These used to be once a week, but apparently it’s once halve a year nowadays… Anyway, I was randomly reminded by these, and figured I’d spin the random name picker again for the next set, which is Battle Styles.
Battle Styles was the fifth set released in the Sword & Shield era, on March 19th, 2021 in English and January 22nd, 2021 in Japan as Single Strike Master and Rapid Strike Master sets, focusing about the Pokémon Urshifu and its forms. This set also included Single Strike and Rapid Strike cards, a new mechanism for the TCG.
Overall, the set is a bit lackluster compared to some other sets of the SwSh era. Probably because there aren’t any Character Rare cards, and not too many Alternate Art Full Art cards either. The set is also not too big, with 183 cards in total including Secret Rares.
It does once again contain a lot of amazing artworks for its non-holos, as has been a trend for these last few eras. Some of my favorites include:
This came out very close to the arguable peak in tcg popularity. I remember getting the Venusaur and Blastoise Vmax boxes which released around the same time as the set. Overall, its my least favorite of the 2021 sets, but it does have a sort of meme status which I love
It kickstarted the alt art sets and has a bit of history because of it.
I have a somewhat sentimental connection to this set because I pulled my first alt art from it! Definitely agree it’s a bit underwhelming compared to other second-half SWSH sets though!
Battle Styles holds a special place in my heart as one of the sets that pushed me back in the direction of the tcg after a very long break, as my baby, my precious little sunshine, Empoleon is one of the featured Pokémon.
The Empoleon V alt art has already been mentioned, but I absolutely love this card. The colors, the poses, the little Falinks(!!), everything is so well done in this artwork. English texture really doesn’t do it justice, and I come back time and time again to my Traditional Chinese copy just staring at how well the texture adds that bit of something extra, especially to the scenery.
Battle Styles also brought about my favorite Empoleon artwork since the promo LV.X in a roundabout way- the tin promo Empoleon V. While technically not strictly part of the set, the tin promo was released as peripheral product for the set release, so I’m still mentioning it here.
I’ve found many Empoleon artworks over the years to be a little lackluster, honestly. There’s something about the Piplup line that artists rarely draw the same way twice, and while I love that for the diversity of art in my collection, I’ve felt that none of the art could hold a candle to the promo Lv.X- until this artwork. The pink sky and icy landscape provide a perfect backdrop for this majestic Pokémon, the pose is absolutely perfect and what I’ve imagined in-game time and time again, and the shine on the wing is the cherry on top.
Battle Styles as a cohesive set can be a little lackluster, but it produced two of my absolute favorite modern cards of one of my favorite Pokémon, so I can’t complain about it much at all.
Ill always remember this set as the peak of lack of availability for english, only being able to find these packs for 10 dollars each at a gamestore at one point. Gotta appreciate the start of the modern trend of alt arts though as the empoleon and tyranitar are still fantastic cards, the rest of the set just sucks though lol
One of the few booster boxes i’ve opened, i was so hoping to pull tyranitar alt art which i didn’t get but empoleon instead. Opening alt art was a very fun experience and i was very excited to open chilling reign after battle styles but my chilling reign box had only full arts at best which killed my interest in booster boxes, the guarenteed hit missing was a big killing blow. So battle styles remains as the last good experience of opening a booster box for me!
Battle Styles is a decent set. I think a lot of people will look back and regret not picking up the alt tyranitar while is was under 100 bucks. I also really like the gold shiny houndoom in this set.
It’s kind of interesting how people absolutely hated this set when it followed shining fates, which was one of the most hyped sets of all time, but if you combined the two sets today, I think 9 of the 10 most valuable cards would be come from battle styles. The only shining fates cards would be the zard obviously.
I couldn’t care less about urshifu but this is one of my favorite AA cards. In fact I use it as an example all the time for how the AA’s look so good the pokemon doesn’t really matter.
its a pretty good one I think. Just dont know if urshifu deserved 4 in one set lol
with 4 shots I think any pokemon could get at least one good looking alt
