SV5a 007/066 R Iron Leaves (illus. Mitsuhiro Arita) Future Paradox
SV5a 026/066 R Walking Wake (illus. kawayoo) Ancient Paradox
kawayoo’s Suicune from the Blastoise + Kyurem-EX Combo Deck
Kawayoo Wake thats amazing!
SV is actually pretty much the same as SWSH in terms of the releases - at the same time as SV5 and SV6 release, three years ago we got Battle Styles and Chilling Reign which also had a large focus on DLC and newer Galar Pokémon.
SV7 and SV8 later in August and November (tbc exact months) should have many more fan favourites and older generation Pokémon. We are still missing the likes of Darkrai, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Snorlax and the Eevee evolutions as ex Pokémon.
I don’t know about that fan favorite Darkrai but definitely anything with gen 3 legendaries and eeveelutions would be immensely popular. Snorlax and Gengar are great too but I don’t know if they can carry a set alone.
Gengar already got an ex in the latest double set but no SAR.
Very few Pokemon can carry a set, I don’t really think that’s much of a consideration. Even breaking down the Eeveelutions, if they only had Flareon, would it carry the set?
Personally unless they intend to remake Eevee Heroes every generation, I doubt we see all Eeveelutions getting cards in the same set. It gets boring fast when it’s the same Pokemon getting cards again and again.
Only Charizard and Mew that received ‘alt arts’ in SWSH have got SARs in SV. Besides those and Rayquaza/Lugia, I don’t think any are guaranteed a repeat.
I know, and featured with Morty, and I think Gengar fans want more. I expect Gengar, Dragonite, and Snorlax to all receive SIRs before the scarlet and violet generation is over. Or, if they introduce some new top rarity, then whatever that ends up being called.
I think it’s important to consider what Pokemon are in a set. Frankly, a set containing only new Pokemon and no fan favorites will struggle. I think everyone knows this internally, TPCI included. It’s something they will continue to struggle with as long as they aren’t able to recreate turn of the millennia hype and excitement (so basically forever until events outside their control may or may not occur). Flareon alone would not carry a set. I don’t think any single Pokemon really can. See obsidian flames, how many charizard variants are there and people still consider it a very weak set.
I fully expect a similar cast to appear again in scarlet and violet, and receive the top and rarity treatment. Maybe they will split them out across 2 or more sets, but the company found a combination of characters that isn’t just Charizard and got people in a frenzy. They would be fools to not try and explore that further. TPCI doesn’t have to acknowledge the secondary market for singles to be aware of its existence and make business decisions based on it. They already do this. Why else is there Charizard so commonly, specifically at high end rarity? People can say whatever they want, but nobody wants to have a collection of actually worthless cardboard. See Hasbro’s recent handling of MTG for what happens in that case.
I’ll add that I 100% expect an Umbreon, if it wasn’t planned before it is now. I would be unsurprised to see the treatment for Gengar, Snorlax, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Groudon, and Kyogre as well. I am aware that Tyranitar and Groudon already have IRs, so maybe that will have to be it for them this generation, but I would honestly be a bit surprised.
Maybe part of it is because I also expect a higher rarity than SIR to come eventually. I don’t know what they would call it or how different it would really be, but I think TPCI is definitely leaving money on the table with their increasingly adult audience and no rarity that’s more at the 0-1/case level.
I think all your hopes will rest on the final year of Scarlet & Violet in 2025, and even then the initial sets will base on whatever game(s) is releasing in November 2024/January 2025. The current mid-era year is focusing heavily on new generation as well as much less popular Pokémon that weren’t able to get special cards before. The majority of popular Pokémon have already been exhausted in Sword & Shield which still doesn’t feel that old, and yet we got 151 last year. Part of the desire for more chase cards is having expensive ones, but we’re way past both EN and JP card booms in modern now. TPC/TPCi is more prepared to meet demand with supply now than previous years
i don’t really see the correlation. it is the worst set of SV so far despite charizard, not because of it. …then again maybe they got lazy thinking charizard alone was enough and they could fill out the rest of the set with trash.
Tbf the release in August meant that TPCi could not include SV3a Raging Surf into Obsidian Flames. 151 was reserved as a special set so SV3 Ruler of the Black Flame and the ex Starter Decks were all they could use from Japan’s releases. It was a poor setup from the start
Technically they’ve done that for awhile - Champion’s Path exists for no reason, but it’s probably the first time it failed. Then again, not really sure it failed. Probably did the same as all the other sets bar 151.
