Apparently it’s been almost halve a year since I posted one of these…
Anyway, for this 50th Set of the Fortnight the random wheel decided to pick EX Team Rocket Returns. Pretty good fit, since we’ll return to this Set of Fortnight series.
EX Team Rocket Returns bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/EX_Team_Rocket_Returns_(TCG)
Discuss:
Favorite cards in the 'set’Worst cards in the 'set’How you feel about this ‘set’ in general
EX Team Rocket Returns is the 7th set of the EX era. It is however the first set to feature the Gold Star Pokémon; the first EX era set to use set logos for the Reverse Holofoils; and the first set to use golden names, HP, and rarity symbols for the Reverse Holofoil versions of Holofoil Rares in the set. As its name suggests, this set focuses on Team Rocket, with mostly Pokémon from gen 1 and 2. It was released on October 15th, 2004 in Japanese and November 8th, 2004 in English (and the only other language it’s also released in is Portuguese).
I’m not too big of a fan of the CGI ex cards from the set. But I do really like the Rares and Holofoil Rares, especially the ones where their Type corresponds with the colors used in the artworks, like these:
And this Ledyba artwork is amazing as well. If only Himeno wouldn’t make so many (anti)diagonal artworks, though… Her artworks are almost always amazing, but I’m not too big of a fan of the diagonal horizons.
Happy to see the return of this series! I was wondering about it recently.
RR is a cosmic set.
Dark Slowking is sick. All the Dark Holos are, particularly in JP. Himenos Kingdra is celestial.
Kizuki’s Togetic is divine. Particularly in JP! Rocket’s Meowth is one of my favorite cards ever.
Komiya had several bangers here.
Imakuni of all people graced us with a couple behemoths, spelling out for us once against his crazy artistic range.
Unlike Kevin, I love the EX’s this set has to offer. I am kind of obsessed with Snorlax. I think many are, hence why it is so expensive. It is colossal, breathtaking.
While there isn’t much to complain about, I do think of it an inferior set to the original Rocket set simply because several of the cards don’t have the dark vibe. With Rocket, every single non dark card resounds with ‘this is rocket, these pokemon are owned or enslaved by rocket grunts’. Whereas with RR, many of the non dark cards could easily be in any other EX era set, and none would be the wiser. That isn’t a knock on the cards themselves, hence why the set overall is filled with absolute mastery of artwork, but just that the original set had full cohesion. So I would just say RR isn’t a masterpiece, but definitely near the top all time. Love it. General cohesion though?–no doubt.
Here Come’s Team Rocket! This card is nostalgic and I felt like I have never seen Jessie and James illustrated in this style so it was a must have. I rarely collect English but I had to pay my respects
My favorite two booster designs from this set, always loved these. Kind of unusual within the realm of my preferences. They are just on the right side of being too busy, it’s almost too much with the purple/red/orange overload combined with the darker shade, but it works.
The fact that Kizuki got two Holo artworks in this set alone makes it one of my favorites. So many memories from this set and the theme for it.
What’s interesting is that I’m still learning new things about the set and appreciating the amazing artwork that is in the non-holo rares to commons. Lots of Komiya, double Tyranitar, Dragonite, double larvitar, houndour, fakuda Golbat, TOGEPI!!!, Meowth, wobbuffet,
TOGETIC AND AZUMARILL’S goofy ass designs.
Dark steelix, dark electrode, Slowking! Omg the list goes on. I started out collecting the ex cards but it’s the holos that have grown on me more.
Team Rocket Returns is such an iconic set in so many ways. Memoriable art and card layout / colors, great theme, overall a well done set. I love how the card layout on Dark cards mixes the black of dark type and the Pokemon’s regular type. And there are some regular Pokemon too which I love like Dratini 53, Sandshrew and Slowpoke for example - they just look adorable
I absolutely love this set and by some coincidence posted the Kingdra reverse in the favorite artist thread earlier today before seeing this! The theme and the rev. holos + stamp *chefs kiss*.
Happy to see these back! EX TRR was just a little bit before I started opening packs, but the set has some absolute bangers. Some of my favorites that haven’t been posted yet:
I used to own a complete reverse holo set of nm+/mint cards from EX Team Rocket. Set came from 1 owner and he also had a bunch of other complete reverse sets. All seperate sleeved aswell. Ended up selling the sets to fund my house, but I wanted to grade the cards in the future but didn’t have the patience and life happened. Shame as this was probably the pride of my collection since these sets are so incredibly rare.
I once bought another collection that had a few ETR cards including a nm+ EX Snorlax. The seller sold it for cheap before my arrival thinking I was interested in the other wotc cards and these werent really worth much.
Thankfully I was on time before he shipped them out. He sold a bunch of ex cards including the snorlax for 80 euro where as I sold that snorlax for roughly 500 euros alone. Will never forget that, never had anyone letting me coming over and selling a few cards before I arrived.
TRR seems to be many, many collector’s favorite set of all time. Honestly, for good reason. This is one that I’ve been piecing together slowly over the past few years. I’m done with all the non-holos and reverse holos, but haven’t quite dipped into the holo or EX space yet. I think we’re overdue for a new Team Rocket set in the TCG?
My equal fav set ever made! I really wish they did some rocket themed set again in the future. Not much to add at this point and agree with most the points. I will say my favorite gold star in the set is the mudkip. The mudkip causes some confusion given he’s not purple but my understanding is that the “blue” of the water has changed his appearance in the card. He still has his shiny yellow tail tho and underbody. My favorite ex from the set is probably suicune but snorlax would be a close second. My favorite non ex/gold star would be slowking and dark dragonite!
Edit: uhhh the rest of the photos from my post have disappeared?? Bruh…
