“Lost Abyss” Japanese Set Featuring Giratina VSTAR Finally Revealed!

Obviiious said:
And again, they put the most amazing and wonderfull artwork on the English boosterpacks that we rip and throw away, and put ugly renders on the actual cards that we play with.

I really, really, really do not understand the reasoning for this.
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I think it's because it probably is cheaper to get renders done.

This is not aimed at anyone specifically, but moreso on what I'm seeing recently. Am I the biggest fan of those renders? Not necessarily, I would love to see more non-render art for V cards too, but I feel like it gets negative art-wise almost every single time a new V card is posted, and it gets a little tiring. IDK, I just feel like there are other ways of expressing opinions than calling art ugly/horrendous/terrible, but maybe I don't have such a big issue with renders. Who knows
 
Giratina seems to be insane just looking at sheer damage output for a 2-prizer. Could easily be charged with Gardenia to swing on T2, or maybe even partner with Arceus?
 
MagnaDrake said:
Giratina seems to be insane just looking at sheer damage output for a 2-prizer. Could easily be charged with Gardenia to swing on T2, or maybe even partner with Arceus?
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Giratina is really going to struggle against one-prizer decks if it's the only card with real damage output in the deck, since it needs to Lost Zone 12 energies to get all the KOs. I doubt this deck will be so rigid as to not splash for other attackers, but it is a downside to the card itself.
EDIT: Scratch that you can just attack with the V lol
 
Obviiious said:
And again, they put the most amazing and wonderfull artwork on the English boosterpacks that we rip and throw away, and put ugly renders on the actual cards that we play with.

I really, really, really do not understand the reasoning for this.
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Normally I'd agree, but this time I think Giratina looks really good. The biggest issues I had with the Palkia, and especially Dialga cards, was that the new Vstar layout and their new designs (which were not good) made it very confusing to look at. Made me concerned about Giratina, but the layout is good and the render is better than most any 5-ban I've seen. Very excited for this set. It's the one I've been looking forward to most, as I love Giratina's weird but cool design.

To your point, though, I do wish they'd use more of the package style art for the V cards. I know it'd cost more to license art for all ultra-rares , but there's so many great artists and it's awesome to see when they do use it for cards like Machamp, Gallade or Luxray.
 
Yaginku said:
Giratina is really going to struggle against one-prizer decks if it's the only card with real damage output in the deck, since it needs to Lost Zone 12 energies to get all the KOs. I doubt this deck will be so rigid as to not splash for other attackers, but it is a downside to the card itself.
EDIT: Scratch that you can just attack with the V lol
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Yeah the base V is a decent attacker itself. If you pair it with Arceus VStar then the problem just goes away I think.
 
steffenka said:
This is not aimed at anyone specifically, but moreso on what I'm seeing recently. Am I the biggest fan of those renders? Not necessarily, I would love to see more non-render art for V cards too, but I feel like it gets negative art-wise almost every single time a new V card is posted, and it gets a little tiring.
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I was an art kid in elementary school, and back then I thought CG renders were the coolest things because it was something I couldn’t draw. I know they’re cheaper and relatively easy to make as an adult but I still have a bit of a soft spot for them tbh.

Also regular art Vs are bulk-adjacent these days and most end up getting alternate art prints anyway so there’s really no reason to be up in arms about 5ban. I’d escalate from “a little tiring” to “grating” honestly.
 
Not sure how much I like the lost zone stank effect on the cards; something about it just looks... Lame? Maybe it's the lack of texture.

I hope the new card style that'll come with Scarlet and Violet will be cool. So far, the HGSS era has been my absolute favorite after some of the really early sets like Ruby and Sapphire or Expedition.
 
Is there a running list of the pokemon who haven't had a card for the longest (and the list is long enough so it's not just all baby pokemon)?
 
Fun? trivia time:

This is only the second Comfey card in the TCG (as some already mentioned),

and, Midori Harada makes a return to the card game as an artist after a hiatus (and some cryptic tweets about whether she would ever make art for the card game ever again).
 
JumpluffTCG said:
I was an art kid in elementary school, and back then I thought CG renders were the coolest things because it was something I couldn’t draw. I know they’re cheaper and relatively easy to make as an adult but I still have a bit of a soft spot for them tbh.

Also regular art Vs are bulk-adjacent these days and most end up getting alternate art prints anyway so there’s really no reason to be up in arms about 5ban. I’d escalate from “a little tiring” to “grating” honestly.
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Let's break down the fallacies here.

First, most people are collectors not players - even though this site is player based - so obviously people focus more on the art than anything else.

Second, in a JP set there are 6-8 Vs in a normal expansion of which all get FAs and 3-4 are AAs. In a special expansion it is 0 AAs.

So "most get AAs" is a lie. 5ban and its ilk are massively over-represented as hits.

In Astral Radiance, 21-7 of Vs and VMAX/STARs are CGI artists. For FAs and above it is 27-6. So a total of 48-13 in favour of CGI art for URs.

& that's the same story every set, so grating? Not enough more like.

And nothing like alt arts being the most valuable every set and higher rarity rainbows and golds always dropping like rocks because of lack of demand to back that up.
 
beatbox2000 said:
Let's break down the fallacies here.

First, most people are collectors not players - even though this site is player based - so obviously people focus more on the art than anything else.

Second, in a JP set there are 6-8 Vs in a normal expansion of which all get FAs and 3-4 are AAs. In a special expansion it is 0 AAs.

So "most get AAs" is a lie. 5ban and its ilk are massively over-represented as hits.

