Celebrations Promo Fiasco aka I'm a grumpy old man

General
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So, first of all, this is my true first Thread :3 As you all know, West got a selection of exclusive (at least so far) Promo cards along the release of Celebrations, with the intent of evoking nostalgia and old times.

All cool and well… except some of them are bad jokes of a nostalgia trip.

I will analyze them one by one, with a card of the same kind from the era it originated from, with a conclusion at the end :blush:

So, let’s go:

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So, we start with the Primes. Dragapult actually pulls a decent job at emulating the original primes. The only nitpick here is the fact that it’s power level is a little above the original primes.

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Here they actually used the correct holo pattern, like in the Primes, the same type of art, and, the only nitpicking, once again, is the overpowering of the card.

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Here we have the opposite: while the power level is actually accurate with the old delta times, delta pokémon never used that kind of holographic pattern.

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Light Toxtricity is easily one of the worst offenders. While it uses the correct card layout, the thicker yellow borders, the correct holo and an art that actually evokes the time it is supposed to evoke, it’s power level is too high and lacks the lighter border that light Pokémon had.

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Hydreigon is one of the best, correct holo pattern, correct layout, only the power level is a tiny bit above the time.

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This is one of the worst. Being a V didn’t make it’s job easy, but, some generic quasi fan art used as a replacement for the classic portrait just looks bad.


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This is easily the worst one. No darker frame anywhere, not an evolution, not a card with lower hp than usual but higher attack… Just a mess.

and finally


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Everything about it is perfect, in all honesty.

Conclusion: I think that most of them were either rushed, or little to no attention was paid to keep the historically accurate.

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I was really excited when these were announced, and I still think they’re awesome. Honestly my biggest and only real gripes were Lance’s Charizard V and Dark Sylveon V. In a set where they put a lot of effort into the other cards, it felt weird that they put such little effort into those two.

Lance’s Charizard V could have been done in the style of one of the incredible alt arts or character rares we’ve been getting recently, and been a textured full art style of card. Dark Sylveon didn’t really even need to be a V card, but even if they wanted it to be because of their whole new + old theme, I think it could have also made a really great alt art style card with texture.

I personally think regular V cards in general feel and look a bit cheap and I’m not a fan of how glossy they are, but even that aside I think those two could have had so much more effort put in. We’ve had much higher effort alt arts be put in random tins as promos, so it’s just kinda weird that in a promo set with other such high effort cards, those two were such low effort. Obviously a great set of cards overall though, not trying to complain, I love what they were going for.

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So there are three cards you don’t like, the rest is basically decent, and that makes it a fiasco?
Either your standards are way too high to ever be happy or you’re just trying to be an edgelord.

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I wish they did more of these type of promo things. I was hoping that celebrations would have a bunch within the set, but instead that just had the reprint cards, which were done well imo. The Zacian Lv. X border was the only thing that I didn’t care too much for. Otherwise, I thought they were all good. I think Light Toxtricity was the best of the promos, with Mimikyu being 2nd for me. I hope they do something similar for the end of the SWSH era, as usually Pokemon does some big sendoff set(s).

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What set did that Mimikyu come in?

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Lunchbox

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With all due respect to your opinion, this just shows how spoiled we are nowadays. If people are finding things to complain about with Celebrations, then in my opinion we are in a very good place in the hobby. Not that you are wrong and that the set is perfect, but perhaps you are being extremely analytical and particular with your tastes. I remember seeing the Celebrations leaks for the first time this summer and thinking the set was too good to be true and here we are.

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I don’t agree with the pickiness, yet I admire the scrutiny.

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Nice post–I’m not in the habit of hardly looking at the power levels at all since I don’t play the TCG. That being said I think Light Toxtricity is a home run and feels like it could have come right out of a Neo set. And my impression is the Sylveon V card is a nod to Umbreon Skyridge, and in that respect I love the thought that was put into that art design. The artist even quite subtly included the moon which you would never otherwise see in a Sylveon, even a dark type Sylvy.

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ok boomer

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I never realized it was a nod to the skyridge Umbreon… that’s awesome!

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I could be wrong, but that’s what it seems like to me. And since I ruined my 420 post status just to throw my two cents in on it, I hope I didn’t come off my number for no good reason :blush:

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I would argue that the higher power levels are sufficient to keep the cards relevant due to the power creep

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I was really hoping we would get more of those special cards. Like my first thought was Celebrations would be a set that was going to be full of those throwback card styles when I first saw the Promos. I still like Celebrations as a set but I really think they should make a set for 30th anniversary similar to these Promos - completely new cards but with old concepts.

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I think the cards do a pretty decent job at emulating the originals, my only gripes are the 2 V cards because they look so awful. I can personally dismiss the Mimikyu holo because the cosmos holofoil is now considered a “special” foil, you only see it on promos these days and sheen foil is just not as cool imo.
I’m going to be real honest and say you shouldn’t care about the power levels of these cards. They’re not even playable at events. Welcome to modern btw, where power creep has come to make some of the most ridiculous cards ever. I more care about if they emulated the art/feel of the card and they have on almost all of them (the 2 V cards being the offenders) and truthfully, almost of these will be able to easy join a collection of primes or light pokemon or goldstars or etc, that was their main purpose. To be callbacks and introduce new people to these old card types and mechanics without the game being absolutely destroyed by the introduction of some new (old) mechanics.

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Except they don’t

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Someone pissed in your cheerios

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The autism in this thread is very cringe, but at such a level I find it admirable. Good show

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Personally I think the promo cards are the highlight of the celebration. I don’t think they were trying to copy the old styles pixel for pixel and word for word. I think of them more as reimagined, what these cards might look like if they continued these styles or if they were to be released today. I don’t think any of these cards are “offenders”, maybe they just are not exactly how you would have liked them.

Also @gengaranimal I never noticed that, thanks for pointing that out! I love the art even more now. If only I could just move that yellow pikachu away from covering the art haha. Great card though!

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The power levels on these cards don’t even matter, most are not tournament legal.