'Shocking Volt Tackle,' Japan's September Set!

Nessa gonna cost me a pretty penny isn't she? :(

Misty never got expensive, so maybe she won't either
 
No clue why Galarian Darmanitan is in the rainbow dimension, but okay. It's not an awful render and I'll pick one up when it gets released in the West, just because I'm on a quest to own every English Darmanitan that's ever existed, but couldn't they have put it behind like...Ice spikes or something? At least it doesn't clash as bad as that Pika's background, I just don't get that decision...
 
I know I complain too much about this, but in a set with 120+ cards give or take, around 30 of them give or take being Ultra Rares is ridiculous. Compared to English sets around that size, look at any Black and White era set for comparison. Averaging 6 EXs, 6 Full arts, 1 or 2 supporters and a handful of SR's. That doesn't even hit 20 most of the time (Plasma Freeze I think might have hit that though). At LEAST 9 of these cards aren't necessary (Rainbows and Gold Items), and you could make an argument we don't need this many V's in a set, but that number is okay.

This would be a lot more tolerable if this was a quarterly set release, hell, even the way later XY did it where they had main sets and a handful of Concept Packs that weren't even that huge or anything, but instead we're getting gargantuan sets because Japan just has to do monthly sets. It's too much to even keep track of when you have an absolute typhoon of cards coming your way every set now.
 
AshCo said:
I know I complain too much about this, but in a set with 120+ cards give or take, around 30 of them give or take being Ultra Rares is ridiculous. Compared to English sets around that size, look at any Black and White era set for comparison. Averaging 6 EXs, 6 Full arts, 1 or 2 supporters and a handful of SR's. That doesn't even hit 20 most of the time (Plasma Freeze I think might have hit that though). At LEAST 9 of these cards aren't necessary (Rainbows and Gold Items), and you could make an argument we don't need this many V's in a set, but that number is okay.

This would be a lot more tolerable if this was a quarterly set release, hell, even the way later XY did it where they had main sets and a handful of Concept Packs that weren't even that huge or anything, but instead we're getting gargantuan sets because Japan just has to do monthly sets. It's too much to even keep track of when you have an absolute typhoon of cards coming your way every set now.
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eh? It's more cards which means you get more cool stuff. I dont see how its an issue
 
CrownAxe said:
eh? It's more cards which means you get more cool stuff. I dont see how its an issue
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You see, I don't really agree you're always getting more "cool" stuff. Oftentimes you're just getting more stuff, and therein lies the problem. It's both about quality vs. quantity as well as striking the balance that makes collecting actually engaging.

I don't want more Ultra Rares if it just means it's going to be simple palette swaps like Rainbows or an exuberant amount of Gold Items that don't have as much of a collectible appeal as something like a Pokemon or a Supporter. (I get the appeal of gold items, for players who want to bling out their decks it's just not for me unless I'm on PTCGO). I would much rather something like the HGSS sets where you had the Primes and especially Legends that looked fantastic and memorable. Think of it this way, what are the best parts of the Tag Team GX's? The Regulars and the Alternate Arts, they're well-done and each have memorable artworks. A rainbow rare doesn't have that same charm to it, it's just another one of a ton of the same exact looking card. It's lazy and it's filler, and arguably it looks worse than their original counterparts. It's a lot harder to care about having more cards if most of them are bland and forgettable, getting in the way of the cards that actually look nice and are collectible.

And then, think of this. A set, completing a set should be fun and challenging. A set like in the HGSS era would require a box or two, and getting the last couple of cards you need as singles. BW and XY were like this too with a little bit more singles to get, but overall it wasn't too hard to do. I would know, I have nearly every ultra from BW and a good chunk of XY. Some of it's easier to collect, some of it is harder, but it's still feasible. Compare that to a Sun and Moon set, where there's practically dozens of Ultras, full arts and secret rares per set, the last of which have nearly 1:2 box rates. On top of Full arts, on top of GXs, on TOP of nearly 150-200 cards a set to collect. Every three months. That's not fun, it's overwhelming for completionists. I'm sure casual collectors and players don't mind, but there are tons of people who want to complete these sets, and that's their reason for collecting. It's more engaging when your end goal is a fair challenge, because you know you can do it with a little work. I'd argue the one set that actually did this in the entire Sun and Moon era was Shining Legends, and yes, I'll admit, I do like one exception to my preference: Hidden Fates, while HUGE and hard to collect at least has the engagement factor going for it with decent enough pull rates to boot. But that's a special set: Those are fine on occasion, just not all the time. I'm not saying to make collecting easy either, that takes the fun out of it. It's all about a balance.
 
