Cool Custom Set Concept

General
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For the past couple weeks, the insane 6-7 (pause) figure sales have made me feel very uncertain. So I’ve decided to try my best to pay as little attention as possible to this hysteria and just ride it out. So I’ve been spending time with one of my other hobbies: Magic the Gathering. And my mind gravitated towards the core set that was legal in Standard when I first started playing during Mirrodin Block - 8th Edition.

For those of you not familiar - MTG has sets called Core Sets. Back in the old days before 2009, these would just be reprints of older cards, with no new cards. 8th Edition in particular was special, not just due to being the first set printed in the modern card frame, but also due to having at least 1 reprint from each of the main sets printed at that point.

Which made me think - HOW COOL WOULD IT BE IF POKÉMON MADE A SET LIKE THIS??? So, I had an idea for a hypothetical Pokémon set that I think would be SUPER cool if TPC actually made.

In the same vein as Evolutions and Champion Road (by the way, I’m STILL reeling that we never got that set outside of Japan and everything was imported in Celestial Storm and Dragon Majesty), this set would feature modern updates of classic cards. But unlike those sets, this would feature at least one card from each main pre-modern set (Gens 1-4).

Here are the rules:

  1. These would be Standard-legal. So no card types that do not currently exist in Standard. Which leaves out Dark (Dark, not Dark-type) Pokémon, Shining Pokémon, Gold Star Pokémon, LvX Pokémon, SP Pokémon, and Legend Pokémon. Interestingly, Owners’ Pokémon and ex Pokémon are fair game.

  2. Since this set would be Standard-legal, nothing that would obviously break the game. Which disqualifies things like Energy Removal/Super Energy Removal, Gust of Wind, Fossil Muk, Chaos Gym, Uxie LA, Sableye SF, Broken Time-Space, Spiritomb AR, Vileplume UD, etc.

  3. Any pre-Expedition Trainer card in the set prominently featuring a human character will be errata’d to be a Supporter. And speaking of erratas, if Slowking is in here, it would work like the Japanese version where it has to be in the Active Spot.

  4. Nothing that was already in Evolutions or Champion Road can be in here.

  5. Only cards from MAIN Japanese sets. I.e; no Aqua vs Magma, Emerald, Power Keepers, Unleashed, or Call of Legends cards. And that also means that English sets made up of 2 Japanese sets (Aquapolis, Skyridge, Legends Awakened) get representative(s) for EACH of their composite sets.

To start, I picked something for Base Set: the Alakazam line. What better representative could there be? Kadabra was banned from getting new cards when Evolutions came out, so it never got one back then. Pictured is my modernized take on Base Abra.

--abra
--abra745×1040 166 KB

I hope you (especially the TCG players among you) enjoy this and contribute to the set!

2 Likes
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Core sets in pokemon is interesting as well, because the card can be reprinted with what is essentially variable errata: Each copy is considered the same card, even tho they have different and unique text.

It would create significantly more reprints, but it could also be an opportunity to reprint old popular common art. Imagine a set with all the best illus from e reader era.

They kinda do this with the anniversary sets, but it’s a much smaller scale. MTG core sets are historically much larger than PkMn anniversary, so there’d be a great opportunity for inclusion! And they include some unique cards too. One of my favorite MTG arts is only in Core Set 2020.

I’d definitely like to see shining or crystal cards come back, but with text that actually makes them playable bombs. Not novelties… :expressionless_face: