Major Changes Coming to 'Fates Collide' Prereleases!

Wow, that's truly interesting. Hope that "Evolution Pack" contains those staples that are so painful to get, so more people would get in!

Ps.: Nice history class, WPM, now get back to your script. :p
 
As someone who completely skipped the card game generations 3-5, I found this a really fun read! It kind of reminded me of how I recalled Prerelease cards generation 2 and before... Although they were just given to leagues to hand to their members for free, with no pack tournaments whatsoever.
 
This might be the reason for me to start coming to pre-release, I hope no Eeveelution will in one of those special prerelease card as it will make it painful to collect. I do hope the prize would increase again for this change
 
The way the prereleases are going to be done in fates collide is no different from what MTG has been doing with their seeded pack model between Fall 2012 to Summer 2014. The seeded pack in MTG is basically a pack that only contains a certain color or colors, for example, in the Return to Ravnica prerelease, the Rakdos prerelease pack contains a seeded pack with only black and red Rakdos themed cards. In M15, the Red prerelease pack seeded booster contains only red cards. I am guessing the evolution pack contains random evolution lines. In a conventional pre-release with 6 packs, you can't really build a full evolution line because you aren't guaranteed to pull the pokemon to evolve into your stage 2 with 6 booster packs.

I bet that the next changes would be that you have a choice between 2 options that you can choose from, and the promo card is exactly the same card as the theme deck face card, except with alternate artwork. If this were to happen with Breakpoint, you get to choose the Greninja prerelease pack, or the Luxray prerelease pack. You also get to use the promo in your prerelease deck.

Then the next change would be instead of being able to choose one of 2 prerelease packs based on the promo you want, you still get to pick one of 2 packs, except that each one has a randomly inserted promo card drawn from 4 of the rare holos in the set, so 2 different prerelease packs, one of 4 promos per pack, 8 promos in total. The promos don't have alternate art, but is stamped. The change is instead of getting one promo, it goes back to the fates collide version of randomly giving you one of 4 promos, with the difference that you have 2 prerelease packs to choose from, each one with a specific set of 4 promos, in which one of 4 is drawn randomly. At this moment, the theme decks would have alternate art for their face cards, but still have a non-holo second copy of the card with regular artwork.

The last change is instead of having 2 different prerelease pack choices to pick from, you only get one. The pack contains 6 boosters, no evolution or special packs. Just 6 plain old boosters. Instead of having a one specific promo card or one of 4 promos, the promo is any random rare-holo from the set. The promos are stamped.


Just watch how all this is going to happen haha.


For the last changes, even if it isn't prerelease pack, Yugioh does have a Super Edition where the promo is any random super rare from the set.
 
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Wow, this is really very interesting! I can't wait to see what they include in the Evolution Packs (though I think if they wanted more "balanced" prereleases, they'd be better off giving a few decent trainers to everyone, too :p). Really makes me miss going to prereleases... anyone want to go on a trip to Haarlem with me for Fates Collide? :D
 
I can see why they're doing this (it can suck not pulling any Supporters, for example. Though funnily enough, I pulled zero Supporters at the BREAKpoint sneak and came second. Was a large turnout, too.) But having to make the most of what you pulled is where most of the appeal of Sneaks comes from. If everyone gets a stable Trainer base, the games become a fair bit more predictable.

I also don't look forward to the Fates Collide one in particular, since they're new to the whole "Evolution Pack" concept, and there's a fair chance the balance of it will be off. (Last thing we need is for something like Sycamore to end up in it.)


And man... Those promos are going to be a PAIN to get a set of for those that want one. (Though this is kinda cool, even if most of the promos will predictably be Pokemon that have BREAKs like the last couple of Sneaks. Who knows, maybe they'll throw a curveball and include a Trainer. Or, urgh, an EX.) The fact they're quite possibly usable in the tournament now is concerning, too.

This post probably sounds a tad bit more negative than it's meant to be. I'm just a huge fan of the unpredictability of Sneaks, and am sad that that's probably going to be mostly gone now. (Though I can see this being incredible for new people that want to get into the game, as the "Evolution Pack" is going to help a beginner's cardpool quite a bit I'd imagine.)
 
