ready to take its next victim. Latios and Latias are caught midflight over a sunset where Latias sees something in the distance - what could it be? The colors on the CG Charizard pack are incredible and frankly I just like the pack for those lol. Lastly, the connected Latias and Latios artworks in EX Dragon make it look like they’re floating around up in the mountains in some sort of sacred place.
Doesn’t get better than Base Set 2 in my opinion. I love the minimalism. The Gyarados one is probably my favourite, with Raichu as the close runner-up.
While I am incredibly nostalgic and therefore have a soft spot in my heart for vintage WOTC (particularly rocket pack art and gym series being my favorite), I would have to say Japanese just outclassed us in those same packs/sets. My favorite, I’m with you r2d2, is base, but seriously… jungle, fossil, gym sets? All so phenomenal, that even though I don’t collect any sealed TCG stuff, I may just have to grab a few to have forever once I save some more money. I got back into this damn hobby too late… I needed to start buying so many things 5 years ago as opposed to 1 or 2 years ago. Alas…
Awww @muk no fair!!! We were typing out our responses at the same time! I called dibs on those first! Alright that’s it, Muk and I have the same taste. Okay!? Alright. It’s settled.
As echoed above ex era has some fantastic pack art! Here are a couple of my favorites. The Latios and Latias Dragon Frontier pack posted above is also one of my favorites too!
Base Set 2 with Gyarados, and I also LOVE jungle packs, so nostalgic (not cos I had them but I played Pokemon Play it! on pc as a kid haha, I never opened a booster pack in my life)
Nothing will top OG Sugimori for me, especially his Blue artwork. Super simple and extremely cool shading. I really wish that he would have continued using that style. (This is also the only sealed pack that I own. Fun fact, it is literally impossible for me to own anything sealed without opening it immediately, and usually regretting it.)
My favorite pack is probably the English Red Logo Fossil pack with Aerodactyl. There’s just something about the red letters on the brown pack, and Aerodactyl is among my top 20 favorite Pokémon as well. It’s one of just two sealed booster packs I own (the other being EX Sandstorm with Seviper, my favorite Pokémon ).
Second favorite pack is Japanese Sky Legend. I own a sealed booster box, but the pack has the same artwork. (The pack is cropped though, so the booster box definitely looks even better.)
Third favorite I had to browse through all the English and Japanese booster packs for a moment. Especially the Japanese side has a lot of amazing artworks, but I’ll have to go with the Double Crisis one. Not only is it my favorite set, but I just realized that the booster pack contains a Seviper as well (thanks for letting me spend some money again lol):
And an honorable mention to the Japanese Sword pack artwork. It’s simple, but I like the pose and floor he’s standing on: