I didn’t say the ex cards were a blunder, I said one blunder from the EX era was that there were no hand drawn ex cards (and I could actually be wrong about this). I actually love y2k 3D models. Love me some Gamecube graphics. My graded collection is basically all ex cards. My efour art submission was also in the 3D category. In short, I really love 3D/CGI.
I’m just saying, if we could have gotten some hand drawn ex cards that would have elevated the EX era even higher. To me, it feels like the biggest mistake from the EX era. For example the Dragon Frontiers ex cards are so radically different (which I love), but still CGI. If we got a set of hand drawn ex cards that would have been tight. We got hand drawn Gold Stars at least.
Just watched the video, if we removed alt arts, would it still be considered the greatest era?
Now, obviously that logic can be applied to any chase card of any era and wouldn’t be fair, but technically the two main chase types of this era didn’t really debut in SWSH.
Technically what we actually like about alt arts, aren’t because they are alternate, but that they have fully fleshed artworks and backgrounds, so I think the first of those was the XY legendary promos followed by the mythical collections celebrating the 20th anniversary.
The first set card would probably be the Mewtube GX in Shining Legends followed by the tag teams. It’s definitely been refined and seemingly redefined the chase if even tag team AAs weren’t chased back on their release as much as AAs are now.
The second would be FA trainers, but that had its debut in BW before being refined to the modern style in SM.
Outside of those, the rest of the sets are bloated and filled with lots of filler full arts and rainbows which affects how easily you can pull what you want. It’s the worse it’s ever been since rainbow trainers did debut in this generation.
The normal non-UR rarities are the best they’ve ever been though hands down.
edit: Forgot to add that the trainer galleries have been a great addition, though the CHR debuted in SM as well.
@fourthstartcg I think it was you that mentioned that the pre-tag team SM sets were one of the worst ever, but what about pre-AA SWSH? Not much difference between the two. SWSH has much better normal artwork but has rainbow trainers. In the first 4 sets, the most sought after cards are 2 FA trainers, a Charizard VMAX and a Pikachu rainbow bucking the norm.
I think pre-AA SWSH was still way better than early SM. We had the return of actual backgrounds on the full art cards which made a big difference. I also think the artwork on regular Vs compared to regular GX cards was much better.
The end of Sun and Moon was great, especially Japanese. Awesome art and Pokémon on the boxes, alt arts, and the Tag Team cards have some really solid art. Tag Bolt is an absolutely OP set.
And personally when I see some of the pre-GX Ultra Shiny SM Japanese boxes I still think as single collectables they are pretty cool. I would personally rather own those than something like Explosive Walker or Infinity Zone from SWSH.
Speaking strictly in terms of Japanese sets, overall for me Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield are pretty darn close. I think SWSH just about beats it purely on the art, but because of the distribution issues in Japan, I probably had more fun with the Sun and Moon sets.
I pretty much agree with the video. Alt arts can easily stand against the chase cards of any era, and it’s wild that the quality of art is so high while there are so many of them. The diversity of art is also way beyond any previous era, as they’ve given so many newer artists opportunities to showcase their work.
The era as a whole IMO isn’t so hot, though.
I’ve bought a decent amount of singles throughout the era, but I have zero desire to open any boxes or collect any sets in their entirety because there’s just so much filler. Eevee Heroes is the only set release that has any remote sense of identity.
It’s an era almost completely devoid of unique prize cards due to the overlap with Covid.
The inconsistency of release rarity across languages (HR zard, eeveelution vmax promos, etc) is really weird. I’m sure different people will have different preferences on the exclusivity vs accessibility scale, but I’d rather there be some special cards released with no asterisk.
Not much in the way of interesting promos, even with the 25th anniversary. The stamp box and upcoming Precious Collector’s box are the only ones that immediately come to mind for me. SM and XY were much better in this regard, IMO.
Edit: I’ll also add the 25th Anniversary Creatures Deck as a great piece of the SWSH era, even if it wasn’t necessarily “released”
I’m gonna agree with fourth. Swsh pretty much took the single best part of sun and moon and did it to the max and then also did tons of other amazing stuff. So swsh really blows the past few generations of cards out of the water. It’s just so hard to compare modern cards to older gens and really just comes down to preference. And you’re not just comparing cards one to one but the entire generation of cards and all that encompasses.
For example, I love alt arts but would prefer the wotc era of pure holos with 1/3 pull rate (not including secret rares of course.) Now obviously thats not really possible in the current tcg climate for several reasons but, I think it’s important to consider everything besides just “cooler looking cards”. A couple of things that come to mind is set cohesion, promos (what the promos actually are and how they’re distributed are equally important), what its like to actually play the game. Also it’s a bit regressive to be like “look at these amazing alt cards” when thats just a fraction of the tcg. What I get when I open a pack is important. The commons, the holo rares, the v’s and vmaxes and so on. And while there are a ton of amazing cards coming out, I would a million times over rather complete a vintage set than one with bland looking v’s and vmaxes, and 3 different versions of the same card (full art, rainbow rare, gold etc). Those cards make cool individual pulls but make the set as a whole worse than the sum of its parts.