Wow that’s one the most beautiful cards ive seen! Loving the black/green/silver color scheme. Ex cards are the prettiest for sure
Game Freak adding the ability to catch Celebi in the 3DS VC version was one of the main reasons I bought a 3DS…
I have a hate/love relationship with that card. I absolutely love it but hate myself for selling it for pocket change a year before the $120k auction. I still dream nightmares 
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If the Nostalgic Bonus Counts this is my favourite Card(Pokemon), was the first Trade in School i made. Unluckily i traded for a Kabutops and needed a long time to get another One
always liked it. looks strong,agile,focused,superior
If the Nostalgicbonus of Childhood dont count this is by far my Favourite card, nothing comes even close for me:
I love the contrast, the big fearless Onix hiding vs Rain. Reminds me that everyone no matter how tough have a weakness.
Iam a big fan of the primitivism-artstyle. This card is my biggest Hunt =)
Since i saw that card i took the Time to see other Onixcards and i was suprised how many good ones are out there. Unluckily favourite Pokemon dont mean you have a garantie for good artwork^^
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@pokeuniverse, hey, the cost is coming back down so you will have another shot. If you have the Scroll shown in your photo, then you killed it in comparison!
I have the normal love for Mew, Mewtwo, Lugia, etc.
BUT.
Machop. Forget Arcanine being a pseudo-legendary. Look at this slab o’ beef!
(honestly though, I love him because he is small but mighty, and he just trains and trains to try and be better all the time
Also, most base artwork was so boring and neutral and didn’t show the power of each Pokemon. At least Charizard was breathing fire! But Machop is holding up a massive boulder with one hand!)
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This is going to be a long one, but there’s a point to it all that I haven’t ever really expressed here before. So please bare with me.
For all the times I’ve talked about my collection, I’ve never gone into deeper detail about why I was obsessed with Dragons or why it was Gyarados that continued to catch my eye. My first love of Pokemon were with Psychic and Bug types - Alakazam and Scyther being my all time favorites of the original 151 insofar as I was introduced to. This was mostly due to the anime and seeing Alakazam in person.
I eventually did see Gyarados in the anime during the Shipwreck episode but wasn’t impressed with his design. Still, as an impulsive kid, I really liked it’s destructiveness. XD My first rare though was Dragonair which I was excited about because I love Dragons - Wyverns and Chinese Dragons being my favorites from mythology. Up until my early 20’s, I also had a collection of Dragon related stuff -
My favorite book series was the Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen:
My favorite action figure was Horrid the Dragon from the Spawn Series:
In the 2 year gap from collecting Pokemon where I was obsessed with Yugioh, I obviously loved both Blue Eyes & Red Eyes and maintained a collection of Dragon cards (even though Dark Paladin was my all time favorite but that was because of the story of how I obtained it) and still fight the want to collect Dragons from that TCG:
As you can see, there’s a general theme to liking destructive looking dragons or dragons that had an old or ancient look to them. Gyarados in the anime didn’t really thrill me up until I saw him use Hyper Beam in the Mewtwo movie - found him a bit too “bulbous” in his classic look. I wouldn’t even have a chance to play the game up until after I got my first Gyarados card - otherwise I think he would have been an insta-fave.
I never saw the card until that faithful day that got me my first ever Gary which I promptly traded my old favorite, Alakazam, for - Arita’s depiction just shouted “Badass” and after obtaining Sugimori’s even more badass looking Shining Gyarados a few years later - my obsession reached new levels.
In the several years I’ve been part of E4, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this with exception to perhaps a private few or at least not into this much depth. And to make a long-long story short and to get more to the point of why I was obsessed with Dragons and Gyarados in particular -
I was an angry kid.
Without going into details, I went through a wicked rough trauma early in life which affected much of my childhood and teenage years. I was also into dance and theatre and was constantly a target for bullies for a number of years. My family was also very poor. Least to say, I was an extremely angry child. But I was always afraid of my anger because I had a tendency to lash out and scare friends and family around me when I did - I hated that feeling and tended to bottle it up for years out of fear I might hurt someone by accident which I’m thankful I never did - though my sister was the unfortunate exception during intense game matches (but we’re besties now).
Seeing “big scary angry dragons” was like a validation to an internal part of me that I connected with at a time I didn’t have a positive outlet for my anger. And over the years of collecting Gyarados, I’ve learned to love the big blue angry boy for his absolute ferocity - because sometimes I wished I could destroy cities myself when I was a child.
I talk about this now because I think it’s important to create a more open forum about things like this - mental health especially. If more people are willing to talk about it, I think more people will be able to seek and find help. We’ve seen a number of charities towards mental health come out of this hobby - I hope that side of the hobby continues. I’ve been a Social Worker for some years now and did the work I needed to get to this point - it’ll forever be a work in progress of course, but at least I did the therapy and self-reflection to get a handle on it. I wouldn’t be able to engage in the work I do with kids otherwise.
And in fact, it’s probably why I tend to work best with the angry and silent ones.
I know very well where the dragons hide.
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I like Pangolins
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Personal Story Time:
I grew up living in a poor household for most of my life (utility/food shortages was pretty common), therefore I learned to live minimally very young.
As a child, I rarely was ever able to afford luxury goods like video games/trading cards but every once in a while I would get cheap bulk from friends and relatives.
I was introduced to Pokemon on the Gameboy color at my cousin’s house and had very fond memories of my experiences that I hold dear to this very day; Pokemon games and the show really felt like the perfect escapism when I was feeling down. There was always something new to discover and friends to be made whenever I played.
Since I could only get my hands on bulk cards from friends/relatives, I didn’t have many holographic cards in the WOTC era, but do you want to know what I prized the most?
Kagemaru Himeno’s Eevee from Jungle:
A Common brought me more joy than most of my other cards could. It’s beautiful vibrant colors in the background, the lively butterflies fluttering, and the playful Eevee enjoying it’s life in a meadow, without any worries in the world! It always felt so magical to me, the artwork never failed to put a smile on my face.
I was really lucky to have a VHS tape with the Eevee Brothers episode as a kid, I would watch that episode over and over when I would come home from school and before I went to bed, frequently falling asleep to it. It’s my favorite Pokemon episode to this very day out of nostalgia.
I truly love everything about Eevee, it’s design has always been perfect to me, combining the best characteristics of various animals such as foxes, cats, dogs, and rabbits! In the video games it was always a reliable friend you could count on to fit any role on your team with it’s evolutions! (Which I love each as much as I do Eevee, I personally count them all as an extension of Eevee when discussing favorites, otherwise I really couldn’t really favor one over the other.)
I’ve been able to make up for my lack of funds by being very knowledgeable about the hobby and working very hard consistently over the years. I’ve been the only one working in my family for the last 5 years in fact, across multiple jobs. It’s been very exhausting and overwhelming at times for me, I’ve had to make a lot of personal sacrifices along the way, but I was always was able to press forward for the sake of my family.
I’ve had to sell nearly all of my collection and restart my collection multiple times over the years to help cover bills, but I would always try to hold onto my Eevees whenever I could; Those experiences really made me cherish the cards I had left in my collection over the years.
Eevees have gotten me through some rough times with it’s fluff whenever I could spare the money; I could always count on my Eevee/lution collection to remind me of how fortunate I am to have what I have and all the positive memories attached to my collection.
I know a lot of this post may sound pretty cheesy at some points, and I decided to leave out quite a bit of the more sensitive topics I had to deal with while growing up, but I thought sharing a bit of my background would really help get across how much Eevee means to me.
Thank you for reading,
-Steven
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The Neo Destiny artwork is incredibly cute haha, one of my favorites from that set 
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Suicune and mew! I got my love for suicune from pokemon crystal, my favourite pokemon game!
And my love for mew came from the TCG, every mew artwork is amazing. Here is the most recently released one and it’s adorable.
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Rayquaza!! Most nostalgic to me, even more so than Base. Gold star is actually not my favorite and I think most of the cards are actually pretty trash sadly. My faves:
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Dragonair is the embodiment of grace, mystery, elegance, beauty, intellect, and ferocity.
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Absolutely! It’s cool to meet another Dragonair fan! Although he’s not my #1 pick, he’s definitely in the top 5. Flareon is my Favorote. Along with Dragonair are Charmander, Chimchar, and Dialga.
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@pkmnflyingmaster, i respect your attempt to craft an elaborate cover-up story to hide your inner furry
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Looks like I’ve been caught red-pawed 
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Rayquaza and Salamence - I’ve always loved dragon / dinosaur type of creatures growing up and I still do. When gen 3 was new I was so happy to get new dragon Pokemon and these were exactly what I was hoping for. I’ve loved them both since I first saw them. The Ex Dragon #19 Salamence holds a special place for me because it was the first Salamence card I ever saw and I thought it was so cool. I was about 11 years old at the time.