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I love the golden Shiny Mons! I think that's the way to make the Shinies compared to the SM (and that Charizard) cards with the sparkles and white backgrounds, and I really like how they're keeping it at one per set - always looking forward to seeing which Mon got the Shiny treatment each time hehe
 
I completely agree with @AshCo , the size of out sets is ridiculous, and I absolutely hate the amount of filler ultras and filler Pokemon overall. I'm not fond of Rainbows and I hate that they started doing Rainbow Trainers... i'm always disappointed when I pull a Rainbow trainer compared to their FA counterparts, but I guess they sell for more... but yeah, since Lost Thunder they have really been going all gas no brake with the "sEcReTs", it's really annoying, but at least the odds of Ultras/White Codes have increased slightly.

Saying that, I do look forward to getting FA Bea and that Sirfetch'd (if we get it)!
 
You're also not "getting more cool stuff" because pull rates continue to be the same rate they've always been. Even though back then we had no ultra or secret rares per set and now in the English versions we have like sixty.
 
AshCo said:
You see, I don't really agree you're always getting more "cool" stuff. Oftentimes you're just getting more stuff, and therein lies the problem. It's both about quality vs. quantity as well as striking the balance that makes collecting actually engaging.

I don't want more Ultra Rares if it just means it's going to be simple palette swaps like Rainbows or an exuberant amount of Gold Items that don't have as much of a collectible appeal as something like a Pokemon or a Supporter. (I get the appeal of gold items, for players who want to bling out their decks it's just not for me unless I'm on PTCGO). I would much rather something like the HGSS sets where you had the Primes and especially Legends that looked fantastic and memorable. Think of it this way, what are the best parts of the Tag Team GX's? The Regulars and the Alternate Arts, they're well-done and each have memorable artworks. A rainbow rare doesn't have that same charm to it, it's just another one of a ton of the same exact looking card. It's lazy and it's filler, and arguably it looks worse than their original counterparts. It's a lot harder to care about having more cards if most of them are bland and forgettable, getting in the way of the cards that actually look nice and are collectible.

And then, think of this. A set, completing a set should be fun and challenging. A set like in the HGSS era would require a box or two, and getting the last couple of cards you need as singles. BW and XY were like this too with a little bit more singles to get, but overall it wasn't too hard to do. I would know, I have nearly every ultra from BW and a good chunk of XY. Some of it's easier to collect, some of it is harder, but it's still feasible. Compare that to a Sun and Moon set, where there's practically dozens of Ultras, full arts and secret rares per set, the last of which have nearly 1:2 box rates. On top of Full arts, on top of GXs, on TOP of nearly 150-200 cards a set to collect. Every three months. That's not fun, it's overwhelming for completionists. I'm sure casual collectors and players don't mind, but there are tons of people who want to complete these sets, and that's their reason for collecting. It's more engaging when your end goal is a fair challenge, because you know you can do it with a little work. I'd argue the one set that actually did this in the entire Sun and Moon era was Shining Legends, and yes, I'll admit, I do like one exception to my preference: Hidden Fates, while HUGE and hard to collect at least has the engagement factor going for it with decent enough pull rates to boot. But that's a special set: Those are fine on occasion, just not all the time. I'm not saying to make collecting easy either, that takes the fun out of it. It's all about a balance.
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Well I'm all player and 0% collector so to me more secret rares means more chances that cards I like to play get a gold or full art to bling my deck with
 
CrownAxe said:
Well I'm all player and 0% collector so to me more secret rares means more chances that cards I like to play get a gold or full art to bling my deck with
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Right, and that's where we differ. You gotta try and see where I'm coming from on this too; I'm 100% a collector, and I couldn't care less about playing the game, besides the Legacy Format which PTCGO screwed over anyways, so I'm coming from that end, and I can see where you're coming from too. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with wanting to do bling out a deck, I did it a lot on TCGO when I was more active on there. But here's the thing, if you want to bling out your decks, do you really need 3-4 different versions of the exact same card? Or what if you prefer to play a specific rarity of said card, like an Alt Art Tag Team, or specifically the Full Art and not the rainbow. You're only going to really want to use one version, so it still leaves a bunch of unnecessary fluff for people to deal with. This is where the problem lies.

It's so much easier to have just a regular and a full art. Secret Rares are fine too, as long as they don't overdo it. I don't mind items being there for the people who want them, just it becomes a problem when they do a ton of them each set and only a handful of them are actually useful, again creating filler. Not to mention, that filler actually makes the cards you want harder and more annoying to get. When there's a handful of rainbows a set that don't matter, whatever gold item you want to get gets that much harder to obtain, and more expensive as a result of lower supply clashing with whatever level of demand there is.

I seriously don't think the people who like blinging out their decks would care if they got rid of rainbows. There's still Full Arts, there's still everything you could want. So why not just make it better on everyone else? .Having that balance for both collectors and players is something I want them to reach, and as of now they're really not-I always celebrate when players get their staples in an accessible form, because it's making their lives just a bit easier. I just wish collectors could be thrown a bone here for once and just have sets that don't have to make them bend over backwards to complete a set with all the filler. And like I stated before, it'd actually benefit you guys too.
 
@AshCo As far as I can tell the increase in secret rares hasn't had any adverse effect on the second hand market. Which makes sense because supply going down doesn't not automatically increase prices. Modern sets are still printed in such high quantities that there is plenty of supply for the singles market when it comes to the various secret rares. Even if supply goes down, if there is a surplus still then prices don't go up. Of course it's harder to pull specific secret rares from booster packs but it's always been cheaper to buy singles so I don't waste my money on booster packs.

So for players like myself there are no downsides to the increased variety of secret rares (so far anyway, obviously if there were like 100 secret rares per set it would probably become and issue) and it's just given players more options to express themselves or stylize their deck. I am sure some players do like the aesthetic of rainbow rare and not exclusively because of max rarity they would be disappointed to remove rainbow rare from sets.
 
Yeah, more ultra rares is one of the main reasons I stopped buying tcg products. I haven’t been a fan of the card design on ultra rares since XY though I do like full arts for pokemon that didn’t get full arts in XY or Black and White.

For me the fun was collecting was pulling the cards but its way to expensive to do that with 30+ ultra rares. And honestly not a fan of the rainbow cards either. Its fun to see which older Pokemon get full arts but I don’t really need to own the cards.
 
CrownAxe said:
@AshCo As far as I can tell the increase in secret rares hasn't had any adverse effect on the second hand market. Which makes sense because supply going down doesn't not automatically increase prices. Modern sets are still printed in such high quantities that there is plenty of supply for the singles market when it comes to the various secret rares. Even if supply goes down, if there is a surplus still then prices don't go up. Of course it's harder to pull specific secret rares from booster packs but it's always been cheaper to buy singles so I don't waste my money on booster packs.
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I mean, sure, for the most part if it's a rainbow rare or a secret nobody cares about. But why is something like Rainbow Charizard that much more expensive than something like the SR Mega Charizard from Flashfire, even something like Stormfront or EX Dragon's secret rares then? They have the same rates, but the rainbow is also fighting against a ton of other secrets to be pulled from those who crack open cases. Any rainbow now that's of a remotely popular Pokemon skyrockets because of it. Granted this is also from hype and artificial inflation, which is an issue as well-Just look at the Charizard VMAX. Not rare, but people are trying to sell it for $100 because...Some reason. Besides, print runs have become more strict lately than they used to be during, say, Steam Siege or Evolutions. Still high enough to make most common ultra rares nearly worthless, but still low enough for those secrets to be worth something, and I think that's fine! They should strike a balance with print runs. But a lot of SR's suffer because of their rates for a specific one.

I 100% agree with you that singles are better than boxes and packs but I almost feel like this is the worst time to ever open boxes in years. At least in XY, especially 2015 sets you'd get a decent enough RoR and nearly always a complete common/uncommon/rare set. BW era rates were astronomically low but I got a decent enough haul on my BCR box, and if I sold everything at the time, I would actually made more than I paid for with RS, AO, and BREAKThrough at the time. I almost had enough to play decks like M-Rayquaza and Mewtwo too, I just didn't care enough to buy the singles and go out and play the game. That was all actually possible back then if you got a bit lucky. Granted the prices aren't that anymore, especially with RS, and now the only one I still stayed ahead on was AOR because I got the gold Ray out of it, but the whole point here is that packs are kind of worthless unless you get one of those hype secrets, which sucks because I actually kinda used to like opening up stuff. I'm singles for life but it's kind of a side effect to acknowledge that booster boxes have way less merit than they used to.


CrownAxe said:
So for players like myself there are no downsides to the increased variety of secret rares (so far anyway, obviously if there were like 100 secret rares per set it would probably become and issue) and it's just given players more options to express themselves or stylize their deck. I am sure some players do like the aesthetic of rainbow rare and not exclusively because of max rarity they would be disappointed to remove rainbow rare from sets.
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I get that, but I still implore you to look at it from the side of completionists and collectors. There's downsides for them and nobody acknowledges it. Players aren't the only people who they should cater to. I mean, yes you could say "Well just don't collect rainbows!" And I don't. But I'm still against them fundamentally, I'm still against sets with more cards than Aquapolis every other set, because a huge amount of it is filler that even you won't care about because you'll never play it. A lot of the playerbase just dismisses any card that isn't playable, so that's at least two filler cards, maybe three. Again, this much filler is not a good thing, and even if they're good cards, too much of a good thing is not good. It just creates a bunch of side effects to it. There needs to be more quality and less quantity.

If you want to see exactly why I have a problem with this all, try 100% completing Boundaries Crossed, and then try completing Lost Thunder.
 
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