I’ve been vending at card shows on and off for a while now. It has genuinely changed my perspective on which Pokémon people actually still love and which ones have quietly faded into the background.
I’ve had a few real surprises lately, especially with Deoxys. It used to be cool and mysterious, but nowadays, almost no one seems to care about it. Unless it’s the lenticular card.
The situation with Espeon is similar. I remember when it was always seen as being right on par with Umbreon, but nowadays umbreon is in a league of its own now, while Espeon has settled into the same tier as the rest of the Eeveelutions.
What other Pokémon used to be fan favorites but just don’t seem to get the same love anymore?
For me, none of them tbh. It might seem that way depending on how you interact with the hobby possibly. With the “more popular” pokemon getting attention for various reasons it tends to take the focus away unless youre dialed in to seeing them from other sources like games, etc
To go a little deeper: what are the causes of certain Pokemon either losing/gaining in popularity? Their cards in the TCG? Video games? The featured mon in an upcoming set (i.e. ETB box art, etc)? Or is it just simply the majority of collectors have decided they ‘look cooler’ than other mons?
Kabutops hasn’t had any noticeable arts released in a good while. I would say that it’s a steep drop off from having shining, crystal and EX cards that all slapped imo.
I’m not sure about Kabutop’s popularity though, since I did not grow up in that era. I always thought he was relatively cool though.
I always felt Kabutops was severly under appreciated by the fan base. But looks like internally (at least back then) it got a lot more appreciation, seeing as it has one of the highest quality runs ever throughout the WOTC era imo.
I suspect it was always sort of rivaling Scyther who I think is preferred by a lot of people.
On the subject of Scyther, he definitely lost his spark. At one point on the road to Charizardom. Knife-armed green badass, the jungle holo everyone wanted, the favorite pokemon of us all at one point. So much face time in the anime, especially in the crux Orange Island/2000-era that lives in the heart of every genwunner. He’s decent for plowing through the story mode so it’s not like people haven’t used him and there’s some mystique to him as he’s typically not the easiest to catch.
No competitive relevance, one of the worst dual types in the game and no movepool until 4x stealth rocks. A pokemon that could’ve been saved so many times in so many ways. 500 BST! No real competitive upgrades except for an evolution that outshines him completely. Scizor doesn’t tether him to relevance either since people typically don’t raise their own competitive mons in the gens where Scizor is relevant (DPP-) and so the Scyther stage is not required.
There’s been more than a few moments over the last 20 years where you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Scyther even exists, which is a sad fate for this former poster boy of bug types.
