Best Expansion to Buy

Dedem0718

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hi, my name Is Marc. I am the father of a 10 years old Pokemon fan. In fact, he'll be turning 10 in 10 days and I would like to offer him a full box a pokemon trading cards.

I'm also a pokemon player, and I have access to a few expansion set box from the past (Ancient Origins, XY, Break Point, Break Trough, Fates Collide, Flash Fire, Furious Fists, XY Phantom Forces, Primal Clash, Roaring Skies, Steam Siege and The new Evolutions). My son tought Steam Siege was a good option to add the his collection he has already. But after reading your set review, it seems like if it is not the best expansion set to acquire.

He has a night striker from the break through serie theme deck and he also have a Kryogre theme deck he has pimped over the time.

On my side, I have a plasma blast theme deck from the black and white serie.

What would be the best expansion box I could buy to improve the cards we have already ?

Also, while you are here: what are the odds to complete a full set of an expansion when buying a sealed box ?

How many special/rare card should I found in a brand new box ?

Thanks a lot for your time
 
With your desire to grab a booster box, I would say that Roaring Skies is the best modern set to pick up. It has a lot of money cards (Shaymin EX, Rayquaza EX), a bunch of solid supporters, and great art all around.

Your chances of completing a set with one box (or even 4 boxes) are not great. Each pack contains one rare, 2with a fairly low chance of a reverse holo rare as well. Given the number of rates in each set (20-30+), and the fact that many rares have a higher rarity than the "garbage rares" (you'll get pretty sick of Skarmory and Togekiss), it's just not possible to complete with a box. I buy one or two, then grab singles to finish the sets off.
 
I'll second Roaring Skies if he is competitive, simply because of Shaymin EX, which if you pull even one can pay back more than half the cost of the box if you decide to sell it. That set also has a few good supporters as mentioned.

You won't be able to complete a set off one box. Is your son more of a collector, a casual league player, or is he planning on competing at a tournament level?

If he wants to compete then Roaring Skies is for sure the way to go, but if he is more of a collector and you yourself have any nostalgia for the original base set then maybe consider a box of the newest Evolutions set, which comes out next week. From what we can tell, it doesn't look to be a super competitive set, but for nostalgia reasons I plan on trying to collect the set.

If you have any nostalgia for base set it might be fun to collect Evolutions together. At the pre-release for it last weekend one of the kids pulled a pretty rare card, and one of the adults mentioned that he pulled the same card from one of his first packs twenty years ago. It was just fun to have the adults remembering their childhood while the kids were also rediscovering the "new" old set.
 
I would choose one with a good selection of playable trainer cards tbh. They are the most useful things to have when deckbuilding. It sounds like you guys aren't too competetive. So just choose ones with good trainers available and pokemon you like in it.
 
With your desire to grab a booster box, I would say that Roaring Skies is the best modern set to pick up. It has a lot of money cards (Shaymin EX, Rayquaza EX), a bunch of solid supporters, and great art all around.

Your chances of completing a set with one box (or even 4 boxes) are not great. Each pack contains one rare, 2with a fairly low chance of a reverse holo rare as well. Given the number of rates in each set (20-30+), and the fact that many rares have a higher rarity than the "garbage rares" (you'll get pretty sick of Skarmory and Togekiss), it's just not possible to complete with a box. I buy one or two, then grab singles to finish the sets off.

Thanks for your reply !

My bad, Roaring Skies box was already out of stock... what would be your second choice :) ?
 
I'll second Roaring Skies if he is competitive, simply because of Shaymin EX, which if you pull even one can pay back more than half the cost of the box if you decide to sell it. That set also has a few good supporters as mentioned.

You won't be able to complete a set off one box. Is your son more of a collector, a casual league player, or is he planning on competing at a tournament level?

If he wants to compete then Roaring Skies is for sure the way to go, but if he is more of a collector and you yourself have any nostalgia for the original base set then maybe consider a box of the newest Evolutions set, which comes out next week. From what we can tell, it doesn't look to be a super competitive set, but for nostalgia reasons I plan on trying to collect the set.

If you have any nostalgia for base set it might be fun to collect Evolutions together. At the pre-release for it last weekend one of the kids pulled a pretty rare card, and one of the adults mentioned that he pulled the same card from one of his first packs twenty years ago. It was just fun to have the adults remembering their childhood while the kids were also rediscovering the "new" old set.


No we are not competitive.. at least we are together and with is younger son as well. I wasn't,t collecting Pokemon in the late 90's... so there's no nostalgia on my side ! I just want to buy a box that will give in the chance to pull nice cards that will enhanced our decks. He also may want to collect the whole set.

I found that from one expansion to the other, the same cards seems to always be the same. So I would like one expansion that will give us new cards and that will also give us the chance to have better cards....
 
Best expansion is Roaring Skies I tell you. Most competitive stuff is there, and chance for shaymis.
 
If we're talking about getting the biggest per pack returns, your best options would be BREAKpoint and Fates Collide. BREAKpoint has Max Potion, Greninja BREAK, Max Elixir, Darkrai-EX, Puzzle of Time and so on while Fates Collide has things like N, Regirock-EX, Mew, and Glaceon-EX.

If you're looking for a chance to get the most expensive stuff for Standard, you can go fishing in Roaring Skies and try to find M Rayquaza-EX or Shaymin-EX.
 
If we're talking about getting the biggest per pack returns, your best options would be BREAKpoint and Fates Collide. BREAKpoint has Max Potion, Greninja BREAK, Max Elixir, Darkrai-EX, Puzzle of Time and so on while Fates Collide has things like N, Regirock-EX, Mew, and Glaceon-EX.

If you're looking for a chance to get the most expensive stuff for Standard, you can go fishing in Roaring Skies and try to find M Rayquaza-EX or Shaymin-EX.

Awesome !!! Thanks for your advices !!!
 
Moved from the TCG Competitive to the TCG Help, as the OP is looking for help on what to buy. ~bbninjas
 
I would also say Roaring Skies, but you said that it's already out of stock. That being said, I'd second the person who said BREAKpoint. It has a lot of good and fun cards! I'd also Phantom Forces, just because I found it to be a fantastic set from all aspects (except for the fact that pulling the banned Lysandre's Trump Card is fairly high).
 
Phantom Forces is indeed the next-best set after Roaring Skies. However, bear in mind it has rotated out of Standard format this September just gone, so most cards from it will be legal in Expanded format only.
 
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