As we all know, holos reigned supreme at the beginning of the card game. The ultimate chase. The cream of the crop. But then Neo Destiny came and brought Shinies, then LC brought reverses. And then the Ex era ushered in, well, ex’s. (And the BEST reverse holos!) Holos were no longer the top rarity cards to chase and took a backseat to ultra rares.
I guess I want to ask y’all’s opinion about when the last time (or last set) you would consider holos to be the most desirable chase to you.
I’d say that up until the end of WoTC. Sure, there were the crystal chase cards, but the holos were still something that people wanted to pull. Not enough crystals to justify the set alone I feel.
I’d say during the gen 3 era, they still mattered somewhat. But once sets started to get constantly into the almost 200 cards and secret rares were added, that holos became more of the afterthought.
I’m thinking Pokekyun. Shining legends and amazing rares are also notable
You’d think, but both D&P and B&W holos have picked up some steam recently.
I also think they definitely mattered in Gen 3 because outside of the Gold Star sets, they were still typically the second-best cards you could pull (and keep in mind they were actually rarer than EX cards in the early EX era). EX holos also command a pretty solid premium now, too.
To me, holos stopped mattering once Pokemon really went nuts on the rarities (so the last couple of eras).
Good point. I’d say there were the LvX, but there aren’t as many as there are ex so holos probably did matter more then
Yeah. I personally feel like they kinda fell off at BW.
Also I think probably most folks stopped collecting around DP so not as many people have the nostalgia factor past Gen 3. I know the market has seen DP holos and such with a lot more favor lately but I think that might be more of an untapped area to make money on flips. I might be wrong but hey, I’m human 
IMO, EX Dragon – for two reasons:
While exs were introduced in RS, the holos were more difficult to pull than exs up until TMTA. So for the first three EX sets, exs weren’t really actualized as chase cards.
RS/SS/DR introduced some of the most iconic, beloved Gen 3 Pokemon through holos. For instance, the first English TCG appearances of Blaziken, Swampert, Sceptile, Gardevoir, Salamence, Absol, Flygon, etc. were all regular holos. Very few exs, on the other hand, actually introduced Gen 3 Pokemon – the only ones were Latias/Latios/Rayquaza. 3 big ones, of course, but still only 3.
I liked a lot of the holos in different XY sets but preferably Japanese because the quality is likely better.
Well you can definitely say SM and SWSH they have been devalued to nothing.
Not sure they are worth much in BW and XY either.
Definitely WOTC era for me personally. On the actual game end of things regular holos can still be very useful/in the meta, but beyond that not super exciting for me haha.
Why arent amazing rares the new holos?
I mean in terms of design. make a set with all amazing rares as holos, and reg holo in place of reverse…
What a great idea. Reverse holos are awful these days but going back to EX era “reverse holos” which were basically just holos needs to be standard.
CP6 certainly brought life back to regular holos, but it relied on nostalgia to do so.
In the more recent sets I kind of think the boring default holo pattern deserves some of the blame.
I love the cosmos holo patterns that we still get on certain promo cards. I wish that the modern regular set cards had the same pattern. I think it would bring back at least a little bit more excitement.
It feels to me like it kind of did and up and down for a little bit.
WOTC(through e series) : mattered big time
Ex : I personally still loved getting holos, it was the reverses that I was sad about (although now I’m in love with ex era reverses)
DP : I didn’t really care about them, but I also didn’t buy many DP packs.
PT : they kinda started to be cool again, in terms of looks. Not sure how people at the time felt though.
HGSS : possibly went back up. Primes I don’t recall being that big of a deal. For competitive they were, but I still liked getting normal holos as I kinda came back during this era for a short stint.
BW : this is where they got 100% trash imo from here on effectively zero value.
Flipping through my collection, the BW era is where the trend of holos not mattering as much starts, definitely XY they don’t matter at all. Any holo before would be expensive to replace.
I think when all the crazy rarities came into play. Don’t get me wrong I like full arts, alt arts and rainbows but there is something special about the holos back in the day. It just felt different.
Honestly if they didn’t look like total crap, holos would still matter to me now. No they wouldn’t be expensive or chase cards or anything, but I’d still enjoy them.
95% of the reason I don’t care about modern holos is because the modern holo pattern is just terrible. If they looked even remotely similar to any of the older sets, I’d at least enjoy looking at them. As it stands though I literally prefer non holos over the gen 8 holo pattern.
SS had a few hoenn exs like Wailord, Gardevoir, and Aggron.
CoL probably killed the holo rare
I’ve been happy with pulling holo cards up until HGSS sets. I wouldn’t say they were the main chase by any means but up until then I was excited to pull a holo. Since the BW sets and especially from XY and forward, pulling a holo hasn’t really felt like anything anymore. The holo pattern is just too boring. Bring back cosmo foil! Cosmo foil is the reason why I love modern English Promo cards.