I was born August 5th 2003 so ruby and sapphire were my starters this is very cool info
 
I've been wondering for a while if they would do something like this. Funny how MTG just stopped doing seeded packs in their prerelease boxes and they appear in Pokémon. Prereleases REALLY SUCKED if you pulled nothing good to build a deck around, when you get no good rares/uncommons/Trainers. Even more annoying was you'd be forced to build a deck and play some rounds to be eligible for the extra packs at the end. Even if you had good pulls, you're probably dependent on drawing into your trainers or the one EX you pulled. Hopefully, the changes makes prerelease tournaments more bearable but the one less pack of the new set is disappointing.
 
I am hoping we get to keep these "Evolution Packs", they have good trainers, and it will make me want to go (so far, not too hyped for Fates Collide).
 
Im guessing in the "Evolution Packs" there will be some kind of staple cards. I predict there will be a 2-2 of octillery and a 3-2-1 of crobat, and maybe a 2-2 zoroark (im hoping). We could also get Vespiquen or other splashable cards. Hopefully some staple cards like sycamore and vs seeker to make the prerelease tournaments more competitive. There will probobly be some non-playable eveolutions in there. Also please gallade BKT/garchomp BKP be in the packs.:D
 
I've been hoping they'd do seeded packs to make it easier to get trainers for the prerelease tournaments for years.

to look at it another way before you got 6 packs for event and 2 after + 1 promo card for total of 81 cards. in this you get 4 pack + 22 card evo for event and 3 after + 1 promo for total 93. if price stays the same you're up 12 cards.

As for usefulness of the evo pack over regular packs it's hard to say. for playing in the tournament usefulness is higher as it's almost guaranteed a good portion of the evo cards will be the core of the deck you make. For trading/collecting that depends on what kind of cards they are and what amount of variance they have, they could be better or worse then a regular pack.

thinking on it all the cards that are from previous sets will almost certainly be trainers, pokemon in the evo pack will likely be the ones that can break evolve, such that if you pull the break in your packs you actually have a chance to use it at the prerelease (nothing worse then pulling a stage 2/break/mega at prerelease but not its lower stage)
 
Im guessing in the "Evolution Packs" there will be some kind of staple cards. I predict there will be a 2-2 of octillery and a 3-2-1 of crobat, and maybe a 2-2 zoroark (im hoping). We could also get Vespiquen or other splashable cards. Hopefully some staple cards like sycamore and vs seeker to make the prerelease tournaments more competitive. There will probobly be some non-playable eveolutions in there. Also please gallade BKT/garchomp BKP be in the packs.:D

They won't be anywhere near that good, instead it'll likely be singleton of staple Trainers (like Sycamore, VS Seeker, Shauna, etc) and some Pokemon lines centered around what's in the set so that the prerelease is not only playable but enjoyable and fresh. Inserting good Pokemon from previous sets would go against the spirit of the Prerelease, as it's all about the new set, not what's already out.

What I am worried about is the amount of Evolution packs, as if there are very few Prereleases could be very stale as you would be playing against the same archetypes over and over. So I hope that there's a good amount of variety while still keeping these packs relevant.
 
I've always enjoyed going to prereleases before, depending on the price point and what's included in these evolution packs, this could be really good, or terrible. I'm excited to go and find out lol
 
That is crazy you won 400$+ worth of stuff for winning a prerelease! Very fun nostalgia trip, all of it was new to me as my first prerelease was Majestic Dawn from the DPP era.
 
Just had an idea: this concept of a base could work for a cube draft... The gears begin to turn....
 
As a collector first and a player second, getting one out of four prerelease promos doesn't sound very appealing. I'm only going to one prerelease. Guess I have to buy (or trade for) the other missing three promos for every single set from now on. (Until TPCi changes their minds again.) I suppose we don't know what the details are on these promo cards, like if they're all different cards or if all four are the same promo but with different artwork, but again, this just does not sound appealing to me.

However, the rest of the changes do sound interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how it'll work out. It sounds like the Evolution Pack could be very helpful for making decks at the prerelease, and if it contains actually useful cards, past and present, I think that sounds like a fair enough trade off for one less booster pack.

I've been going to prereleases since HGSS, but the history lesson was great to read about! Very interesting. Thanks, WPM!
 
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