In Astral Radiance, 21-7 of Vs and VMAX/STARs are CGI artists. For FAs and above it is 27-6. So a total of 48-13 in favour of CGI art for URs.

& that's the same story every set, so grating? Not enough more like.

And nothing like alt arts being the most valuable every set and higher rarity rainbows and golds always dropping like rocks because of lack of demand to back that up.
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One could argue that FAs are alternate art prints. That's why I prefer the terminology Special (Full) Art for what we call Alternate Art, because any orint that is not the regular art is an alternate art.
 
dineinunes said:
One could argue that FAs are alternate art prints. That's why I prefer the terminology Special (Full) Art for what we call Alternate Art, because any orint that is not the regular art is an alternate art.
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I agree with your point. Th full art is not the "longer" version of the regular art. Also, most (not all) have different artists.
 
The visual indications of Lost Zone cards look neat, but my interest in the Lost Zone mechanic is… the mechanic. Now take this with a grain of salt because I have been out of the loop with the Trading Card Game for years now, and the fact that I have a strong opinion of a mechanic rather than collecting says a lot--but these just seem lackluster to me. Almost every card focuses on putting YOUR cards in there, and few make use of the cards that are in there. Like, you can aim for a free 110 damage with Cramorant, a single use 1HKO from Giratina VStar, or energy acceleration with Mirage Gate. ...But then what are you accelerating energy onto if Cramorant attacks for free and if Giratina makes use of the Lost Zone once? I guess attacking with Giratina VStar's regular attack? But if this is in any other deck, can you afford to put all the cards required to make use of that energy acceleration in your deck, on top of having 7 cards completely removed from play?

If these new cards are mainly going to focus on you sending cards to the Lost Zone in order to gain some sort of benefit, there needs to be a drawback for making use of the Lost Zone aside from cards simply being removed from play. As I was reading it, what I THOUGHT that Banette Ability was going to be was Once during your turn, you may choose a Supporter card from your Discard pile, reveal it, and use that Supporter card’s effect as this Ability, then place that Supporter card in the Lost Zone. If that’s too much of a broken Ability, it could go further by saying you cannot use more than one of this Ability per turn and/or if you do, put this Pokémon in the Lost Zone, like it already says. That would be a strong effect! But it has its drawbacks.

What I remember liking about the Lost Zone was that you had to use it to your advantage and to your opponent’s disadvantage. The only cards revealed here that disrupt your opponent are Lost City and Lost Sweeper. But unlike previous attacks that send KO'd Pokemon to the Lost Zone, Lost City doesn't include energy and Tools. And there doesn't seem to be any specifics for what you want to be in either your or your opponent's Lost Zones. There's nothing like Mew Prime, the Lost March Pokemon, or Raikou from Lost Thunder that uses those specific cards in your Lost Zone for a greater effect.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I liked the variety that the Lost Zone previously brought. I'm looking forward to more cards being revealed, now that we've seen that Lost Zone binder with Rotom and Shiftry in the artwork. But right now, not considering the Expanded format, these cards get funneled into "Chuck 17% of your deck away, power up Giratina's single use attack, ???, profit!" But again, I've been out of the TCG for years now, maybe there are other uses for these cards that I'm not aware of.
 
Love that they are bringing back Lost zone!! The new swirls around the cards that feature LZ are super cool!
 
beatbox2000 said:
Let's break down the fallacies here.
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Did I somehow offend you by telling a personal anecdote relating to why I don’t mind CG Art on cards as someone who’s made Pokémon a major part of their lives for two decades? Imagine we were buds and after I talk about my childhood, your immediate response is “let’s break down the FALLACIES here” rofl

Like sure I might have been incorrect to say “most” ultra rares get AA prints, but that’s not even the point.

Maybe, I don’t actually know, “most people” in the hobby by revenue are adults buying cases and cases of product because they have the financial means to and love Pokémon (which is good), or people who are feeding their gambling addiction/in it for stonks. But the majority by sheer numbers are the kids, and all the kids I’ve talked to are still just as excited about regular CG, bulk adjacent ultra rares as I was when I pulled a Gardevoir ex in 2006. They don’t care that it’s CG because either they think CG is cool (like me), and/or it’s a special, shiny card, nor do they care that it’s worth $1 on TCGPlayer. It’s alarming to me that you pontificate about how most people who buy cards are collectors, and yet you failed to recognize that collecting is very personal while the collector base is diverse. Things like market value, relative rarity, CG vs. hand drawn aren’t crucial factors for many genuine collectors, which was my original point.

And if CG art enables Pokémon to create ultra rares featuring more Pokémon, isn’t that a good thing? If RAs are so numerous that they’re dirt cheap on the secondary market, isn’t that a good thing for players who want to build decks and compete in tournaments? Again, the fanbase is diverse.

If you find the CG RAs to be ugly and hate pulling them because they’re dirt cheap, then that just means these lines of cards aren’t for you. That’s fine, because plenty of kids hate pulling trainer cards which the competitive playerbase cares a lot about. Different cards serve different audiences. It’s one thing to evaluate cards solely on the type of art you like, but to shit on an entire class of cards and go after people as viciously as you went after me for expressing the opposite opinion? I find it especially uncalled for after Pokémon introduced AAs for people such as yourself.

So yes, listening to people like you is grating.
 
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Outside of Lost City, I'm not at all excited for this set.

For me personally, I find it not as fun when Pokemon makes cards that are literally made to work with each other. In essence, Pokemon is making the meta and not the players. This completely removes most of the creativity for the game and it just isn't as fun to play.

I wish they'd just print good cards out and have the players dicover the combos themselves.

This reeks of Fusion Strike again and I'm not excited about it.
 
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