I saw this on picture on X tonight.
What are your thoughts on Scarlet & Violet’s first 7 sets?
Are the first 7 sets of Scarlet & Violet better than Sword & Shield?
Personally; Sword and Shield second half carried that era. The only thing they had going for it was Champions Path and Amazing Rares from Vivid Voltage. Scarlet And Violet is the clear winner so far.
Thoughts?
when battle styles is the best set pictured 
New generations are notorious for having lackluster sets for the first few sets. Sword and shield is no exception to this. Scarlet and violet are doing a much better job. It’s obviously no competition between which generation has started off better.
Man, when you put it into a picture like that Scarlet & Violet is leagues better than Sword & Shield for the first 7 sets.
Sword & Shield’s entire era progression is the reason Scarlet & Violet started off so well, from new artists pouring in (post-Illustration Grand Prix) to special illustrations returning in 2021 to the set that introduced card rarities normalised today (AR/SAR - VSTAR Universe)
I honestly forgot how meh the first half of SWSH was. It’s funny how quickly we get spoiled by a good thing and start to pass it off as normal. Really if any of the SV sets came during this part of the SWSH block people would be shouting praise!
Influencers’ brains are short-circuiting looking at that graphic.
SV has been the best first 7 ever if you’re in it for the art and it will end as the best ever until the next generation which will hopefully improve further.
Not even a competition. I can’t understand why people are so hesitant to collect Scarlet/Violet. The sets are fun to open and the cards look amazing.
So does Pokemon intentionally release lack luster sets in the beginning?
Or is it simply that all sets can’t be bangers and it naturally takes time to string a good run of sets together?
Increase in quality or diversity of card designs throughout a generation to maintain high sales. At first its the excitement of a new generation with new pokemon and possibly a new card type. If they left it at that through the entire generation of cards, interest would understandably die down in later sets. If they keep throwing in new and interesting card designs throughout the gen, they maintain interest through novelty. Rinse and repeat every new generation of pokemon.
Some probably started at year 2 or 3 SWSH with an isolated interest in profitable older gen so their expectations going into SV are just insurmountable
I think it’s just growing pains as they figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Generally they don’t change the set structure for at least a year, so there aren’t actually that many times they get to iterate. Plus, Pokemon was dead for years so they probably didn’t have the budget either to go big much earlier and in-house or CGI houses presumably are a lot cheaper.
Sugimori stock art was still used for Pokemon in Gen 7 and on trainers in Gen 8. Gen 7 even had sets reusing old artwork and artwork from the same era just switching types.
Probably also have to look at MTG/YGO to see when full arts and texture became established and then just the general iterations it takes to get to where we are now.
Even though I dislike CGI art immensely, maybe the most on here, people really did and do like BW full arts. XY then expanded it to non-legendary Pokemon. SM took a step back with the monocoloured types but I think rainbows were initially well received so why stop them with SWSH?
And the rainbows were the chase whilst the tag team alts were cheaper back then, so it’s not like they were responding wrongly. Similar to the shiny sets, the first was a blockbuster, the second was still highly anticipated, why would a 3rd not be?
The only worry is if the sales drop enough for them to have to cut back and we see more CGI, cut and paste jobs etc return.
There are a lot of good modern cards (singles) but honestly as sets most of these really lack an identity for me. Maybe my opinion doesn’t count though because I don’t like to open packs
SWSH was a great era that got a massive boost after the introduction of alt arts and the boom of interest with Covid.
I think Pokemon will be able to keep the momentum going in SV. As pointed out in this thread, the artwork so far for “the same point in the era” is blowing SWSH out of the water. If the new “stellar tera” type (rarity?) can compare to alt arts… SV will be the best era for Pokemon TCG since the original Base imo.
Since the ending of sword and shield sets were packed with amazing alt art cards, the beginning of Scarlet and Violet seemed a little lackluster but overall not bad.
It’s definitely a step above the beginning the of sword and shield series.
Also having the 151 set makes it a clear winner for me on which series had a better first 7 sets.
