Monday, February 11th, 2013 @ 3 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
The name of May's English set will be Plasma Freeze and will feature cards such as Deoxys-EX, Thundurus-EX, and Eevee's evolutions. It will be our equivalent of Japan's BW8 Spiral Force / Thunder Knuckle. You can read the full set description below.
| ||
Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Sunday, February 10th, 2013 @ 8 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
  The one-pack Plasma Storm blister pack features either BW64 Drifblim and Dragons Exalted Drifloon or BW65 Jigglypuff and Next Destinies Wigglytuff (as an exclusive special holo). It also comes with a booster pack of Plasma Storm and a sampling pack containing three random common cards from the set. The blister retails for $4.99. Thanks goes to Omahanime for the scans above! | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Saturday, February 9th, 2013 @ 3 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
Pokemon Smash just finished airing. During the credits, the show promised that it will be revealing new Pokemon X and Pokemon Y information next week in addition to Extremespeed Genesect news. CoroCoro magazine will definitely leak before then and will more than likely have the same information. However, we didn't really need Pokemon Smash to tell us that we would be getting new X and Y info this coming week to know it would be happening. The February issue of CoroCoro always contains a major "wow factor" for the next movie which then appears on Pokemon Smash that week. Because Generation VI is coming soon and there are no other predictable "wow factors" to reveal for Genesect's movie, the announcement will more than likely pertain to a new Generation VI Pokemon that will star in the movie (and there may be other X/Y information revealed too). Will we see the revealing of the Lucario / Zoroark of Generation VI, or even a new Eeveelution? Will we only get their silhouettes? Pokemon Smash's credits did show several of the cast members dressed up as each of the Eeveelutions, so it could be possible foreshadowing of what's to come, which the show has done in lieu of major announcements in the past. Stay tuned and we'll bring you the latest! | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 @ 2 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
The three-pack Plasma Storm blister packs will come with a Kyurem coin and either BW66 Ninetales or BW67 Ampharos. Ninetales was the promo card Japanese players could get when purchasing a booster box of Dragon Blade / Dragon Blast while Ampharos was given out in a promo booster pack at their Gym Challenge tournaments this past summer. Thanks goes to KEES for sending us photos of the two promos!   | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Friday, February 1st, 2013 @ 10 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
Update (10:30 PM): Added a photo below that was posted on a Facebook page. We have been receiving a few e-mail reports of Gamestop stores displaying advertisements for an exclusive Meloetta distribution that will take place from March 4th to March 24th. The distribution will be available to both Black and White and Black 2 and White 2 games. No other details were provided by the ads, but the Meloetta should match the one that was given out at Kyurem vs. the Sacred Swordsman screenings in Japan: it came at Level 15 with Round, Quick Attack, and Confusion while holding a PP Max.  | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 @ 10 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
With a huge thanks to Amu for the images and Rogan, Gin, and Puddizzle for the translations, you can now see all of Shiny Collection below! The set has 25 cards printed on shiny paper, comes in 4-card booster packs, and comes in booster boxes of 15 packs.
| ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 @ 7 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
We now have all Plasma Storm scans thanks to Torterra Chips, Shakespeare, Pachifan90, Skitty, Mudkip711, Patricia and Katie, ElcalabozodelandroideGDL, Robert R., xGallade, DNA, Alvis C., Tyler G., Roberto V., and Edderz. Thanks goes to all of you guys for taking the time to send your scans in today, we all really appreciate it! On to the set. Plasma Pokemon have non-holo blue borders, even on the holo cards (excluding FA's). Reverse holo Plasma Pokemon are different from regular reverse holos, using the same reverse holo paper as the EX era. Poor Charizard always seems to get its Fire Energy type symbols swapped out for Fighting Energy, and the same has happened with the shiny secret rare version of its card in this set. The attack requirement should be [R][C][C][C][C], not [F][C][C][C][C]. The mistake probably occurred because someone typed "F" for "Fire" instead of "R," which is the letter that both the company and fans use for Fire's name. "F" is used for "Fighting." (Also, apparently a lot of people didn't read my essay all the way and are wondering why we have prerelease scans up right now. :p The whole post was talking about how I used to post scans before the first official prerelease events. For some sets, I did it over a week in advance of the prereleases. Usually though it was just a couple days before. The whole post was saying I'm sorry for doing that and ruining the fun of the surprise. Once the first events are over on Saturday, the cards are public knowledge and you're allowed to post them - even TPCi says you can. What I was doing was spoiling the movie before it was officially released. But after the movie opens, you're allowed to post your reviews of it.)       
                                      
       
      
       
                                                                    | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 @ 2 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
If you go to a prerelease today, please e-mail us scans of your cards! We need them to be about 300 DPI, or twice the size of our current scans. Please e-mail them to wpm@pokebeach.com with your username so you can be credited. Thank you! | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 @ 1 AM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
A Porygon-Z promo (208/BW-P) will be given out to people who buy a booster box of BW9 Megalo-Cannon, which will be released in Japan on March 15th. An alternate art version of the card will also be in the main Megalo-Cannon set. Thanks goes to Seedot for the image below!
| ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
Friday, January 25th, 2013 @ 6 PM PST - By: Water Pokémon Master | ||
Still recovering from being sick! It just won’t go away! But now at least I’m not sick in the head anymore. :p Alert: incoming essay. PokeBeach turns 10 years old in July. I created this website when I was 14 years old, opening it the summer before high school, working on it into college, and now here we are half-way through grad school and I'm 24. For many years, I've been posting scans of sets before their prereleases took place. However, this post is going to explain why I did it and why I have decided not to do it anymore. When I first started PokeBeach in 2003 (the R/S days), the online world of Pokemon wasn't in good shape. PUSA (or Pokemon USA, which is what TPCi used to be called) was very young and didn't have much control over its own franchise after taking the TCG back from Wizards of the Coast, who essentially killed it (or helped kill it, to be more accurate). Back in 2003 when Ruby and Sapphire were released, almost all of the major Pokemon sites disappeared along with their many fans and dedicated webmasters. This was definitely the year that many fans acknowledge as the online fandom's lowest point - so many important sites were abandoned or they simply vanished. As someone who had worked on Pokemon websites/forums since the age of 10, I had been involved in the online fandom during the fad days of Pokemon. I still remember how much fun it was back then - you could refresh a forum like the PokeMasters and the whole page would be full of new topics, and some of the larger Pokemon websites like it would get millions of unique visitors in a day. Nothing compares to that anymore, of course, and the fad days of Pokemon are long over. But back then, I had a hard time accepting that. I even tried to get the largest Pokemon site revived, and since I was a moderator there, I was in the best position to do it. But no one was interested in reviving it and I had no help, and thus I felt like a relic of the past at only 13 years of age - Pokemon was dead even to many of its online fans. The decline in the online fandom was one of the many reasons I started PokeBeach in 2003. I wanted to help bring back what was gone and I was going to do it all by myself if I had to. Even in real life, I set out to make everyone Pokemon fans again. Among many other crazy antics, the most mild thing I would do was always be playing a Pokemon movie on my laptop in class while taking notes or playing Red rather obviously under my desk, hoping that other people would ask me about the new Pokemon movie I was watching or reminisce with me about battling Mewtwo... or anything! Pokemon was a way I could socialize with other people. How could they not like this franchise, I thought? It is just so universal, speaks to so many things, and is a beautiful representation of our own world. However, my indirect attempts to rekindle people's love of Pokemon failed most of the time. No one was interested in it anymore and its perceived reputation was beyond terrible. You were judged if you liked it. Since I was so over the top about liking Pokemon though, people gave me the affectionate name "Pokemon Jon," and I rarely received any flack for being passionate about what I loved. But if you weren't me, you couldn't talk about Pokemon. Everyone raised their nose in the air and made fun of people who said anything about it. It was like the Barney of preschool (everyone wanted to kill Barney, and lord forbid you had any Barney merchandise!). Since no one was interested in Pokemon in real life, and I was only 14, the only thing I felt I could do was go online and try my best to at least grow the online fandom. Back when PokeBeach first started, PUSA was still very young. They didn't seem to have much control over their franchise and didn't do too well with releasing news or keeping fans informed. I think of those days as the Wild Wild West. Often times, new sets and rules would be announced at tournaments and you wouldn't really hear about it online until later, and even then it wouldn't be through official channels. There just didn't seem to be any system or rhyme or