@c0ll3ct0r, finally some love for the HL Castforms. Those things look AMAZING in person. I never see anyone mention them. Such underrated cards.
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110% agree on that.
Castform in general got totally shafted. 70 monostats and no Sandform. The weather-form concept is brilliant.
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EX era reverse holos are certainly done better than any other era…but I still don’t like reverse holos. They make every set nearly impossible to properly collect. Drives me crazy. One might say just collect one card of each art…but it still doesn’t feel the same–not truly “complete”.
EX era has less nostalgia for me but the art/design is insurmountable, even better than WotC. But it is this reverse holo barrier that prevents me from desiring to collect it more than my desire to collect WotC.
It’s funny, because it’s the exact opposite for me. Without reverse holos, sets don’t feel like enough of a challenge.
Plus, it’s not ‘nearly impossible to properly collect’ reverse holo sets. It’s more effort and more money, but anything worth collecting requires effort and money.
I agree collecting reverse holos for master sets is so much fun, and what makes me super excited to collect EX series sets! And yes, the rarity of some of these makes the hunt all the more exciting!!
I wanted so share one of my favorites in my collection! This Lanturn from Hidden Legends is super cool. The reverse holo pattern matches up perfectly with the card art for an awesome effect!
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Not going to lie, I find LC reverses to be absolutely hideous.
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This card is awesome. The set logo fits right in with the colors of the card.
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Ex era - such an awful era of cards. Everyone left the hobby because of these cards.
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The hobby was in a steep decline before the EX Series. In fact, the hobby got larger as the EX Series went on (as evidenced by the larger print runs of the later EX Series sets).
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I definitely don’t want to admit this, but I started collecting these about a month ago. The artwork is ridiculously amazing on its own, but the holofoil treatment makes these even more gorgeous. I started a binder for these and I think I open it at least once a day. I’m addicted.
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I really enjoy the ex series reverse holos as well. They look great as sets in a binder and it’s not super easy to find these in mint condition, yet they are very affordable.
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I’d argue that even if you don’t like ANY of the artworks (for whatever strange reason), you might at least appreciate the the extra effort they went through to make essentially full, unique holo sets with every single card being quite ‘rare’ as far as pull rates go.
Hence I call it the best ‘English’ release - usuallly (IMO) the Western side just rehashes the Japanese originals in a more or less worse way, but here they actually improved it tenfold.
But in any case to each their own! 
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I agree with everything here and I even like the reverse holos more than the ex cards with their cg art.
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It’s OK, you’re allowed to have a bad take.
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Agree. TRR Dark Pokémon reverse holos PSA 9 first goal I achieved jumping back into Pokémon. Didn’t even go after base set once I discovered reverse holos. They are just simply phenomenal
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Really cool thread. I always love to learn more about the TCG. I’ve come across this nice reverse holo a few times, but never realized that the stamp was an entire ex-era series thing for reverse holos. Amazing art.
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Actually, both EX FRLG and Hidden Legends do not have their set name stamp on the reverse foils. The four sets before those, (Ruby/Sapphire, Sandstorm, Dragon, and Magma/Aqua) have reverse holos that are similar to modern. EX reverse was kind of all over the place for some reason.
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The hobby was at its lowest in 02-03. Legendary Collection and the e-series were generally seen as ugly cards at the time - ugly fireworks holo and ugly wide yellow borders. In the four years of the ex era, the hobby grew gradually each year in terms of tournament attendance and online forum participation. Not as many people collected, but it was the golden age of gameplay and strategy.
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