Interestingly my top favorite arts of my favorite Pokemon have both been made by Kouki Saitou. Which is why Saitou is one of my top favorite artists 
Flygon - the story is quite the same as with Salamence and Rayquaza. I love Flygon’s design, colors and how cute it looks.
Latias - I love both Latias and Latios, but Latias is my preference. Latias is cuter and more of my vibe overall and she’s always playful. I like them both tho. And yes, it’s another dragon from gen 3. These favorite cards are based on pure nostalgia - the very first Latias card I saw irl (the ex) and a Latias card that came from a deck product that was the first ever TCG product I purchased that wasn’t a booster pack. I still own my OG Latias and Latios from that.
Alolan Vulpix and Alolan Ninetales: I’ve always liked both regular Vulpix and Ninetales. Both are pretty and elegant, however I never considered them to be my top favorite Pokemon. Then Alolan Vulpix and Ninetales happened and I think the icy Alolan version of them takes their beauty to whole another level. Alolan Vulpix looks so cute while Alolan Ninetales is so elegant! Amazing regional variants. Too bad it seems like we won’t have any new cards of them since the Sun & Moon series is over which is unfortunate.
I love all cards of them both and I have a bad time choosing top favorites but here’s an attempt:
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DM me your address as I have quite a bit of Eevee/Evolution cards that you will appreciate more than me. No cost, I will just send them USPS.
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Thank you for your kind offer, @jawsh98. I’m always willing to give Eevees a good home in my collection!
-Steven
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So to begin I have two main favorite pokemon if I really had to narrow them down: Cyndaquil and Dedenne.
Cyndaquil will always be my all time favorite pokemon. Sure I adore Typhlosion and Quilava as well (and I usually group them together in situations such as this), but for sake of only using one choice here id have to just go with him. It all dates back to that era of Gold and Silver when a lot of the pokemania hype was dying down (at least where I was when I was a kid) and many kids were moving further away from pokemon as a whole and either going into other things or just giving up completely. With less and less crazyness around it all, i was able to finally sit and enjoy a new era for myself, allowing me to fully put myself into Pokemon without others inputs on matters without feeling like I was following the heard. It felt more personal, and with that i connected heavily to Cyndaquils shy yet cute demeanor. As time went on and I got to see it evolve through the game, i felt even more connected with each evolution in how i perceived them to be and soon enough id forever adopt it to be my all time favorite mon.
As for Dedenne, this is what i like to consider my “recent nostalgia”. When i began collecting again after many years of tossing it aside for various reasons ranging from addiction to mental health issues, I started in the Sun and Moon era of the tcg and also decided to play the card game as well. In playing, a popular card for decks was Dedenne GX (still believe its in the meta today as i dont think its rotated out just yet) and i bought a few copies to add to my decks which sparked my interest for the little guy. This is when a few events happened simultaneously in my life that really started to solidify the insane love that i have today. First, my lovely gf who works with animals brought home a hamster one day that was abandoned at her job. My instant reaction was to get rid of it and find an owner for him (since i already owned a hedgehog and that was enough work), but it became so attached to me for some reason that i ended up keeping him and falling in love with the little guy. Shortly after i ventured into exploring the XY anime to see if i would like it, and man did I LOVE that series. Id spend weeknights after working watching episodes while playing with my little hamster, and with each epsiode Dedennes cute charm in the show just won me over time and time again. The emotion felt so intense and raw, and brought me back mentally to the era of Gold and Silver i loved when I first found cyndaquil. Sadly, about 2 years later my little guy moved on from this world and it broke my heart so much. In mourning, we had him cremated (as they do indeed do this) and I then made a shrine of all my dedenne toy items with the box of him right in the middle of it all. Through having Dedenne as pokemon to call a favorite, I was able to not so much be sad about his passing, but to honor and love the awesome times spent with him and know that the memories, bond, and love can never be taken away. Ever since Dedenne means so much to me, and im glad Pokemon gave it such a great spotlight over time.
So to finish, Ill drop 2 cards i love of each as well as a clip of Dedenne in the anime which pulls every heartstring I have, but shows exactly why i love it so much.
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