reason to what PUSA was doing. In retrospect, it was an understandable reality. The fad was dead, they had to pick up WOTC's pieces, and 4Kids was in control of the show (and possibly some other aspects of the franchise). PUSA had a lot of internal organization they needed to do if they were to help build Pokemon back up again, which is also why, in retrospect, taking back the show from 4Kids could have been predictable (if I were smarter back then I would have anticipated that :p). The times were completely different back then compared to today. In my own way, I thought I could promote PUSA's franchise better than them and get people excited about Pokemon again. And honestly, I think I did! PokeBeach helped bring people together to talk about the TCG in those days like the old Pokemon websites used to. I took such pleasure in helping other fans find out about this franchise that I loved and obsessed over. Even though I often sacrificed family and school time for someone else's created world (Satoshi Tajiri's), I enjoyed spending hours looking for Pokemon news each day, talking to people, and gathering information. I've always had fervent passion and drive for anything I've ever committed myself to (heck I've been doing this longer than most of TPCi's employees), so I was going to make sure I did my best to keep fans informed so they could enjoy Pokemon just as much as I did. And back then, I think PUSA genuinely appreciated it. I remember going to tournaments and getting thanked all the time. Heck, two of their PR people I used to see even insisted on sending me gifts in the mail, and when I specifically and repeatedly told them that I appreciated the thought but didn't want anything, they still sent me a freakin' Ash and Pikachu statue! (We actually went down to the post office to send it back, but the shipping cost too much, and my mom said I was probably being just a tad too rude.) One summer another person from PUSA called me and even offered to fly me down to New York, to which I downright declined. Heck, I could even call one of the employees at home whenever I needed to ask about something - that's how much they trusted me. So the company was obviously thrilled with my work and how much I was helping promote their franchise. (And in retrospect, oh my gawd, why didn't I take that flight?!) But after some time, that all changed. At some point in this site's history came the e-mails from the "secret sources" - people who would send in scans and photos of the TCG's prerelease items and promos before the actual prereleases started. Specifically, around the end of the R/S era and the beginning of the D/P era, there were one or two sources who would consistently send me scans of the new cards and claimed to be getting them legally. Naturally, I posted these scans for the whole world to see. Why would I hide such information? Why wouldn't I share it with the fans? No argument could convince teenaged me that I was doing anything wrong. When I would post the prerelease scans, the simple fact is that I was trying to grow excitement for the franchise in my own way. Nothing wrong with that, right? The subsequent response to my posting the scans was shocking to me, to say the least. While in my immature mind I wasn't doing anything wrong, the TOs on other popular forums were attacking me all the time. Eventually, they were getting other people to jump on the bandwagon too (whether intentionally or not). These were adults two and three times my age constantly bashing me, vilifying me, and making me out to be the source of all their problems. I still remember getting two or three e-mails threatening me not to attend tournaments or I "wouldn't come home" (messages to that effect, with one specifically stating this). Although I knew such e-mails were obviously just people reacting out of anger and probably baseless (and definitely not from any TO), it was still something that was always in the back of my mind when I would go to a tournament. And all the TOs would say is that by posting early scans I was causing them to lose money. Often times, I would be the scapegoat for whenever prerelease attendance wasn't as expected ("PokeBeach posted scans of the new set and now everyone knows it sucks even though we had the Japanese spoilers for ages and knew it would suck - let's not blame the official company for making the set this way, let's blame PokeBeach"). Players would even come to me and tell me how so-and-so TO announced at their tournament not to visit PokeBeach because it means they're losing money (which is so hard to prove and probably just not true). So in my eyes, the TOs were just money-hungry adults. They didn't care about the fans, I thought. This was all just about making money to them, I thought. And it was easy to think that way too since they constantly brought this argument up. So I just wrote them off, especially when I was at the constant center of their attacks offline and online, and especially when the fans were supporting me. My trust of the official company also began to wane, as I'm sure was