How would you re-do Base / Jungle / Fossil?

General
1

If you could shift around the cards in Base, Jungle, and Fossil, how would you do it?

Either switching the cards between sets, making one card a holo, etc.

Here’s how I would do it:

  • Move Pidgeot, Dragonite, & Gengar to Base Set (I don’t like breaking up evolutionary lines between sets)
  • Move Mewtwo from Base Set to Fossil
  • Make Base Set Arcanine a holo
  • Make Jungle Rhydon, Rapidash, and Persian holos
  • Make Fossil Omastar and Golem holos
  • Make the Black Star Mew promo a Fossil holo (like it is in Japanese)
  • Move Clefairy from Base Set to Jungle and make it non-holo
  • Make Jungle Mr. Mime a non-holo
  • Make Fossil Haunter a non-holo
  • Remove Base Set Magneton and Zapdos (making their Fossil holos their rookie cards)
  • Remove Jungle Electrode (already has a Base Set card)
  • Remove Fossil Raichu (the extra Raichu is unnecessary)

With those changes made, here is what the holos would look like in each of the 3 sets:

Base Set (+Arcanine, +Dragonite, +Gengar, +Pidgeot, -Clefairy, -Magneton, -Mewtwo, -Zapdos)
#1 Alakazam
#2 Arcanine
#3 Blastoise
#4 Chansey
#5 Charizard
#6 Dragonite
#7 Gengar
#8 Gyarados
#9 Hitmonchan
#10 Machamp
#11 Nidoking
#12 Ninetales
#13 Pidgeot
#14 Poliwrath
#15 Raichu
#16 Venusaur

Jungle (+Persian, +Rapidash, +Rhydon, -Electrode, -Mr. Mime, -Pidgeot)
#1 Clefable
#2 Flareon
#3 Jolteon
#4 Kangaskhan
#5 Nidoqueen
#6 Persian
#7 Pinsir
#8 Rapidash
#9 Rhydon
#10 Scyther
#11 Snorlax
#12 Vaporeon
#13 Venomoth
#14 Victreebel
#15 Vileplume
#16 Wigglytuff

Fossil*(+Golem, +Mew, +Mewtwo, +Omastar, +Slowbro, -Dragonite, -Haunter, -Gengar, -Raichu)*
#1 Aerodactyl
#2 Articuno
#3 Ditto
#4 Golem
#5 Hitmonlee
#6 Hypno
#7 Kabutops
#8 Lapras
#9 Magneton
#10 Mew
#11 Mewtwo
#12 Moltres
#13 Muk
#14 Omastar
#15 Slowbro
#16 Zapdos

The main thing I did was make it so that evolutionary lines stay within the same sets, removed the duplicate holos, removed the non-final evolution holos, and added a select few cards that I think would be cool as holos.

Some people may say that Fossil loses some of the excitement without Dragonite and Gengar, but that’s why I moved Mewtwo and Mew to that set - to pick up the slack (and Mew is already a Japanese Fossil holo anyway). Also, Zapdos would now have its rookie card in Fossil

What changes would you guys make?

19 Likes
2

I think your choices are simulair to mine. Would do just the same. Great choice!

1 Like
3

I have been wondering for ages how Kabutops got a Holo but not it’s fossil counterpart Omastar. I seen some really amazing non Holo versions that would have made beautiful holo’s. I’ve been making my way thru each set collecting them and as far as I’m aware does Omastar even have a Holo in any set? Also there should have been a Misty’s Blastoise in Gym Heroes. Blaine’s Charizard. Erika’s Venasaur no Blastoise

4

Dragonair’s artwork in base set deserved a holo

2 Likes
5

Make Butterfree a Jungle holo and remove Mr. Mime entirely. Fuck that creepy bastard.

6 Likes
6

I would let all be the same way it was, with only one change, I would remove Mr. Mime from existance. Not in a set, from the Pokemon database.

1 Like
7

Omastar has no wotc holos and was usually a regular rare.

1 Like
8

Butterfree would have made a good holo but expedition holo butterfree makes up for it. Multiple butterfree and beautiful holo :slight_smile:

9

8 Likes
10

A lot of the strange choices in card allocation back then was due to an attempt to maintain some semblance of type balance. There were so few electric Pokemon for example, so you end up with so many duplicates. Your proposal makes sense from a collecting standpoint, but it results in issues like there being only one electric holo in Base and no psychic holos in Jungle.

Ultimately it was all moot since everybody just played Hitmonchan/Electabuzz/Scyther, but there was at least some attempt to distribute the types.

1 Like
11

I didn’t mention it in in the OP, but I definitely realize that the duplicates of electric-type Pokémon were related to balance issues for the card game. But from the collector’s standpoint, it would have been nice if some of the duplicate electric-type Pokémon had been non-holos and some of the other Pokémon had been given the chance to shine (literally).

12

I would get rid of the set symbols, instead have
s001 for Base
s002 for Jungle
s003 for Fossil
and so on.

And I would rarity letters like rest of the world uses.

1 Like
13

Completely agree with your changes from a collecting point of view. I suppose we’ve had an extra 20 years to think about this as opposed to gamefreaks figuring out literally everything else at the time.
Its such a bummer fossil Golem was not a holo, let alone an uncommon. It had that beautiful molten lava background. Then I remembered I can photoshop:

Ahh what things could have been…

13 Likes
14

@chorizord , I just realized that I forgot to add Golem to my revised list of Fossil holes, despite the fact that I made reference to making Golem a holo on my list of changes.

So I put in Golem and I removed Mr. Mime from the holo list. :grin:

Golem really would have made for a great holo.

2 Likes
15

Holy shit, I am so hyped about this! Great job man

2 Likes
16

Thanks! :blush:

17

I would move blastoise to fossil and venusaur to jungle so each set can have a starter chase card that is actually fitting to the set.

Everything else I would change has already been said.

2 Likes
18

I’m surprised no one’s yet mentioned to add rares that aren’t just non-holo versions of holo cards (at least for Jungle and Fossil). It’s harder to envision that, since it’s not as easy as switching around cards to fit set themes, but I think it might fix what made pulling a rare out of these three sets a bit disappointing

4 Likes
19

Absolutely this, I totally forgot but this is my least favorite thing in WOTC sets.

20

It’s already been observed, but Arcanine *definitely* should have been a holo! :fire: