What are your unpopular opinions in pokemon?

[Gus]

@krill

@nish

Kid for Christmas: All I want is is some Pokemon cards
47 year old Jeremy who is single with no kids: I just spent a new car on buying out the 15th walmart in a 70 mile radius of every single piece of branded Pokemon merchandise they had so that I can make a 13% profit in 9 years

Lol, I can definitely see kids 10-20 years from now getting back into pokemon as young adults like many of us and getting back into the sets from their childhood and discovering hidden fates for the first time because they didn’t even know it existed.

Luckily, those kids will have a massive supply of sealed product to purchase from lol

[krill]

@Gus

@krill

Lol, I can definitely see kids 10-20 years from now getting back into pokemon as young adults like many of us and getting back into the sets from their childhood and discovering hidden fates for the first time because they didn’t even know it existed.

Luckily, those kids will have a massive supply of sealed product to purchase from lol

Trueeee. God bless scalpers

[zorloth]

@Gus

@krill

Lol, I can definitely see kids 10-20 years from now getting back into pokemon as young adults like many of us and getting back into the sets from their childhood and discovering hidden fates for the first time because they didn’t even know it existed.

Luckily, those kids will have a massive supply of sealed product to purchase from lol

This is the hidden blessing of all of these new ‘investors.’ It would be an indescribably amazing experience to open up an early EX Series box or two. But I can’t because no one kept them sealed and now they’re worth a bajillion dollars .

The kids growing up with the modern sets will be able to experience what most WotC/EX Series kids never will.

[nish]

@zorloth

@Gus

Luckily, those kids will have a massive supply of sealed product to purchase from lol

This is the hidden blessing of all of these new ‘investors.’ It would be an indescribably amazing experience to open up an early EX Series box or two. But I can’t because no one kept them sealed and now they’re worth a bajillion dollars .

The kids growing up with the modern sets will be able to experience what most WotC/EX Series kids never will.

I think it’s 50/50. Some kids will get to grow up and be able to buy sealed boxes for cheap and re-live the nostalgia, and others will have no nostalgia because they were never able to get cards as kids due to the availability ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ripguyfawkes]

Maybe an unpopular opinion: Reprints of cards devalue the original cards because they take away the unique factor from them, and the more reprints a card receives, the worse it gets.

Take base set Charizard for example. While undoubtedly the holy grail of set cards, holding one of the original Charizards in my hands didn’t hit nearly as hard as holding a Gold Star Charizard in my hands, simply because my brain associated the base set Zard with the other more common reprints I’ve already had (like the 20th anniversary one or the evolutions one). It sort of feels like TPC made official proxy cards of an iconic card, and it takes away the especialness because this supposed grail card is not unique anymore. When you own a Gold Star/Crystal/Shining Charizard, you know it’s the real deal, because it was only printed in the respective original set.

And it’s not just Charizard. I feel the same about, say, Masaki Gengar or Unikarp due to their web reprints. And if the Illustrator got a mass reprint for the 25th anniversary so that everyone could “own a piece of Pokemon history”, I would feel the same about that and oppose it.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion though because all of the cards I mentioned (base Charizard, Masaki Gengar, Unikarp) are highly sought after and incredibly expensive, so people don’t seem to mind that there are reprints with the same art available.

[zorloth]

@ripguyfawkes

Maybe an unpopular opinion: Reprints of cards devalue the original cards because they take away the unique factor from them, and the more reprints a card receives, the worse it gets.

Take base set Charizard for example. While undoubtedly the holy grail of set cards, holding one of the original Charizards in my hands didn’t hit nearly as hard as holding a Gold Star Charizard in my hands, simply because my brain associated the base set Zard with the other more common reprints I’ve already had (like the 20th anniversary one or the evolutions one). It sort of feels like TPC made official proxy cards of an iconic card, and it takes away the especialness because this supposed grail card is not unique anymore. When you own a Gold Star/Crystal/Shining Charizard, you know it’s the real deal, because it was only printed in the respective original set.

And it’s not just Charizard. I feel the same about, say, Masaki Gengar or Unikarp due to their web reprints. And if the Illustrator got a mass reprint for the 25th anniversary so that everyone could “own a piece of Pokemon history”, I would feel the same about that and oppose it.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion though because all of the cards I mentioned (base Charizard, Masaki Gengar, Unikarp) are highly sought after and incredibly expensive, so people don’t seem to mind that there are reprints with the same art available.

