Yep, that seems to be part of the problem. Because there are so many artists contributing now, everything looks similar and flat. There’s no identity BECAUSE there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree that this is an overall positive direction for the TCG.
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I’ll offer a great middle ground product that I think would do extremely well in Pokemon. Wotc sells what they call Secret Lairs for Magic the Gathering, where for some of those Secret Lairs they will have a singular artist design about 4-7 cards with brand new artwork. They are essentially promos and a lot are basically reskins of existing cards. Imagine a Pokemon Secret Lair with 5 cards designed by your favorite artist. I’d buy things like that in a heartbeat with art from Komiya, Tanaka, Baba, etc.
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Too many cooks indeed. Death row chefs are cellophaning their BLT’s right next to 1994 Marco aiming for the third star.
Perfection devolves into digitized newspaper strip:
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I think the shiny pulls in packs and Pocket are far too common. They should be less than 25% what they are now.
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People who win Pokemon card auctions and then cancel should be permanently banned from that sales platform. I’m talking 1 strike and you’re out.
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May I remind you, this is an unpopular opinions thread…
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Lol, ok. Allow me to re-word:
“And of all of the Pokemon and artworks they could have possibly used to highlight a set called “The Glory of Team Rocket” in Japanese, which is the exact same set as the English release named “Destined Rivals” (the ‘rivals’ being Team Rocket), the promo card is a Wobbuffet. What a flop.”
Seems like a weird semantical point to make, which distracts from my actual point. In any case, if I’m making a set highlighting the glory of Team Rocket, I am using as menacing of a Pokemon or iconic to the group as I can, but that’s just me.
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The fact a team rocket set also seems to have no actual reference to the anime team rocket is also laughable. Maybe we will be surprised as the rest of the set gets revealed, but im thinking no jessie or james.
It feels like the owner’s sets were half baked by and large tbh. As much as I love the art, why does the team rocket set have a Clamperl ar???
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I guess it goes back to what koala said earlier, modern has become a lot more piecemeal. You just take whatever you like from a set and then move on. Whether that was by design or because of how many Pokemon there is now, who’s to know.
I agree that there is no identity or set cohesiveness but I’m not sure when there last was? Maybe it was Steam Siege or even further back into the BW Plasma sets. If we go by quantity there are more sets without identities than ones that do have them. I personally view that as a point for improvement, like surely it will increase collectability with identity (maybe not ENG mishmash sets) but TPC don’t seem to have any feedback mechanism for that.
Our last hope is Pocket themed sets doing extremely well and they take those learnings for the physical TCG.
It is not. Destined Rivals also includes cards from ‘Heat Wave Arena’ which features Cynthia, Arven, Ethan and Misty. It also includes 2 decks that feature Marnie and Steven. So no, the rivals are not Team Rocket exclusively.
You can’t get disappointed when your expectations were not realistic from the start is what I’m saying. It was never going to be a set exclusively featuring Team Rocket.
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We never knew this until they started showing cards that weren’t rocket related in the set. Anyone who was around when they teased the rocket set at worlds thought this would be a standalone set entirely based on team rocket. Thats what any normal fan would think and expect. This is the case even after the first couple owner’s sets as well. This is not people being unrealistic, its TPC (and to a lesser extent TPCI) dropping the ball on what could have been the easiest home run line of sets ever.
Part of me thinks that TPC intentionally nerfs the sets lol
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Revealing set trademark names early was a mistake
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Did you watch the anime? Jesse had a wobuffet, not super iconic, but not irrelevant either.
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It’s definitely more of a genwunner attitude I feel. I’m not big on the anime, but Jesse’s Wobuffet is probably just as iconic as Meowth if you take the whole anime into consideration.
Tbf, I’m not into the anime, so I’m glad that they didn’t shoehorn in Jesse & James.
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There is a difference (and not a semantic one like camrok is saying) between thinking that most of Glory of Team Rocket would be Rocket cards and most of Destined Rivals would be Rocket cards. One is a JP set and one is an English set combining 2 sets and 2 decks. Even if GoTR was 100% Rocket, DR would still be 50% non-Rocket.
But otherwise, I mostly agree with the rest of what you said. Thing is, we’ve been on this rodeo before. Many times, in fact. Since I rejoined the hobby in fall 2021, it seems that most hyped sets actually fail to meet fan expectations lol.
Celebrations being just 25 cards and 25 reprints.
Pokemon Go being just completely terrible.
Shiny Treasure ex being another boring backgroundless/CGI fest.
Terastal Festival having no ARs.
Battle Partners not being all trainer’s Pokemon.
I think only VSTAR Universe and 151 actually met expectations and VMAX Climax was the one that set sky high expectations of what sets could be initially.
And in the other 5, 6 if you include GoTR, you’re right that TPC seems to engage in bait & switch tactics where they let fans expect one thing but then wreck it with questionable decision making.
And just to reiterate for anyone else reading, we’re talking JP sets. ENG sets have been chaos forever and you should not be expecting any cohesion.
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For the time being, about half of The Glory of Team Rocket is Team Rocket’s cards which is quite impressive for any modern main expansion. Only a third of Battle Partners was Owner’s Pokémon
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I wasn’t sure if the one strike rule would be unpopular (allegedly everyone desreves a second chance, etc). I’d just perma-ban non payers.
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If we scrambled the release dates for every single WOTC set BEFORE Neo Genesis
(think Jungle going first instead of base set), We would still have the exact same outcome of the original timeline in which base set went first.
This leads me to the main idea: No matter if base set was released or not, the popularity of pokemon would be the exact same as it is today.
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But then Jungle would have been called Base set!
Cheers!
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If base set didn’t exist or the dates were scrambled, why would jungle still be called base lol
Base means “first set”
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