(3) 15th Anniversary Set, Oshawott/Tepig Boxes, Autumn Friendly Tourney [10/8]

[Marky Vigoroth]

I would so buy this fabulous set if the price was lower. Hopefully eBay would help eventually, but I am worried about inflated prices there, not counting the auctions.

 

[Rusty Sticks]

Registration for the Autumn Friendly is now open. There are only 10000 spots, so get one quick!

Go to the Global Battle Union and go to Competition Info, and register. Once you do that, you need to save your team in the Battle Box and connect through the Battle Competition option (in game).

EDIT: realized this tournament is going to suck due to rage-quitting...

 

[The Wii Man1234]

Registration for the Autumn Friendly is now open. There are only 10000 spots, so get one quick!

Go to the Global Battle Union and go to Competition Info, and register. Once you do that, you need to save your team in the Battle Box and connect through the Battle Competition option (in game).

EDIT: realized this tournament is going to suck due to rage-quitting...

So that is how you do it, and I guess we will se how it goes.

 

[Mew the source of all]

First of all, I've heard serious collectors justify taking out loans to buy cards when they were short on cash, so $52 dollars will be less than a drop in the bucket for those sorts of people.

The problem here is that reissuing two newer cards is an incredibly underwhelming way to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the franchise. I know Zekrom and Reshiram are the new hotness but, realistically, they're going to lose their luster in a few years and even in the context of the card game itself I doubt anyone's going to still care about these cards the way people might still remember Base Set Charizard, Hitmonchan, Neo Genesis Slowking, Flying Pikachu -- now, they're is a bit of a problem in mining nostalgia because recent sets already have gone through the motions of reprinting iconic classic cards and it actually is somewhat refreshing to have a major TCG print NOT be Pikachu. But if they could've found a way to represent a variety of iconic cards in a number of sets that represent the entire span of 15 years instead of just one and made it available at a reasonable price point (correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt even the international Pikachu set cost this much) that could've been much more interesting than what they've done here..


But this form of commemoration (two cards and some stuff most people will put away hoping it increases in value rather than ever use) is incredibly underwhelming and at an inaccessible price for some. I hope the international markets do something a bit 'catchier' for their 15th anniversary commemorations, and I hope that something more interesting, like an entire set celebrating all previous sets instead of two cards representing a single one, gets planned for the 20th anniversary.



(PS Long-time lurker, but not first time poster. Didn't mean to register a new account just to post this comment, but my old account is associated with an e-mail I lost the password for a long time ago.)

You made some excellent points, but I have to disagree with you. I'll start with the cards that were chosen for this, the FA Reshiram and Zekrom. I believe that these are great choices, and not because they're good cards. Let's review what Pokemon did with Black and White, they kept references to other generations to a minimum, and made focused on new pokemon and new pokemon alone. Reshiram and Zekrom are the mascots for the new stand alone generation, and in turn are valid choices for putting into this. As for not printing older pokemon cards, I can give a simple reason. Look at the past five years, we've had a few reprints as of late, and reprinting Charizard would be a tad ridiculous, and as for Slowking (the only pokemon not reprinted) it may not have had a big role for Japanese players (who are the main consumer for this), since America got a bad translation. Also you have to take into account that unlike video games, which you can play the originals, the TCG is an evolving game, and players may not hold the same cards to the same standard (as with Slowking) and Reshiram and Zekrom are universally accepted right now by players. Would a few others have been nice, sure I would have loved to see a Mew card, but that's my personal preference.

I've been involved with Pokemon since it started, though admittedly I only got into it more around Firered and Leafgreen, but it was common to find players that would have been attracted by the cards you talked about at the time, but that's changed. Recently I've seen a lot of players who started with Ruby and Sapphire, and they wouldn't have as much appreciation for Base set Charizard as old players, and that would be a tad cruel to print an unplayable card that's biased towards the smaller group of old players. And while Reshiram and Zekrom may fade in your eyes as time passes, new players may find themselves attached to these cards like you with Charizard.

As for the 'things people will put away and hope the increase in value.' Playmats and sleeves are highly valued accessories right now. I'd probably settle for $60-$80 for this set if not more for the sheer fact that Japanese sleeves tend to go for $20+ for two packs of 32, and Playmats are often used, and difficult to get accessories. (A Worlds 2011 playmat was going for about $80 around the end of Worlds and that was one-sided) And you also get some cool essentials for the game.

I understand where you're coming from, but nostalgia shouldn't get in the way of something targeted to all players (at least Japanese players) and not older players (which also hasn't done well for Pokemon in the past) Is this set satisfactory? Not to everyone, but that doesn't make it bad, or even not worth it. I find it to be a fair compromise, and one I plan to get (it had me at playmat)

 

[Ophie]

Registration for the Autumn Friendly is now open. There are only 10000 spots, so get one quick!

Go to the Global Battle Union and go to Competition Info, and register. Once you do that, you need to save your team in the Battle Box and connect through the Battle Competition option (in game).

EDIT: realized this tournament is going to suck due to rage-quitting...

I read the rules, and it looks like the system will look for people with excessive amounts of disconnections and will penalize them as such. I don't doubt there'll still be a ton of ragequitting, but it won't be at the level you're seeing in regular wi-fi.