the case vice versa. The company was going through reforms, delegating many of their operations from New York to Washington, and a lot of people I once knew were gone. Additionally, one of the heads of Pokemon's Organized Play had asked me to send him the e-mail address of the scanner source. With permission from the source, I sent the e-mail address his way. The source had always claimed he or she were getting the cards legally, so obviously he or she could discuss this with PUSA and they could deal with it. The next thing I know the source is e-mailing me and telling me that the admin from another fan forum e-mailed him - and not someone from PUSA. The source’s e-mail address was a secret, so obviously, PUSA and this other fan forum were working together. This fan forum was of course one of the main sources of all these attacks, their admins were all TOs, and the company was working with them. Along with some other incidents, I realized I couldn't trust the company anymore, and I definitely knew that I didn't like the TOs. So, I decided to just continue doing what I was doing. The fans were all that was important to me, so as long as they were happy and the community was thriving, I would be happy too. And a couple years later, here we are. Things do change over time though. One becomes more mature, especially as one begins to work in the real world. Your brain also develops just a tiny bit more into your 20s, especially if you're male. So with absolute certainty, I can now say that I know I made a mistake. I should never have posted pre-prerelease scans. I was always just too blinded by feelings of hate, anger, and sadness when people would bash me for what I thought was a good thing. Excuses aside, I can finally understand that I've been just so completely and utterly wrong about what I've been doing this whole time. Let's get one thing straight first: my heart has always been in the right place. I think we can all agree to that. I care about Pokemon immensely, and if you know anything about the policies I set on my forums and the way I am in real life, I care about people and want everyone to be more compassionate with each other. That's also why I've gone into filmmaking, but that's another 10,000 word post for another day. You see, I had formed this negative image of TPCi and the TOs in my head because I myself didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I thought they were just bullies. I justified to myself that they were greedy and that they didn't really care about the fans. In retrospect, their harsh reaction to my actions was completely justified. Me being vilified is also completely understandable looking back at it now. To them, I was just some troublemaker kid - looking at some of my earlier posts, I would have been mad at me too were I on the outside. I would've wanted this brat banned - who the hell does this kid think he is leaking this stuff? What gives him the right to supersede the official company when it is trying to get Pokemon back on its feet? Even though my heart was in the right place, it wasn't my right to try to rob these tournaments of their potential fun /even if/ I thought I was only helping. By taking the time out of their days to run these tournaments, the TOs were trying to do exactly what I was, but in a different way than me. They were trying to get the franchise back on its feet by promoting these official events. They were trying to make Pokemon popular again, just like I was. And here I was just robbing these events of their surprise and, ironically, going against what I myself had set out to do from the beginning. I remember PUSA's Mike Liesik specifically telling me one time how I didn't understand the point of prereleases (he said something corny about opening booster packs and the smile of a child, or something to that effect). And I just remember I rolled my eyes in my head. In my mind, TPCi and the TOs weren't in it for us. They were trying to control the fans, make money, and ruin our fun. In actuality, the TOs were just trying to work in conjunction with the official company to grow the franchise. I was the one doing things on my own and refusing to be a team player. It was a combination of my immaturity, my "Sword of Fandom Justice," and the fact that these adults were always attacking me that I could never see this. When the TOs were trying to stop me from posting scans and were being vocal about it, it was also because they were trying to support the official company. I didn't ever really think about this either. Their fervor existed because they were trying to support the official company which wasn't necessarily in good shape. And that included stomping on troublemakers who might throw a wrench into the company's plans to make Pokemon better for everyone. TPCi and the TOs were working together because that's what it is to be team players working toward a common goal. Even when I look back at my old relationship with PUSA, I see now that it was very obvious that while they were trying to woo me, it was because they wanted to work with me. But