There is some hope that Celebi and Sandaconda alternate arts will be coming in Fusion Strike given that the list says 13 full arts and Fusion Arts only has 11.
Unless Japan has some random full art Vs up their sleeves in the next month.
Maybe there’s even hope for the Espeon VMAX.
Otherwise it’s hard to argue against it being the least exciting set since the alt arts debuted with Battle Styles. That one only had 6 but I think the artwork for the Urshifu Vs were great and Empoleon and Tyranitar are much more popular than Greedent and Genesect.
So maybe Mew V, VMAX, Greedent, Genesect, Celebi, Sandaconda, Inteleon VMAX, Gengar VMAX and Espeon VMAX will be comparable.
edit: Although I’m also all for them making the 3 of them promos so they are cheaper to get. And I wonder if Cinderace and Rillaboom will ever get alts seeing that they are going to be in the English set too. Then again, I don’t think Japan cares that we need to shoehorn Family Box 2 into sets. V Artwork for that set is mostly horrendous.
I think the Mew VMAX alt is a little underwhelming, but it is fine overall. I really wish they would just drop the Rainbows already… I would’ve loved to see Hoopa Unbound Alt Art, Deoxys as an ultra-rare, even perhaps Goodra getting a V card (love me some goodra). Like 8 rainbows? really? like we been knew there is a bloating of secret rarity in sets, but I feel like some strong cards are really getting shafted out to support a bunch rainbow trainers. Even if they would just reduce the number of rainbows, like one for mew and one for Elesa or something, would be more acceptable imo. Overall, a bit disappointed as some Pokemon I really like aren’t quite getting the representation I like. That being said, I understand you can’t win 'em all lol. The art for the set is absolutely bangin though: Helioptile, Arcanine, Linoone, Togedemaru, and Goomy to name a few. Hopeful to pick up a box for closer to $80, seems doubtful with them selling out everywhere and being all over eBay for $150 rn. It is very difficult to keep up with JP sets atm, especially with the market for modern bumping the way it is
They are meant to be higher rarity than the full arts and yet most people desire them less. I think that may be reflected in the prices as well where the lesser rarity has higher value most of the time with certain obvious exceptions like that Pikachu VMAX.
Technically they went ‘all in’ with trainers in SWSH when it was only Pokemon before, but I read on Pokebeach awhile back that TPC “listened” and them cutting rainbows to just VMAXes was their response to fan backlash - but I just went to check the first Sword and Shield set in JP and they didn’t have rainbow Vs so maybe that was all hogwash.
It feels like they’ve lost desirability though. From Dark Raichu to 30% of the set being ultra/secret rares is ridiculous. Especially considering the low pull rates (1/JP booster box). If you’re going to have only 1 ‘secret rare’ per box, then all 29 of them need to be desirable and not have 8 rainbows and a bunch of 5ban Graphics or similar crap.
It seems that they intend to keep Rainbows around for the rest of SwSh, but I would be happy if this block is the last we see of them. I think full-art cards being “secret” rarity is honestly kinda bologna too lmao. With alt-arts and gold cards on top, it is just WAY too much for a single set. 1 secret rare guaranteed per box is a great idea imo, but this seems to be negated by the fact that there is like 25 per set. In a perfect theoretical universe, you are opening 25 booster boxes to complete a set (or even just looking for the S rare card you want)! And that doesn’t account for doubles, boxes that don’t have any S rare cards, etc.
I’d much prefer if RR were voided completely. V and VMAX can stay where they are, full-arts come out of S rarity and maybe have 1-2 per box. I would want gold cards to have 1-2 cards per set and alt-arts could have anywhere from 1-3, with gold and alt cards remaining in secret rarity. This is how I would map out a set and booster boxes lol. In my opinion, there are just way too many high-rarity cards per set. This issue is made significantly more apparent when boxes are being sold for 3x MSRP lol.
I feel like this is the theme nowdays, there are so many awesome card artists and everyone can’t get an alt art to design so the amount of kinda “regular” cards have decreased all the time, all the artists just make pure magic on common cards. Sometimes i feel like going through my bulk binder rather than ultra rare binder
First English cards revealed! The set is confirmed to have 264 cards plus secret rares, easily beating Cosmic Eclipse (236+) to become the biggest set of all time!
As Scott often mentions about “leftovers” making our English sets, the reason it will likely be so big is they needed to include all the missing cards from Japan’s 2021 Family Set (Battle Academy) and the Gengar/Inteleon VMAX decks.
Might actually end up having less secret rares than Evolving Skies!
Not that it matters because I couldnt care less about actually completing this or any other modern set really but does anyone else hate their organization of the secret rares at the end. Rainbow rare then alt art then rainbow rare rainbow rare, 3 alt arts, then more rainbow rares. Just keep the rainbow rares together and keep the alt arts together because this looks like a mess.
Whoever leaked the 2 photos of the secrets rares from the set…why not release all pictures from the ETB booklet? I need to know the other cards in the set.
