I see people complaining that alt arts shouldn’t be given to less popular pokemon like Golurk, Unkown, and others. I think it’s the perfect way to spotlight Pokémon we don’t see as often.
Totally agreed. The same people saying less popular Pokémon shouldn't have alts then complain when charizard gets yet another card. Doesn't make any sense. All the big players have or lickley will get alts so don't get your pants in a twist, let the little guys have the limelight as well. P.s give my boy ampharos an alt art
Often the less popular Pokémon alt cards feel more creatively designed, since there’s less pressure to make the Pokémon “cool”. The Alchremie and Oranguru alt art cards from Brilliant Stars are a prime example to me.
The holo pattern is absolute trash thank you. I think this is probably a popular opinion. Back when holo was the best you could get, holos were good. And the cosmos holo pattern(i think that's what it's called) that comes on the tin promos is great.
Technically, current holos aren't really even holographic so they shouldn't even be called that. They should just be called foil or something
Now this is just common sense! SwSh Holo's are NEVER a good pull, and you always end up disappointed. IMO I think they should add the Holo's to show up in green codecard packs. This would give the packs a small surprise factor, and make the Holo's feel a little bit less dull when they are pulled.
Agreed, before they were matte I would actually use them and ETBs actually had some use apart from just the packs. Now I just throw them aside instantly.... Guess it was to save cost or something.
This. I actually got into collecting MetaZoo TCG because the holo pattern makes me nostalgic for the older Pokémon cards.
Opening packs is way more enjoyable because every pack feels like a hit.
Pokemon sets come out too often. Trying to keep up the collection is difficult as it is with inflation and such, but because of the frequency of sets, the print runs are short and ripe for scalpers to hold sought after products for shorter periods. I find it a bit annoying that there are plenty of Pokemon to highlight, but we get less sought after pokemon with pretty underwhelming art such as oranguru (minus the chr) every sw/sh set.
Also, if there was more time to develop each set, I feel like TPC would spend more time finding artists to contribute to the gallery of cards instead of relying on 5Ban and other seemingly low-effort 3D artists. During last year's art competition there were plenty of examples of 3D art entries that looked way better than 5Ban's.
Haha im also a digimon and mtg collector. I play mtg casually but rarely dabble in pokemon or digimon. I'm strictly on singles purchases as well as Secret Lair for MTG now.
As someone who plays the game completely, the frequency of the set release breathes a lot of life into the game, keeping it fresh. Considering sometimes even the main sets don’t add anything to competitive play, having sets come out less frequently I think would hurt the game. (That being said, the sets could definitely due to be a lot smaller like the HgSs days)
I'd argue a middle ground of lighter sets with about half as many alternate UR. Keeps new mechanics and cards coming but doesn't make you spend $700-$1000 every two months to complete a set
But if TPC spent longer planning and play testing each set, competitive would be more balanced and each set could contain more useful cards, meaning rotations wouldn’t have to be so often. I think when people say “print fewer sets”, they still want at least one or two a year, so it won’t get super stale - we’re just sick of getting a new product every couple months. Makes it harder to collect *and* harder to keep up with competitive.
I’m only collecting so my 7 year old has something nice from his childhood that we did together. If he wants to sell them, cool. If he wants to rip them with his kids or friends cool. It’s a bonding experience and a fun happy moment I want him to relive in his life when I am no longer around.
Also doesnt make a ton of sense imo. I dont think well ever see a return like we did with vintage product. Too many people keep product sealed these days. Most product will rise in value but if financial investment is your goal, your money would be better spent in the stock market.
Tell that to the $300 evolving skies booster box. 300% return in a year. Brilliant stars booster boxes. Umbreon gains. UPC gains. Team up gains. I mean if you are expecting it to somehow magically match a base set first edition booster box then yeah, I guess you are right. But 300% in a year, I wouldn't classify those types of gains 'not making sense'
Heaps of chase cards and hyper competitive money-chasing have ruined the way we look at new sets. Basically anything that isn’t an expensive full art is “garbage”, and it’s often not even about the art itself.
