They are casting a wide net to get more people involved with various styles and by doing so EVERYONE WINS!
The coolest part is seeing the different schools (style factions) emerge.
For example I hate Komiya’s art. Have hated it since I was a kid. Yet out of his school/style Shinji Kanda emerged and I love a few of his cards.
After Kawayoo came Tokiya and then Egawa, out of them Tokiya (pre style shift) is easily my favorite of the three and I adore his cards prior to Generations . The other 2 are meh for me but they get plenty of love from other fans.
As a picky person I find about 70% of the TCG’s art forgettable about 25% alright and 5% art that blows me away (commons to SARs) and 5% is generous.
Most cards won’t be special to an individual but the ones that are only got to exist because the others did too.
Let all that art good and bad (subjective to taste) flow!
Ironic you should say this to the dude who grades common cards just because I like the artwork. And comparing SAR chases to Rainbow rare chases is comparing the “chase” aspect of the set and insults literally no one.
But regarding comparing the chase, your post equated or reads as equating the art. It starts off with chase and then immediately goes into comparing the art and actually, reading through it again, never brings up the chase again.
To what pretentious “rule” you just made up are you referring?
Wait, on second thought I’m extremely comfortable that you disagree with me or at least not share my opinion. You’re in the right thread though. I knew I posted in the right place!
I rather like how MtG is doing full arts. Not exacly “full” arts, but regardless, they take random cards from within the set it seems, and give them more impressive work. Some are the desireable rares, but others are not. However, MtG prices are driven mostly by playability… You could fit all MtG collectors at a single table at you LGS.
Each set usually also has a particular theme or style to most full arts, such as “acid fueled” “horror movie” “anime” “whatever rando IP hasbro wants to cram in”
I don’t go out of my way to criticize cards I dislike besides the CGI model illustrators, but there’s definitely a demo on here that loves to hate on modern art whenever they can. Whether it’s the AR/SARs or just the normal art. Reducing all the artists’ talent and body of work (including outside of Pokemon) to bland, generic, soulless etc and then calling backgrounds Sugimori didn’t choose and illustrations limited by computer graphics of the 90s as the unrivalled peak.
As I always conclude, nostalgia is a helluva drug and it’s OK to have grown out of Pokemon. There is no need to denigrate and put down all that has come after- whether it is the new games and designs or especially the new artists and art.
I should really stop getting baited by the posts but I keep falling for it lol.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I believe CGC mainly grades errors because they desperately want to be different, and want a share of the market regardless of their grading provenance. Conversely I think the same thing with TAG, but for different reasons. I suppose overall grading companies these days seem to pop up each with a new theme in mind for innovation.
Doing the same thing as the competition that owns 75% of the market will get you nowhere, unfortunately. Innovation is what’s needed, but brazenness should be discouraged.
When a single company owns three-quarters of the market share and is actively acquiring your competition (e.g., PSA buying SGC), you have to aggressively innovate or die. I agree that aggressive innovation should never be achieved by sacrificing standards to be “first to market” (e.g., errors, prototypes, test cards).
It’s actually pretty similar, coke had majority of the market share in the 60s, then Pepsi came around during that time, similar to cgc appearing a few years ago.
Coca-Cola’s market share in the 1960s is not really comparable to PSA in 2025. They were at ~35% vs. 20% and 10%, respectively. That left a lot to be taken.
The other interesting thing about Pepsi vs. Coke is that they are geographically locked. The Southern part of the U.S. is strictly Coke, where you won’t even find Pepsi in vending machines or fast food restaurants. The opposite can be said for Pepsi in the Midwest.
Anyway, your point is that Pepsi offered an identical product and gained market share that way. That’s true, but it was mostly from The Pepsi Challenge, which was an innovative marketing blitz.
The “Pepsi Challenge” was the unofficial start of the soda rivalry. In 1975, Pepsi launched a marketing campaign that showed that during a blind taste test, more people preferred Pepsi over Coke.
“The Pepsi Challenge was not just a marketing gimmick — it was true,” David Greising, author of “I’d Like the World To Buy a Coke,” told the History Channel. According to Greising, internal studies at Coca-Cola “confirmed what the Pepsi Challenge was showing, which is that if you just look at the taste of the beverage, consumers preferred Pepsi.”
CGC and TAG are taking similar approaches with marketing strategies, but they are facing a near-monopoly giant rather than a somewhat larger competitor.
So, upon hearing 10.2 B-B-B-BILLION cards printed this year, I’m sticking with this Op:
I would rather wait till I’m 70 to buy these great full arts for pennies on the dollar which were printed into ob-b-b-blivion, than pay $100 today when I could buy vintage or even promos at that price.