Hmm…I feel basically the opposite. I think that reprints serve to make the original version that much more special and desirable.

But I can understand this perspective if you collect cards solely as a way to collect the art. Then I can see why someone would just want the cheapest print of the card. But the premium placed on 1st Ed. cards in this hobby suggests that most people are not only in it to collect the art.

[ripguyfawkes]

@zorloth

@ripguyfawkes

Maybe an unpopular opinion: Reprints of cards devalue the original cards because they take away the unique factor from them, and the more reprints a card receives, the worse it gets.

Take base set Charizard for example. While undoubtedly the holy grail of set cards, holding one of the original Charizards in my hands didn’t hit nearly as hard as holding a Gold Star Charizard in my hands, simply because my brain associated the base set Zard with the other more common reprints I’ve already had (like the 20th anniversary one or the evolutions one). It sort of feels like TPC made official proxy cards of an iconic card, and it takes away the especialness because this supposed grail card is not unique anymore. When you own a Gold Star/Crystal/Shining Charizard, you know it’s the real deal, because it was only printed in the respective original set.

And it’s not just Charizard. I feel the same about, say, Masaki Gengar or Unikarp due to their web reprints. And if the Illustrator got a mass reprint for the 25th anniversary so that everyone could “own a piece of Pokemon history”, I would feel the same about that and oppose it.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion though because all of the cards I mentioned (base Charizard, Masaki Gengar, Unikarp) are highly sought after and incredibly expensive, so people don’t seem to mind that there are reprints with the same art available.

Hmm…I feel basically the opposite. I think that reprints serve to make the original version that much more special and desirable.

But I can understand this perspective if you collect cards solely as a way to collect the art. Then I can see why someone would just want the cheapest print of the card. But the premium placed on 1st Ed. cards in this hobby suggests that most people are not only in it to collect the art.

To me it’s not just because of the art itself, but because of the “wow” factor it invokes. Maybe another good example is the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in Yugioh. The original artwork of this card has been reprinted at least a dozen times. As a result you see it very often, be it in binders or in decks. You get used to seeing it. And when you eventually see a rare version of the original artwork (for example the dds) it just doesn’t leave the same impression as if that artwork was only present on this specific dds version. Sure, I’m impressed by the small dds-001 number and the prismatic foil, but I’d be way more impressed if someone pulled a trophy Kang out of their pocket and I saw the picture from 10 feet away and be like “you did NOT just reveal that card, did you”.

[qwachansey]

From a finance perspective reprint often help the original, weird as it seems. Yu-Gi-Oh and MTG provide good evidence of this – reprints introduce more people to the card, while the original retains its coveted “first” status. Likewise no one would argue Evolutions Zard hurt 1st Ed Base.

From a collectors perspective I agree with you especially for ultra rare cards with a more common reprint of the art.

[krill]

@zorloth

@ripguyfawkes

Maybe an unpopular opinion: Reprints of cards devalue the original cards because they take away the unique factor from them, and the more reprints a card receives, the worse it gets.

Take base set Charizard for example. While undoubtedly the holy grail of set cards, holding one of the original Charizards in my hands didn’t hit nearly as hard as holding a Gold Star Charizard in my hands, simply because my brain associated the base set Zard with the other more common reprints I’ve already had (like the 20th anniversary one or the evolutions one). It sort of feels like TPC made official proxy cards of an iconic card, and it takes away the especialness because this supposed grail card is not unique anymore. When you own a Gold Star/Crystal/Shining Charizard, you know it’s the real deal, because it was only printed in the respective original set.

And it’s not just Charizard. I feel the same about, say, Masaki Gengar or Unikarp due to their web reprints. And if the Illustrator got a mass reprint for the 25th anniversary so that everyone could “own a piece of Pokemon history”, I would feel the same about that and oppose it.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion though because all of the cards I mentioned (base Charizard, Masaki Gengar, Unikarp) are highly sought after and incredibly expensive, so people don’t seem to mind that there are reprints with the same art available.

Hmm…I feel basically the opposite. I think that reprints serve to make the original version that much more special and desirable.