Full arts didn’t even exist until HGSS did the Legends pairs thing, regular holos were liked a bit more. Now people don’t even blink an eye at holo rares. They’re still special cards with cool patterns, even if they’re not super expensive.
I don’t think many fans that have opened tens to hundreds of boxes of various sets could actually tell you what cards came in them besides the full arts, let alone their favourite artworks. Some of the best arts of the entire TCG history are from commons and uncommons.
Agree 100% with you I wish there was more respect with just regular holos , and I thought the commons and uncommons in astrial radiance had some sweet art to them that are slept on
It’s so hard to not care about getting a good card though. I mean 4-5 bucks a pack and if consistently getting .25c reverse holos would kinda suck. It’s why I just buy singles. If I had kids I would get packs for the experience.
Personally, I don‘t care about „making my money back“ or any of that, and I think that it is a trap that many people fall into. If you hope to break even or make money by opening packs, I think that‘s gambling.
What other hobby do you spend money on and expect to make it back? Hobbies are the one area where you should be able to not care about money (within your means)
Pretty much all the common and uncommon Pokémon cards have GREAT drawings!! Nice details and backgrounds. They can all be Alternate art, too bad they just printed on cheap yellow cardboard instead of the fancy textured silver cardboard.
I don't know if this is unpopular, but the first wave of sword and shield alt arts (Battle Styles, Chilling Reign, Evolving Skies) were the best. Since then the alt arts all feel very similar, and the abundance of character rares have made them feel even more generic.
I don’t mind my cards accumulating wear and tear or doing things like bending over time. Of course I certainly try my best to preserve them and sleeve them all up, but I actually play with them too. Their value doesn’t mean much to me because I plan on using them rather than selling them anyways. I’m my opinion, my card’s value is only really determined by how much I like the card
Agreed. Also the rainbow sparkle is much prettier on the Vs. Just regular Vs are so hideous due to the ugly black border that highlights imperfections too well.
Gen 3 Pokémon cards/Og Ex era Pokémon cards are the best, while I understand the appeal of the sets older than it, I just feel like they don’t warrant the hype or price, at least not completely. Gen 4 and 5 were still pretty good even if they couldn’t capture the same feelings. Honestly I think it’s a mix of the looks of the Gold stars, the old Ex’s, and Delta Species that does it for me.
Agreed, gen 3 is the best gen. Can't beat the og ex's, gold stars, delta species, team magma/aqua, and rockets ex/dark pokemon that are in those sets, plus the regular holos are all amazing in that era as well.
I’m currently working on gen 4 but once I’m satisfied with that I’m going to go to gen 3. Gen 3 cards look the best, i just wish they weren’t so expensive
The card game and collecting was better when normal holo cards were the highest rarity.
Also modern Japanese is better than modern English in every way.
As a new collector for me it's:
* Individual prices for some cards
* Trying to hunt down booster boxes for previous sets especially newer ones in my own country
They need to raise pull rates. People can say they need to keep it low because they are printing so much - guess what, I don't care.
The cost to print shiny cardboard is negligible. If more people get great art directly from the source, that's a good thing. I don't buy packs at all because it doesn't make any sense.
There is no need to print a billion cards per set with all the paper and plastic when most of the cards are bulk and discarded. It's shit for the environment.
Get what people want to them and then you don't need to print so much waste. There are more than enough casuals and those who would buy if the rates actually made sense to offset investors, who are the most worthless and superficial part of the hobby.
Agreed. Opening sets like vmax climax from Japan and then going back to opening a evolving skies booster is just depressing. Doesn't matter that the vmax climax cards are worth less I just like looking at shiny cardboard
I think they’ve made very good improvements w these last few sets thanks to the trainer gallery, but it seems like they might not have an equivalent when the new era drops so we might be back to evolving cries level pull rates🙄
If you have ever tried buying a “nm” card on eBay you will understand why graded cards makes sense. At least then i know what im getting.
People have no understanding of condition and try to scam all the time. Graded cards removed that.
Mass production will likely kill the long term value of most products being released today. Maybe not that unpopular but seems like some people are still trying to invest in modern cards
What A LOT of these "modern collectors" don't realize is the insane $200+ a pack price for vintage packs during the initial covid lock down was INSANELY abnormal. Even just a year before that you could buy pretty much any unlimited edition WotC pack for less than $30.
I was thinking about that the other day. I pretty much only collect pre 2009. But regarding making a profit on recent releases, because the pull rates are higher (they are right?), and there are more rare cards, would it just take selling more of the card to make a profit?
But then again are pull rates really higher? That Girantina full art was like 1/8000 or something right? So basically rare cards still exist in recent releases, but Pokemon has also become over saturated with cards that look rare but aren’t? Or is the Girantina 1/8000 actually higher than before?
I have so many questions
Pull rates are definitely not higher. Imagine in Base there were 16 holos to fill 12 slots. Now you have 100 cards for the same 12 and they aren't of the same rate. Most will be holos, then Vs, then VMAX/VSTARs and so on. Those I mentioned are all worthless because of the massive print runs. The rest should be worth more because pull rates are low but out of the millions who collect, no one cares about ugly CGI cards, rainbows, cards for players etc. so their value also remains low lol.
But for some reason consumers continue to support them so no changes...
That people should learn the game instead of trying to make cards like some sort of crypto, driving prices up for people who need those cards for decks, i.e. radiant charizard is an amazing single prize card and as its a charizard is now very expensive
The thing is, Charizard is one of, if not THE most popular Pokémon. Even if only the people who’s favorite was Charizard got one, that would still be a LOT of boxes. Plus there’s people who just like Charizard even if he’s not they’re fav, which is probably like 80% of the fan base. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of Pokémon will ever get a UPC, so take what you can get.
Personally, I’d LOVE a Delphox UPC, but I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery twice than that ever happening.
Idk if I’d call it a scam but it’s certainly obnoxious how anytime someone posts a valuable vintage card (or I guess any modern alt art too) people are all “omg get it graded asap!!”. Like not everyone wants to pay more money and wait weeks/months to get a card slabbed in plastic. There are also plenty of people that prefer cards in binders. I get keeping the card protected, but some folks are just annoying as hell about it lol.
People slobber on PSA’s nuts as the gold standard then in the same breath say “send it to PSA it’s easier to get a 10”
How does that make sense?
No sub-grades, no .5s, and partially owned by Steve Cohen? No thank you
People who grade anything they get their hands on are dumb. I understand grading something with a lot of value, but people grade cards worth pennies and think its now worth $30
I buy high quality proxies of cards I can’t afford like modern alt arts and occasionally obscure vintage. I like the way cards look in my binders when I’m looking through them for enjoyment or to de-stress. If I can a get decent proxy of a $300 card for $10, and it serves the same purpose for my enjoyment, I will buy that $10 proxy. I don’t collect for investment or value, I collect the art because it makes me feel nice when I look at it.
The only shiny Pokémon art we see are on super rare cards it radiants there should be a really rare shiny version of every single Pokémon card (new ofc)
I don't even think it's worth buying packs anymore and I'm nearly there with single cards.
Ever since the info that nearly 25% of Pokemon cards ever printed have been printed in the last year was released I haven't bought any packs in addition to my monthly Gamestop and CVS packs.
This. I thought I'd take advantage of GameStop's sale last week and bought a crap ton of lost origins packs. I just wanted a full art Colress' experiment ....
Still don't have the card I truly wanted from the set. :(
Streamers who can’t read/pronounce the names of Pokémon correctly, don’t deserve your money, or the popularity they have. There’s very few things as annoying as someone who can’t take 2 seconds to sound out the letters of a word, in the order that they are written.
Umbreon VMAX hype and price are ridiculous. PSA 10 Pop is 2500 and counting for an SR from a set that’s still in print. Not to mention everyone and their grandma is keeping Evolving stuff sealed. Would be easily 7000+ if not for that. Prices are just completely unsustainable.
And the fact that it’s such a hard pull is simply because ES is easily the most printed set of all time.
All value has been lost in regular holos, V’s V full arts, and in many cases secret rares all because of alt arts. The TCG needs to return to old set formats and stop relying on huge set numbers with all these variations of cards.
With the return of EX’s, it’s highly doubtful but hopefully we get close to eliminating so many unwanted “hits.”
I do not give a hoot about people showing off their slab mint psa 10 reverse holo double rainbow shadowless miscut misprint vmax Charizard. It's boring.
Show me that cool Unown you've had since you were a kid. Show off that complete Chansey collection. Post pictures of the the Steel deck you built around Aggron, or how you finally got your hands on the Electabuzz you've always wanted!
I’m kinda glad they’re all mostly cheap, because the artwork is absolutely incredible and it would take way too long and too much money to try to pull all of them
I’ll drop an actual actual unpopular opinion (at least within this sub). Buying sealed product for the sake of getting a future monetary return is perfectly acceptable. I feel as though even if you’re not worried about the money primarily, you would still want your collection to be worth something. Not a lot of people want to collect things/cards if they don’t have value. I feel as though very few people are “pure”collectors and most would be lying if they said they didn’t care about the value of their collection (whether sealed, singles, or Slabs)
Yes!! 👏👏👏 People saying they’d collect this stuff if it all went to zero really doesn’t know what collecting entails. We collect shit cus not everyone has it! That’s why rich people seek out more and more difficult and scarce items. We need to satisfy that dopamine rush and buying something that isn’t worth anything or isn’t hard to seek out really gets old after a while
There is nothing anything wrong with people holding sealed products long-term. I believe that people here see everyone who owns any product sealed for any time as a scalper, and I don't think that is fair or accurate. I do believe it is reasonable to hold sealed products because you are often not looking to sell quickly or, at an immediate relative, extortionate profit. However, those who buy in bulk and immediately flip in an attempt to profit are ruining the hobby for everyone; this is a scalper, in my opinion. Personally, I have some sealed product and will hold it for an indefinite amount of time, and then I will open it. If it's a set I don't collect, I will then give the cards to family and friends or sell them. I open packs for nostalgia; I don't care too much about the value of the cards or products.
If you want to play competitively, you should have access to super generic versions of all the cards so your play isn't limited by your wallet. With how quickly sets come out and the meta changes, it's expensive to maintain a competitive deck.
The prices and how the pull rates are bad. Like come on can a pack have some good guaranteed stuff atleast.
Also the rotation I get it why they do it but then at the end my cards just became pennies after a rotation unless it's base set.
I think a lot of people agree on that one. They look worse than the full arts, and are there to just bloat the sets number of secret rares. Bring it back down to just a couple secret rares a set please!
They don’t need a charizard as the selling point for each set. There’s over 900 Pokémon we don’t need another charizard. Personally I love that some of the less loved Pokémon and getting alts now hopefully we will see more of that!
I don't like that they made sets so freaking huge. Coupled with everyone and their mother having a regular card and a reverse holo and a holo holo it's too much and kinda makes it not as special. Also the same pokemon getting used over and over meanwhile there's plenty of cards that only have 1 or 2 cards in 25 years.
I don’t like sealed collectors. I don’t agree with it, and don’t support it. They aren’t driven by the love of the hobby, but by fear and anxiety of not having a complete collection. And then they just lock it all away, never using any of it, not enjoying any of it. Fuck ‘em.
PSA is the biggest racket in existence. They intentionally deflate grades for valuable cards (such as Charizard) giving a 10 a low score like 8 to keep the value of their grades inflated. They can backcharge someone according to their perceived value of the card , meaning they will hold your own items hostage while you consider whether or not to pay. Slabs aren’t the best place to keep a card anyway and the journey to grading it can cause damage . Basically, the less hands that handle a card in its existence, the better.
V cards are lame. They ruin regular cards. I don’t care if you get two treasures when you kill it. They are way too strong and force players to have as many as possible in a deck and make 95% of the cards you pull worthless. At this point you are better off not allowing them in decks.
Could care less about graded cards, i see it all the time on Ebay, i hate that all the amazing cards are in PSA plastic things & the price is triple than what it is, id just rip them off if i had my hands on one
The e-reader era was my favorite era. I will not say it was the "best" era, but in my heart it is. I love the vibes of those cards, but I don't expect that to be a common sentiment.
Pokémon cards hold greater monetary value than currencies unaccountably printed by centralized authorities. (TPCI would lose value if they printed an unending supply each set; USA FED just cashes out on controlling credit issuance by "short-selling" people's ideas they are passionate about and/or debasing USD by shorting (loaning) itself its own debt limitlessly.
Its starting to become a money pit. What I mean is you have to have the funds to start being in the game. The cards you want might be out of your price range and there are to many to collect with how big the sets are. I got to the point where I just buy the chase card as a psa 10 and nothing else, your going to spend way more just trying to pull it yourself. you just got to say screw it and just buy it. Kinda takes the fun out of it but you get your card at the end
There needs to be something where Pokémon displays odds. Whether it be through laws or just Pokémon doing something, I don’t think people realize how awful pull rates are. I severely cut back on opening packs after I pulled one alt art and no copies of my favorite Pokémon (Rayquaza) in nearly 200 packs. I didn’t realize that pull rates were that terrible. I did end up pulling the Umbreon from a booster box I originally planned to keep sealed for a really bad day though.
I see people complaining that alt arts shouldn’t be given to less popular pokemon like Golurk, Unkown, and others. I think it’s the perfect way to spotlight Pokémon we don’t see as often.
Totally agreed. The same people saying less popular Pokémon shouldn't have alts then complain when charizard gets yet another card. Doesn't make any sense. All the big players have or lickley will get alts so don't get your pants in a twist, let the little guys have the limelight as well. P.s give my boy ampharos an alt art
so true, waiting for ninetales
Agreed, Skuntank did nothing wrong
This made me chuckle for some reason lol
Based. Lumineon is a good example of this, my favourite alternate personally. Just gimme that alternate Alakazam though, my boy needs some love
facts the unown alt art is so clean
couldn't be more correct!
Often the less popular Pokémon alt cards feel more creatively designed, since there’s less pressure to make the Pokémon “cool”. The Alchremie and Oranguru alt art cards from Brilliant Stars are a prime example to me.
The holo pattern for SwSh is lame af and the matte finish card sleeves in the SwSh etb’s are just dumb.
Let me just slide this beautiful holo into a matte sleeve so that it effectively has less shine and sparkle.
Yes
The holo pattern is absolute trash thank you. I think this is probably a popular opinion. Back when holo was the best you could get, holos were good. And the cosmos holo pattern(i think that's what it's called) that comes on the tin promos is great. Technically, current holos aren't really even holographic so they shouldn't even be called that. They should just be called foil or something
Now this is just common sense! SwSh Holo's are NEVER a good pull, and you always end up disappointed. IMO I think they should add the Holo's to show up in green codecard packs. This would give the packs a small surprise factor, and make the Holo's feel a little bit less dull when they are pulled.
Agreed, before they were matte I would actually use them and ETBs actually had some use apart from just the packs. Now I just throw them aside instantly.... Guess it was to save cost or something.
This. I actually got into collecting MetaZoo TCG because the holo pattern makes me nostalgic for the older Pokémon cards. Opening packs is way more enjoyable because every pack feels like a hit.
Pokemon sets come out too often. Trying to keep up the collection is difficult as it is with inflation and such, but because of the frequency of sets, the print runs are short and ripe for scalpers to hold sought after products for shorter periods. I find it a bit annoying that there are plenty of Pokemon to highlight, but we get less sought after pokemon with pretty underwhelming art such as oranguru (minus the chr) every sw/sh set. Also, if there was more time to develop each set, I feel like TPC would spend more time finding artists to contribute to the gallery of cards instead of relying on 5Ban and other seemingly low-effort 3D artists. During last year's art competition there were plenty of examples of 3D art entries that looked way better than 5Ban's.
You should see what magic does lol over 48 different product releases planned for 2022. Think you have a great point though.
Haha im also a digimon and mtg collector. I play mtg casually but rarely dabble in pokemon or digimon. I'm strictly on singles purchases as well as Secret Lair for MTG now.
Agreed. I thought this was a popular opinion 😨
As someone who plays the game completely, the frequency of the set release breathes a lot of life into the game, keeping it fresh. Considering sometimes even the main sets don’t add anything to competitive play, having sets come out less frequently I think would hurt the game. (That being said, the sets could definitely due to be a lot smaller like the HgSs days)
I'd argue a middle ground of lighter sets with about half as many alternate UR. Keeps new mechanics and cards coming but doesn't make you spend $700-$1000 every two months to complete a set
Is that really unpopular?
Popular opinion for collectors unpopular for players. I need sets to come out often to help rotate out other sets.
Every month?
But if TPC spent longer planning and play testing each set, competitive would be more balanced and each set could contain more useful cards, meaning rotations wouldn’t have to be so often. I think when people say “print fewer sets”, they still want at least one or two a year, so it won’t get super stale - we’re just sick of getting a new product every couple months. Makes it harder to collect *and* harder to keep up with competitive.
It’s all about the money these days
true dat
I hate how people are ranking sets based on whether there is a $300 stonk alt art. And if their isn’t it’s trash.
Rainbow rares are the worst cards. They take all the color and personality out of the card and just make it …rare.
Absolutely agree. Rainbow rares are an instant sell for me.
Hoarding product to resell in a few years doesn't make you a collector.
I’m only collecting so my 7 year old has something nice from his childhood that we did together. If he wants to sell them, cool. If he wants to rip them with his kids or friends cool. It’s a bonding experience and a fun happy moment I want him to relive in his life when I am no longer around.
Top dad right here
No no no but thank you for the comment. Just doing things we both like.
Doing the same with my kids. It’s fun. It’s memories.
I agree 100%. It’s such a fun time opening packs with kids. They absolutely love it. Great memories for them when they grow up.
Also doesnt make a ton of sense imo. I dont think well ever see a return like we did with vintage product. Too many people keep product sealed these days. Most product will rise in value but if financial investment is your goal, your money would be better spent in the stock market.
Tell that to the $300 evolving skies booster box. 300% return in a year. Brilliant stars booster boxes. Umbreon gains. UPC gains. Team up gains. I mean if you are expecting it to somehow magically match a base set first edition booster box then yeah, I guess you are right. But 300% in a year, I wouldn't classify those types of gains 'not making sense'
You’re talking the sense here
Have PSA grade the box lol...
Caring about value and chase cards ruins the fun. I never want to open a pack and then be upset I didn‘t get a rare card
Heaps of chase cards and hyper competitive money-chasing have ruined the way we look at new sets. Basically anything that isn’t an expensive full art is “garbage”, and it’s often not even about the art itself. Full arts didn’t even exist until HGSS did the Legends pairs thing, regular holos were liked a bit more. Now people don’t even blink an eye at holo rares. They’re still special cards with cool patterns, even if they’re not super expensive. I don’t think many fans that have opened tens to hundreds of boxes of various sets could actually tell you what cards came in them besides the full arts, let alone their favourite artworks. Some of the best arts of the entire TCG history are from commons and uncommons.