Of course, but don’t forget that the Japanese design the sets and they will market concurrently with the video games. I don’t think they should be relying on the same few Pokemon and the same nostalgia bait as their continual or long term strategy because that will eventually fail, if it hasn’t already.
But what do you mean by exploring it further? Just giving the same cast of characters more and more cards? I do think there is Charizard fatigue already and relying on the same character again and again causes complacency and irrelevancy will follow. Obviously none of the other Pokemon have been beat as dead as Zard, but if you just took the same 10 most popular Pokemon for sets year after year, it gets old fast.
I like Groudon and Kyogre myself having played RS but they were skipped in both Gen 7 and 8. I don’t know how popular they really are with the general audience, but that might just be your own bias in there.
I don’t think their goal is to have an increasingly adult audience. Their (TPC’s) goal is to have people play the game and it’s made harder by adults solely interested in collecting or investing.
It’s based on this.
I went through every era of Pokemon cards from Base through Sword & Shield (can’t do scarlet & violet yet, it’s still happening) and counted out the top 20 most expensive cards by species.
Unsurprisingly, Charizard was present in this list all but 1 time, and I think that 1 time there was no Charizard card even printed. Gengar and Rayquaza are consistently extremely popular and valuable. Groudon and Kyogre appear at the top of an era’s valuable card list with the same consistency as Blastoise and Venusaur.
It’s very difficult to gauge the popularity of any specific Pokemon in the TCG beyond Charizard being #1. I don’t see how anyone could really argue that point, but any position after that seems up for debate. I was extremely surprised to see Gengar rank so highly to be honest.
I’d like to go through this again and compute ranks by set rather than entire era. It would just be a lot of sets and I didn’t have time the first go around. That type of data would hopefully allow a better composite score type metric that better blends “how often does this card get printed in a potentially valuable rarity slot” with “when valuable, how valuable?”
Interesting analysis.
Off the top of my head, from that list I don’t recall Snorlax, Raichu or Moltres being a set headliner. Well, maybe the original SWSH for Snorlax if that counts.
the gold shiny lax was one of the most expensive english cards from chilling reign. i haven’t looked in a long time tho.
You’re right but I meant more in terms of set mascots.
ah yeah mb i think the last was the gmax lax. prior to that, the only thing i can think of is the eevee and lax tt gx that was used as a promo which isn’t a set mascot by any means. i can’t think of anything else, but i haven’t tried to look back necessarily. maybe the delta species was on a pack art idk
This is the problem with originally doing it by era as I did. Those mentioned only appeared in the top 20 valuable cards 4 or 5 times, with median rankings 8.5-12, which is about half way through to the max of 20. I think doing it by individual set would allow a lot better chance for stratification between often represented species and those less commonly printed. Perhaps tomorrow…
Where would you draw the line of what is a headliner?
Would you use pack art or whatever Pokemon gets the highest rarity in the set?
It’s hard to say that Clefairy has equal standing in Base Set to Charizard but then Wigglytuff is certainly not the chase in Jungle.
If a set has a higher rarity like Neo Destiny does, would Noctowl be considered more of a headliner than Dragonite or Espeon?
For more modern sets which are mostly Frankenstein style, would Pikachu be considered a headliner in Lost Origin because of the Trainer Gallery?
You could just default back to the top 20, but taking Brilliant Stars as an example, currently the 20th Pokemon is Raikou V which was actually just a singular card taken from Japan’s Start Deck 100. No Shaymin or Whimsicott feature in the top 20 even though they are on the pack art and both got VSTARs (and obviously SRs and rainbows).
The intention is to gauge popularity by market valuation. Higher price = people are willing to pay more for this card. That could be due to rarity alone, but is more likely to be a combination of rarity, species popularity, and general artistic appeal. I have no idea what was in promotional material for each set or anything like that. I’ll go through each set tomorrow and see how different it looks.
Revealed in today’s livestream Pokémon Dragon King Battle 2024 Card Game Division,
SV5a 003/066 Pinsir (illus. HYOGONOSUKE)
SV5a 015/066 Chimchar (illus. Jerky)
SV5a 016/066 Monferno (illus. Scav)
SV5a 017/066 Infernape (illus. Takumi Wada)
SV5a 067/066 AR Pinsir (illus. Yukihiro Tada) new artist
https://x.com/tadayukihiro?s=21
SV5a 070/066 AR Infernape (illus. Krgc)
Debuted in SV5K Wild Force
Like both the AR, the Pinsir especially.
Thanks for sharing
