I recently started dabbling with sports cards and have found relic, auto, jersey/swtaches with low denominators to be really exciting.
I know that the Pokemon company would most likely never go this route as they don’t seem to cater collectors like sports do, but what would be an equivalent concept card design for the Pokemon TCG collector? Or just a really unique card design/layout that would have collectors going crazy?
Pokémon needs better chase cards, period. The Secret Rares that we are flooded with these days don’t really have a rarity to them. Some are artificially lower printed and some aren’t. They would do good to include something like up to 3 chase cards, with a rarity of 1 in every 3 cases. Maybe a cool bilingual product so the card exist in both English as Japanese back.
A real sports type idea, of one card being a 1/20 in the whole print run won’t work. Since Pokemon doesn’t have limited printing. Autographed cards also won’t really happen since they already have strict ruling on artists attending events to sign cards (and all the recent backlash). If they would do an autographed card chase card in any set, it has to be Sugimori, which is unlikely.
As for cool card design: A true full art, with no borders and limited game elements. Just the name, the HP, one attack that is just name/cost/damage. Players are familiar enough with the product to know the symbols so text isn’t needed.
Gold stars in 2004-2007 did this the best imo. Lots of rarity and awesome artworks combined. I think the pull rate was 1 every 2 boxes for them.
Yeah, there definitely needs to be more chase cards in modern Pokémon for sure, but sadly the English Pokémon releases probably won’t implement something like that. I only say this because their primary focus is on mass-producing their products to make them available for everyone. Not that this is a bad thing, as it keeps Pokémon relevant with the newer generations.
However, if there is no challenge to acquire something, is it really worth getting?
Yes, if you love the product or have a persona attachment to it, ie future collectors!
Like Ghost Rares in yugioh - except as a variation to each of the holo cards
I don’t get at all why people want cards that are near impossible to pull. I certainly do not want even more inflated and artificial rarity in new sets. The hyper/ultra rares are already much harder to pull than any vintage chase cards. For instance, if you opened 1000 burning shadows boosters you might not even pull the rainbow charizard. If you opened 1000 base set boosters you would likely end up with about 20 charizards. Both sets were mass produced for kids, and most kids will only ever get a handful of booster packs to open. Newer sets are already much harder to complete than older ones due to more cards and more hard to pull ultra rares. I much prefer smaller sets that you are able to realistically complete by opening maybe 1 or 2 booster boxes and then trade for the rest.
1 in every 3 boxes to include a relic of Pikachu fur
Yeah, I understand where you are coming from and agree with you. That rainbow Charizard was indeed a difficult card to pull, which does make it very rare and sought after. However, I am more in support of making unique cards such as the shinning or gold stars, because ultimately the rainbow Charizard is just another rainbow card - that happens to be very difficult to pull. They got the rarity in pulling the card correct, but for me personally the hyper rare/rainbow design is a little too busy and isn’t very unique since a TON of Pokémon have their own rainbow version. If they make a different print design for their set secret rares and make them harder to pull, then I would say that would make collectors both modern and vintage purchase even more packs.