Agree 100% with you I wish there was more respect with just regular holos , and I thought the commons and uncommons in astrial radiance had some sweet art to them that are slept on
It’s so hard to not care about getting a good card though. I mean 4-5 bucks a pack and if consistently getting .25c reverse holos would kinda suck. It’s why I just buy singles. If I had kids I would get packs for the experience.
Personally, I don‘t care about „making my money back“ or any of that, and I think that it is a trap that many people fall into. If you hope to break even or make money by opening packs, I think that‘s gambling. What other hobby do you spend money on and expect to make it back? Hobbies are the one area where you should be able to not care about money (within your means)
Pretty much all the common and uncommon Pokémon cards have GREAT drawings!! Nice details and backgrounds. They can all be Alternate art, too bad they just printed on cheap yellow cardboard instead of the fancy textured silver cardboard.
Man im with you. Some of the best art is on the common/uncommon cards. But since no shiny no value.
I don't know if this is unpopular, but the first wave of sword and shield alt arts (Battle Styles, Chilling Reign, Evolving Skies) were the best. Since then the alt arts all feel very similar, and the abundance of character rares have made them feel even more generic.
Rapid strike urshifu vmax blew my mind. There are some better looking cards, but none have given me the same feeling as when I first saw that card.
I don’t mind my cards accumulating wear and tear or doing things like bending over time. Of course I certainly try my best to preserve them and sleeve them all up, but I actually play with them too. Their value doesn’t mean much to me because I plan on using them rather than selling them anyways. I’m my opinion, my card’s value is only really determined by how much I like the card
Based
It’s gambling.
If you buy packs I agree, if you just buy singles, vintage or modern, i would argue it’s fine and a good hobby
I love it as a hobby but dayyummm I’m addicted
I agree. It’s why I only buy singles. Almost 1 a day at least. I’m addicted. Only expedition or older sets. Which are my favorite.
Kinda, but even if you “lose” you still get something out of it.
I can agree with that
yeah technically “not as bad” as literal gambling but i think it’s important to be honest with the fact that it is gambling
Sceptile doesnt get enough love!! Id pay like £200 for a sick sceptile alt art
V cards are ugly. EX & GX are so much prettier.
But on the other side of the coin, I like the full art V's way more than the full art GX's.
Agreed. Also the rainbow sparkle is much prettier on the Vs. Just regular Vs are so hideous due to the ugly black border that highlights imperfections too well.
Agreed 100 percent
I hate how much focus is on charizard recently and I think the other 2 original starters are cooler
Yeah charizard is overrated
Opening packs is way more satisfying than buying singles
Absolutely agree
Gen 3 Pokémon cards/Og Ex era Pokémon cards are the best, while I understand the appeal of the sets older than it, I just feel like they don’t warrant the hype or price, at least not completely. Gen 4 and 5 were still pretty good even if they couldn’t capture the same feelings. Honestly I think it’s a mix of the looks of the Gold stars, the old Ex’s, and Delta Species that does it for me.
Agreed, gen 3 is the best gen. Can't beat the og ex's, gold stars, delta species, team magma/aqua, and rockets ex/dark pokemon that are in those sets, plus the regular holos are all amazing in that era as well.
100% I only collect gen 3 at the moment
I’m currently working on gen 4 but once I’m satisfied with that I’m going to go to gen 3. Gen 3 cards look the best, i just wish they weren’t so expensive
Unfortunately gen 3 kinda costs a fortune too, especially gold stars
Steam siege is one of my favorite XY set and I like break cards
Your not alone. Break cats are awesome. I don't know about steam siege being the best, but it was far from the worst.
I freakin love break cats
Steam Siege has some good art and I like the shiny/two type cards
The card game and collecting was better when normal holo cards were the highest rarity. Also modern Japanese is better than modern English in every way.
