I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of the Tropical Mega Battles today, and especially the 2000 and 2001 tournaments with the vs-sets in different languages.
I know different English cards have surfaced through the years and that a German participant of the 2001 tournament with the name @andremon here on E4 have previously shared pictures of his German set.
@mjisaacs@nickpoketrader Oh wow, awesome!
I just watched the video (the part with the TMB-cards).
I presume the Italian cards must come from the 2000 tournament?
Do we know the other countries that wad participating that year?
I’ve personally only seen the English, Italian, and German ones thus far. German from the thread you’ve linked at the top; the Italian Rapidash was on eBay a couple of months ago (fun fact: they all have the new Japanese card backs); and the English ones here. (I’ve just added the Italian pictures above to my almost forgotten picture dump thread.)
I’m especially curious about the Danish and Swedish ones (and would love to own one card of each), since there aren’t any other cards in those languages. And, being Dutch myself, I’m also curious about the Dutch cards.
PS: When I asked the person who added that information to Bulbapedia how he had heard about it, he mentioned the following:
A thread on efour or PokeGym had someone (I think a father of one of the participants) post pictures of the lesser/never seen English cards from the deck and they recounted that info. The Italian cards you’ve seen may have come from the revised version from the 2002 World Championships. I’ve never been able to find decent information on the event so I can’t say for certain. Also, make sure to end your messages with ~~~~. glikglak 17:43, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
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So those Italian ones were most likely from a different source.
Apparently he heard about it either here or on PokéGym from a father of one of the participants when English cards were shown. Maybe he misremembered and it actually was that earlier thread showing the German cards, since @andremon does mention the following:
I’ve gone through those threads as well; very interesting!
So the Italian source is still unknown? The only ones that have surfaced this far are the 7 cards in the pic earlier in this thread?
I’m most curious about Danish and Swedish myself, as those are the closest we’ll ever get to Norwegian cards (I’m Norwegian). Hope they surface on day!
Dutch would be so cool to see as well considering they would be the last Dutch cards ever produced (?)
I knew the guy from Denmark that went to Hawaii in 2001. I overtook his rank 1 position shortly after he was selected to go, so I was a bit jealous at the time haha. Perhaps even more so in hindsight… I remember he came back with some cool and unfamiliar Japanese cards, but I do not remember seeing any cards in danish. I could try and contact him someday to hear if he actually was given cards in danish back then, although it would be a little weird since it has been almost 20 years.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Danish and Swedish contestant actually used English decks though, as the contestants from the other countries (Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Italy) had the Base Set in their language, and therefore it could make more sense that they had decks in their languages at the TMB.
But it would be cool to finally get to know once and for all, after all these years!
I wrote to him and he actually responded. So I can now confirm that he received an English deck. He also says that he did not remember seeing a Swedish deck either, but remember that there were cards in both Dutch and German. To be honest it makes sense that participants from smaller countries such as Denmark would get English cards, since we were already used to reading and playing with English cards.
@styluspt and @scarecrowman88 , thanks for asking them and confirming they were in English. I’m surprised the Portuguese contestant received an English deck as well, since Portuguese is a Pokémon TCG language, but I understand the Danish and Swedish contestants getting an English deck. Thanks for confirming this, as I’ve been wondering whether cards in these languages actually existed or not.
I’m kinda sad to hear they don’t and were just English, but at the same time happy to have any kind of confirmation.
I’d still like to see the Dutch ones (unless the Dutchman was also given an English deck).
(Thanks @simensim1 for asking these questions. TIL as well. )
Do we know anything about Spanish or French cards as those would be the other possible languages? Any other people have contacts to participants there?
rapidash has been acquired in the meanwhile too by the same italian collector
)