But I can understand this perspective if you collect cards solely as a way to collect the art. Then I can see why someone would just want the cheapest print of the card. But the premium placed on 1st Ed. cards in this hobby suggests that most people are not only in it to collect the art.

I think it depends on if the reprint is differentiated from the original like the slight style differences between evolutions and base set or the secret rare reprints of some original cards. Regardless it seems these seem to only raise the value of the original out of nostalgia

[zorloth]

@krill

@zorloth

Hmm…I feel basically the opposite. I think that reprints serve to make the original version that much more special and desirable.

But I can understand this perspective if you collect cards solely as a way to collect the art. Then I can see why someone would just want the cheapest print of the card. But the premium placed on 1st Ed. cards in this hobby suggests that most people are not only in it to collect the art.

I think it depends on if the reprint is differentiated from the original like the slight style differences between evolutions and base set or the secret rare reprints of some original cards. Regardless it seems these seem to only raise the value of the original out of nostalgia

Absolutely. But as long as there’s literally any way to tell the reprint apart from the original, then the value of the original isn’t lessened (IMO). And in MTG and Pokemon at least, I’ve never heard of indistinguishable reprints. I’ve heard people say things like “WotC era is Pokemon’s reserved list” and that “they could reprint the gold stars at any time.” But, to me, these are pointless considerations because there’s an effectively zero percent chance that TPCi is going to reprint physically indistinguishable replicas of the gold stars (or any vintage card). There’s zero reason to – all it would do is shatter collector confidence. I do think it’s possible that they eventually will reprint the gold stars in an Evolutions-esque way, but I don’t view this as even a remote threat to the value of the originals. If anything, it increases awareness of them.

[krill]

@zorloth

@krill

I think it depends on if the reprint is differentiated from the original like the slight style differences between evolutions and base set or the secret rare reprints of some original cards. Regardless it seems these seem to only raise the value of the original out of nostalgia

Absolutely. But as long as there’s literally any way to tell the reprint apart from the original, then the value of the original isn’t lessened (IMO). And in MTG and Pokemon at least, I’ve never heard of indistinguishable reprints. I’ve heard people say things like “WotC era is Pokemon’s reserved list” and that “they could reprint the gold stars at any time.” But, to me, these are pointless considerations because there’s an effectively zero percent chance that TPCi is going to reprint physically indistinguishable replicas of the gold stars (or any vintage card). There’s zero reason to – all it would do is shatter collector confidence. I do think it’s possible that they eventually will reprint the gold stars in an Evolutions-esque way, but I don’t view this as even a remote threat to the value of the originals. If anything, it increases awareness of them.

I have no idea why people think theres some magical legal line between wotc and the sets after. They’ve reprinted wotc arts plenty of times, not sure if they’ve even reprinted any ex series art. And for people to be hesitant to get gold stars because they could get reprinted is ridiculous. If anything, if they reprinted gold stars in some way and there is 100% chance its not identical obviously, it will likely cause a spike up in original gold star prices. Vintage pokemon really can’t get hurt by modern products, only boosted up.

[zorloth]

@krill

@zorloth

Absolutely. But as long as there’s literally any way to tell the reprint apart from the original, then the value of the original isn’t lessened (IMO). And in MTG and Pokemon at least, I’ve never heard of indistinguishable reprints. I’ve heard people say things like “WotC era is Pokemon’s reserved list” and that “they could reprint the gold stars at any time.” But, to me, these are pointless considerations because there’s an effectively zero percent chance that TPCi is going to reprint physically indistinguishable replicas of the gold stars (or any vintage card). There’s zero reason to – all it would do is shatter collector confidence. I do think it’s possible that they eventually will reprint the gold stars in an Evolutions-esque way, but I don’t view this as even a remote threat to the value of the originals. If anything, it increases awareness of them.

I have no idea why people think theres some magical legal line between wotc and the sets after. They’ve reprinted wotc arts plenty of times, not sure if they’ve even reprinted any ex series art. And for people to be hesitant to get gold stars because they could get reprinted is ridiculous. If anything, if they reprinted gold stars in some way and there is 100% chance its not identical obviously, it will likely cause a spike up in original gold star prices. Vintage pokemon really can’t get hurt by modern products, only boosted up.

