Ex era offers so much with several top tier sets. Team rocket kills it with holos, set cohesion, some of the best ex’s hands down and some great gold stars so its the winner but there are many close 2nds such as TMTA, unseen forces and delta species. But pretty much every set I love for one reason or another, even the ‘subpar’ ones.
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TRR is my favorite overall. The ex cards are just crazy good to me and I really like the Dark Pokemon (and wish it’d return again!). I do deeply adore TMTA though! I loooove the old “CGI/early 2000s” 3d style art. To me its just peak nostalgia. I think the ex card selection is decent as well. Sure we could have had some of the Magma/Aqua team pokemon, but we did get all 3 starters + gen 2 legendaries. The secret rares are beautiful too! I was super happy to see some TMTA representation in Celebrations. I honestly didn’t expect our boy Groudon to get the love he got!
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Damn i just realized i wrote tmvta instead of rocket xD
although i do like tmvta it is probably my third favorite set
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Wow, never expected to see so much praise for TMTA of all sets. The CGI still isn’t my cup of tea but it seems to be aging decently.
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I was shocked to see EX Sandstorm as the second favorite, but maybe that will change as votes come in.
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Team Rocket Returns seems like the natural winner, but I’m hoping Dragon or Sandstorm or Magma/Aqua give a good challenge.
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Been waiting for my chance to drop an essay praising Dragon Frontiers so here goes. Dragon Frontiers is my favorite set of all time let alone the ex era. The whole Holon/DS saga is my favorite story of sorts they have ever done with the tcg and I think DF is a great closer to it on top of being a very personal set to me.
To explain it quickly the whole story of Delta Species Pokémon is that scientist who were chasing mew set up this massive tower in a place called Holon emitting magnetic waves in hopes of locating it. The waves distorted the Pokemon around them thus making DS Pokémon. All the genetically modified ones have the secondary metal type, but throughout the sets we see more naturally occurring ones implying Holon is a place where maybe the Pokémon have an affinity to naturally hold different typings.
Getting to Dragon Frontiers every Pokémon besides reprints of larvitar, pupitar, ralts, and kirlia(Which aren’t present in the Japanese equivalent set) are now Delta Species and naturally occuring at just residing off the coast of Holon. It makes you wonder how that even happens? The set also contains GS mew which I adore as the entire reason for the last 5 sets happening was because researchers were tracking mew. I find it very nice that not only was Mew correctly tracked but still just out of reach of the researchers. This along with the fact that the occurrence of natural DS pokemon isn’t explained makes it feel like the quest continues not only for those researchers, but for Pokémon fans.
This set was one of the sets I opened the most of as a kid along with Power Keepers and its really special to me. Regardless of its thematics it was a set that I just enjoyed as a kid that helped me bond with my dad when going out to buy packs and solidify my love for the collecting as a whole. In recent years I’ve really come to appreciate the art too. So many of the classic artists including Arita, Saitou, Fukuda, Himeno, Ueda, Baba and plenty more have a great showing here making so many cards a treat to look at.
This was the one of the first set I serious decided to put together in a binder and it was also one of the first sets I set out to get every ex from graded too. It means a lot to me and I don’t see it changing from my top spot anytime soon 
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An impossible choice.
Ex Dragon was my pick but it has my favorite set of holos (I’m including secret rares)
Runners up were:
- Sandstorm - has my favorite commons and uncommons
- Unseen Forces - has my favorite EXs
- Legend Maker - has my favorite reverse holos
- Ruby Sapphire - has my favorite individual card.
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This is the most surprising thing to me (although Dragon has now claimed the #2 spot in the poll). Sandstorm has a pretty weak selection of holos (particularly compared to Ruby and Dragon). And it has a pretty weak selection of exs (particularly compared to Dragon). On the whole, I just don’t feel like it’s a particularly strong set (although it’s super nostalgic for me, so I love it anyway).
Where Sandstorm does shine, though, is in the non-holos. The non-holos have significantly better art than those in TMTA or Ruby, IMHO.
Still, seeing Sandstorm beating out FRLG, Holon Phantoms, and Dragon Frontiers is very surprising.
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Sandstorm has an incredible art quality and even if the Pokemon featured in the regular holos and ex cards aren’t as popular as the ones in Dragon, the theming and set cohesion is some of the strongest for the EX sets.
I’d still rank Dragon and R&S above it due to the Pokemon selection but Sandstorm has grown a lot on me.
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correct
I have a soft spot for Sandstorm because it contains one of the most stunning Flareon artworks ever made. 
That said, I can’t believe that Sandstorm is still beating Dragon Frontiers and FRLG. I agree that its holos and EXs are par for the course.
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Sandstorm is a trucollector’s set.
Another great thing about it is that you can tell by the eeveelution arts that they were designed to be in there. That makes it so much more pleasurable than what would otherwise scream “hey we designed a set for fossil maniacs and nerds, gotta throw some EEVEE’s in there!”
There are 4 cards in the set that are not total bangers. 4!
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Wow you think so? I actually love the holos in Sandstorm.
I understand that most of the species present aren’t too popular (other than Jolteon and Flareon), but I thought a lot of the art was beautiful.
Not on the level of Dragon or Magma vs. Aqua, but still great.
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I think the art on the holos is fantastic – I’m just not a fan of the selection of Pokemon. Flareon and Jolteon are great, but they’re from Gen 1 and so not an ideal inclusion for the 2nd ever Gen 3 set, IMO. The Gen 3 inclusions are just meh – Cacturne, Cradily, Zangoose, Shiftry, Solrock, Lunatone, etc. Fine Pokemon, just unexciting.
Compare that to the STACKED Pokemon selection in Dragon. Flygon, Absol, and Salamence are 3 of the most iconic/well-designed Pokemon from the entire generation. Hell, even Altaria, Minun, Plusle, and Shedinja are pretty cool. Whereas the best Gen 3 Pokemon to get a holo in Sandstorm is…Dusclops? Maybe Sableye?
Totally subjective at the end of the day! I’m a huge Flygon/Salamence fan, which certainly colors my perspective on this. I also happen to think the Flygon/Salamence holos from Dragon are the best Flygon/Salamence cards ever produced. The Salamence is in close contention with RS Sceptile as my favorite regular holo ever.
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We can’t forget to mention the incredible Roselia and Altaria artworks in Dragon too! You can tell that the water color-esque art style is my favorite. 
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True – Nishida is a master. The Altaria in particular is a thing of beauty. I’m not even that big of a fan of Altaria, but the card is just extraordinary.
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I don’t see a problem here. 
Now this I can get behind 110%! I was in awe the first time I saw the Flygon, it reminds me of Base Charizard (and that is exceedingly high praise coming from me.) The Salamence also, I much prefer the Arita to the Saitou although both are great. I wish we’d get another Arita showing the underbelly.
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Haha, yeah Dusclops is definitely cool. One of the more unique, underrated Pokemon for sure. It’s just that Salamence and Flygon are basically untouchable.
And yes – very much agreed on the Arita vs Saitou arts. I much prefer the Arita arts to the Saitou arts, although all four of them are the fantastic depictions that Salamence/Flygon deserve!
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been saying it for a while but the way I think of the 2003 EX sets, from composition to species choices is basically
EX R&S = Base Set
EX Sandstorm = Jungle
EX Dragon = Fossil
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