Ok, my apologies for praising all sets, here would be my ranked list.
Base Set is just king, ultimate nostalgia and still is such a thrill when buying cards from this set for my collection. LC got me back into collecting after college, love the reverse holo pattern (roast me if you want)
No long explanation for other sets, I genuinely like them all. Base Set 2 I just never cared for, there are some cards difficult to grade in it which I love the challenge of but that is not enough for me to rank it higher in comparison with the rest of the sets.
love gym and late neo series, e-series has grown on me but was never available back in the day. Base 2 and LC are just knockoffs (despite the legendary reverses) and fossil was so readily available in my childhood that I thought it has to be some inferior set to jungle and gym as those were much more rare to see. heavily biased as you can see, but deep inside, I have a love for every wotc set in my heart (besides base 2 tbh)
Jungle in A tier is definitely a nostalgia-fueled decision - if I’m being objective, it’s probably C or D tier :')
Yes, I do prefer Base 2 to Fossil (just not that compelling a set imo - why do the birds look so goofy) only because of the cosmos holos, which I think are really underrated.
Possible controversial choices for me would be i prefer expedition to skyridge and aquapolis (think expedition would more popular if it wasnt the the terrible derpy charizard holo) and prefer gym Heroes to gym Challenge
i like how people say base 2 is the worst as if it isn’t the same set as base + jungle. basically just saying the only thing that makes base good is the context bc otherwise it would be F tier with base 2
i’m just poking for fun ofc, but if we’re being honest, base unlimited should be f tier as well since it is a reprint of base 1st literally released only a few months later
edit: its too bad base wasn’t split up into 3 (1st, shadowless, unlimited)