I think there is likely be a legal barrier IF TPCi wanted to reprint a physically identical version of a WotC card. After all, the cards literally say “Wizards of the Coast” along with a copyright symbol on them. On the other hand, I doubt there’s any legal barrier to reprinting indistinguishable versions of the gold stars. But, as you said, the chance it happens is zero. This is a collectible card game and creating literally identical replicas of older cards would irreparably damage that perception.

[brendantheclayboy]

@ripguyfawkes

Maybe an unpopular opinion: Reprints of cards devalue the original cards because they take away the unique factor from them, and the more reprints a card receives, the worse it gets.

Take base set Charizard for example. While undoubtedly the holy grail of set cards, holding one of the original Charizards in my hands didn’t hit nearly as hard as holding a Gold Star Charizard in my hands, simply because my brain associated the base set Zard with the other more common reprints I’ve already had (like the 20th anniversary one or the evolutions one). It sort of feels like TPC made official proxy cards of an iconic card, and it takes away the especialness because this supposed grail card is not unique anymore. When you own a Gold Star/Crystal/Shining Charizard, you know it’s the real deal, because it was only printed in the respective original set.

And it’s not just Charizard. I feel the same about, say, Masaki Gengar or Unikarp due to their web reprints. And if the Illustrator got a mass reprint for the 25th anniversary so that everyone could “own a piece of Pokemon history”, I would feel the same about that and oppose it.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion though because all of the cards I mentioned (base Charizard, Masaki Gengar, Unikarp) are highly sought after and incredibly expensive, so people don’t seem to mind that there are reprints with the same art available.

Dude I agree so hard. Many of us here responded talking about monetary value–that is a different talking point. The actual appreciation value is SOO devalued inherently. When you see something so often, you become jaded to it. This is the case for everything. Imagine if they had never done Charizard (base) after base. No Base 2 (which I HATE as a set, as I’m sure many do), no Legendary collection, and no modern Arita Artwork base charizard, like Evolutions. God it would be so much better. And to me Charizard is a great example because of how popular he is. I like him no more than all 151 other gen 1 pokemon, and certainly less, by far, than my top 10 of all time. But that said, it would be so nice to see him way less often. It’s TOTALLY fine if they want to release new artwork, new versions. Fine. But let the originals live damnit. This is how I feel about remakes and reprints of EVERYTHING in life (movies, unless the original is bad or can be massively improved on, which is rarely the case because it is about popularity and cashing in).

[politoed666]

Dunno how unpopular this opinion is, but I just do not understand the appeal of Topps cards whatsoever. The fact that some of them are extremely rare just doesn’t do it for me… the artwork is predominantly pretty bland and they don’t hold any nostalgia factor. shrug.gif

[brendantheclayboy]

@politoed666

Dunno how unpopular this opinion is, but I just do not understand the appeal of Topps cards whatsoever. The fact that some of them are extremely rare just doesn’t do it for me… the artwork is predominantly pretty bland and they don’t hold any nostalgia factor. shrug.gif

Shocked to my core that in recent months/years these have become so valuable. They were always considered pretty trashy growing up. Other non-tcg cards like carddass and bandai stuff is OG, artistic, etc. The topps cards look like cereal box toys. I like some of the looks of the movie pieces with scenes on them. But I wouldn’t ever buy them, especially for more than a buck a piece. But the ones with just the mon and the pokedex #? Psh. Fa’get about it!

[pfm]

Any non-tcg card is trash with exception to 1997 Bandai Carddass

[kingboo64]

@pfm

Any non-tcg card is trash with exception to 1997 Bandai Carddass

Agreed topps sucks but Carddass has incredible sugimori art

[pfm]

@kingboo64

@pfm

Any non-tcg card is trash with exception to 1997 Bandai Carddass

Agreed topps sucks but Carddass has incredible sugimori art

Only 1997

[kingboo64]

@pfm

@kingboo64

Agreed topps sucks but Carddass has incredible sugimori art

Only 1997

Absolutely the others are just random anime scenes or copy paste sugimori. They’re the only non tcg I’ve ever considered buying. Where else can you see gengar eating snorlax’s dreams or golem actively exploding?

[sacari]

I don’t mind reprints if they are in the style of evolutions, more of paying homage to an old set. Reprints where they print the exact same set that was printed a year ago into the ground just makes me not want to buy modern.