I didn't have that mentality at all - it didn't make any sense to me. When they wanted to fly me down to New York, it wasn't for social time, it was probably to talk about how I could further help grow the community by working with them. Hitting this point even harder, PUSA's Dave Schwimmer once told me at Worlds (when I was posting early scans) that TPCi might want to try to work with PokeBeach to release new information. I stupidly turned him down. I didn't think PUSA could ever get it together enough to do this when we were releasing the news at times months before they ever acknowledged the existence of whatever we were talking about, not to mention they would probably want to control the early information we would often have. So again, I refused to be a team player. It never occurred to me that if I were to just work a little bit with the company, maybe I could help improve it. Maybe everything would be better across the board and Pokemon could grow even more with this fan site supporting PUSA. But I was the one who always had my nose in the air. At some point I did seem to unconsciously realize that I wanted to work with TPCi to help grow Pokemon. But by then it was too late. I had already burned my bridges, and my continuing immaturity didn't really help things either. Looking back at some of my e-mails to people like Dave Schwimmer, I inquired about how to become a Pokemon Professor and if the fact I was still posting prerelease scans would get in the way. He told me I had to make the right decision (i.e. stop posting them), so I told him that the fans were more important to me and that if they wanted the scans, they would get them. I never got another reply. And why would I? I was just too righteous. The fans this, the fans that... Well, maybe instead of feeding the fans everything they want, I might be able to help the fans on a long-term basis by revoking what I should have never given them in the first place, shutting up, showing some respect, and just trying to help the company in any way they think I should help them. TPCi has grown up so much over the years too. We have video game tournaments now. We have an online TCG simulator. The franchise as a whole is more integrated and there are quicker releases all across the board. And now with X and Y, we're even getting a worldwide release and they're collaborating with a bunch of international teams around the world to make it happen. It took them three generations to do it, but they finally have done it. And what I'm doing now with my small piece of the pie isn't conducive to that anymore. I wanted to make Pokemon exciting again and now it is. You hear people talking about it again. I even saw Pokemon mentioned on the news the other night, the first time I've heard it mentioned since Mewtwo was in theaters. I don't need to be leaking scans anymore. The company and the franchise have matured, become stable, and are thriving now. And that’s all I ever wanted when I started this site in 2003. To all the TOs and PTOs. I know nothing I say can ever really change things. Set after set I disrespected you guys and took away the fun you were trying to promote. Your mission was the same as mine was, but I was too stupid to ever see that. I really am deeply sorry. I hope I can help to promote your events as much as possible from now on so that they can thrive even more and make Pokemon fans everywhere even happier. If you have any suggestions for how I can help you out with this site, drop me an e-mail. Also feel free to bash me. I deserve it. To TPCi. I don't expect us to have a relationship anytime soon with everything I've done, but hopefully, given a few years, we can work together in some way to promote Pokemon together. I want us to be in sync promoting what we all love. Of course, the bridge may have already burned down, but we can always build a new one together if you’d be willing. If not, I totally understand. To the fans. Go out to prereleases tomorrow! Experience the surprises together - there's plenty to be had with this set, especially related to the Plasma Pokemon! We'll still have scans up, but they won't be in the preceding days anymore, they'll be the night of the first prerelease day. Also, since I'm sure some people will try to say this, here's scans of two sucky cards + one we've already seen to prove that I have not in fact lost the source of the scans and that's why I'm making this huge post. I actually stopped posting the source's scans for the last set, though I'm sure no one really noticed; they were all scans and photos from the earlier Singapore prereleases as stated in the articles for that set. We'll have prerelease scans tomorrow after the official tournaments are over, so be sure to check back then! TL;DR: I won't be posting pre-prerelease scans anymore, I only did it because I was trying to bring excitement to the online Pokemon fandom at a time when things weren't in good shape, I've realized my mistake, and I'm sorry to the TOs and TPCi. | ||
| Post a Comment on PB's Forums / Register to Comment / News Story Link | ||
