It’s the top chase card(s) that makes the set superior.
Otherwise, do you think people buy and open/keep ex Deoxys booster box/pack for Sharpedo ex?
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Liked for indeed being an unpopular opinion! Top form, though I’ll have to agree to disagree. 
You inspire another question and opinion though:
Our favorite sets are our favorite because of the experience, not because of the contents.
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burning shadows LMAO. i guess champion’s path is a s tier set
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I’d say in the moment yes but as time goes on your view on older sets changes. Skyridge is my favorite set of all time and thats the only set I didnt open as a kid from the sets I do collect.
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Oh, i remember when vivid voltage was S-tier because of that rainbow Pikachu😂
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Yea rainbow chonky pika used to be the hype back then, now its all forgotten.
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Wow! First time I find what you said to be pleasant and agreeable. 
Yeah for example for me when I was a kid in the 1990s-2000s, Wotc base set was like S-tier to me. Now it’s C-tier as I discovered other (more awesome) sets exist when I returned to the hobby in 2020.
Burning Shadows got that 
Charizard GX which I find iconic though I’m not a Charizard fan. And Lost Thunder too, as it got Lugia GX too, which I like.
No, not CP for me. That would be D-tier.
Never liked Pikachu, even during that period when VV was newly released and almost everyone in my local community was chasing that card. It’s a set I skipped. Never been a pika fan unless it is holding a trophy/medal.
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Ouch 
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Not sure how ppl hype Darkness and Vivid and trash on Battle Styles 
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as it should be
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I didn’t join the set ranking thread because set collecting is lame since most lack a unifying theme.
When was the last time a main set had a unifying theme?
I can only think of special sets; 151, Pokemon Go, Celebrations, Detective Pikachu.
Maybe it was in the HGSS block.
Even when I was a kid, when Base Set 2 and Legendary Collection came out I was disinterested. Heck, even Jungle, Fossil and Neo Discovery I was really annoyed with rare non-holos.
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Totally agree with you. I picked up 12 of the Japanese Classic Collection cards and will most likely let go of half of them later in a trade later down the line. I would have hated to buy that just for a handful of cards. Those people who break those big sets are the true MVP 
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I think this is mostly true for English modern, but if you look at Japanese sets the themes are much stronger. Eevee heroes for instance has a great set identity as opposed to Evolving Skies which is very mismatched. I think older English sets like Rocket, Neo Destiny and Skyridge all feel quite cohesive which is why I’m only a set collector when it comes to vintage most of the time!
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Yup!
I do feel like Neo Disco had a theme. It’s never perfect but as far as set themes go, there was an ancient ruins vibe. But last set I can think of was Plasma Freeze, and steam seige had a recurring use of gears and machine parts (but it was not too common - as common as ice in plasma freeze? Maybe)
More often, mini sets like double crisis have themes, so I have completed some of those.
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Are you saying out of the entire tcg, the last block with good set themes was HGSS? Have you seen skyridge and aquapolis? Team rocket? Team rocket returns? TMvTA?
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I’ve just broken cover and made it known in the WOTC Tier List topic, but I’ll say it again here as it MUST be an unpopular opinion…I like Base 2 more than Base Set.
Now, I’m NOT saying that Base 2 is factually better than Base (unless we’re talking about something other than Pokemon cards lol) but I personally prefer it purely because the Cosmos holo pattern makes all of the Base holos look infinitely better. I like looking at my Base 2 Charizard more than my Base Set version, for one example.
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All those sets are pre-HGSS.
I guess those who played BW would be able to better tell whether any of those are more thematic - especially the Plasma sets - though I dislike most of the BW era templates.
The HGSS era always seemed like a vibe on its own. This is coming from someone who only looked at pkmncards after WOTC/first 2-3 sets of RSE. I don’t open packs.
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Hearsay this sentiment somewhere, somehow, someday:
- “Waifu cards is in a dangerous hyped bubble. Once raffles in Japan stop using Pokemon cards as prizes, and move on to more valuable and liquidable stuffs like gold, waifu is likely to crash to pre-hype prices.”
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I agree the lack of themes are perhaps the only Achilles heal for modern. 151 feels like an actual set, where non special sets just feel like a mix of nice art.
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I believe many BW sets had good themes going for them. The plasma sets, Dark Explorers, Dragons Exalted all were really strong in there own right. I think early XY had some good ones as well such as Phantom Forces.
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