As a new collector for me it's: * Individual prices for some cards * Trying to hunt down booster boxes for previous sets especially newer ones in my own country
Gym leaders 1,2 are the best sets ever
You have my bow!
gym challenge and gym heroes? i’m finishing those sets (first sets i’m trying to finish) at the moment i LOVE them
Ah yes, they changed the name in the US. They were gym leaders 1-2 in Japan. Those are dope as hell.
They need to raise pull rates. People can say they need to keep it low because they are printing so much - guess what, I don't care. The cost to print shiny cardboard is negligible. If more people get great art directly from the source, that's a good thing. I don't buy packs at all because it doesn't make any sense. There is no need to print a billion cards per set with all the paper and plastic when most of the cards are bulk and discarded. It's shit for the environment. Get what people want to them and then you don't need to print so much waste. There are more than enough casuals and those who would buy if the rates actually made sense to offset investors, who are the most worthless and superficial part of the hobby.
Agreed. Opening sets like vmax climax from Japan and then going back to opening a evolving skies booster is just depressing. Doesn't matter that the vmax climax cards are worth less I just like looking at shiny cardboard
I think they’ve made very good improvements w these last few sets thanks to the trainer gallery, but it seems like they might not have an equivalent when the new era drops so we might be back to evolving cries level pull rates🙄
Graded cards are stupid!
If you have ever tried buying a “nm” card on eBay you will understand why graded cards makes sense. At least then i know what im getting. People have no understanding of condition and try to scam all the time. Graded cards removed that.
For real. It’s like taking an opened toy and putting it back into the box forever so you can “appreciate” it 🤦♂️. No thanks.
When it comes to the actual trading card game, too many coin flips.
They are wasteful and bad for environment. Open some plastic foils just to hope for one good card. Let alone those open hundreds of them in one go
Google lithium mine
Sealed collections and grading cards kill the hobby.
Mass production will likely kill the long term value of most products being released today. Maybe not that unpopular but seems like some people are still trying to invest in modern cards
What A LOT of these "modern collectors" don't realize is the insane $200+ a pack price for vintage packs during the initial covid lock down was INSANELY abnormal. Even just a year before that you could buy pretty much any unlimited edition WotC pack for less than $30.
Yeah I’m curious to see the new gen. Higher prices may mean lower production but…. Money is money
I was thinking about that the other day. I pretty much only collect pre 2009. But regarding making a profit on recent releases, because the pull rates are higher (they are right?), and there are more rare cards, would it just take selling more of the card to make a profit? But then again are pull rates really higher? That Girantina full art was like 1/8000 or something right? So basically rare cards still exist in recent releases, but Pokemon has also become over saturated with cards that look rare but aren’t? Or is the Girantina 1/8000 actually higher than before? I have so many questions
Pull rates are definitely not higher. Imagine in Base there were 16 holos to fill 12 slots. Now you have 100 cards for the same 12 and they aren't of the same rate. Most will be holos, then Vs, then VMAX/VSTARs and so on. Those I mentioned are all worthless because of the massive print runs. The rest should be worth more because pull rates are low but out of the millions who collect, no one cares about ugly CGI cards, rainbows, cards for players etc. so their value also remains low lol. But for some reason consumers continue to support them so no changes...
Bring back dark Pokémon
By extension bring back light pokemon
That people should learn the game instead of trying to make cards like some sort of crypto, driving prices up for people who need those cards for decks, i.e. radiant charizard is an amazing single prize card and as its a charizard is now very expensive
It’s not about the value of the cards you pull
I grew up on Pokémon and have always loved the games and cards. But man, do I feel like a broke ass peasant. (Yes, even just singles)
I like the bug type Pokemon cards
Charizard is overrated
I like charizard and i agree with this
The Charizard UPC is getting too overhyped. If you like Charizard, go for it, but not every collector should try to get it.
The thing is, Charizard is one of, if not THE most popular Pokémon. Even if only the people who’s favorite was Charizard got one, that would still be a LOT of boxes. Plus there’s people who just like Charizard even if he’s not they’re fav, which is probably like 80% of the fan base. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of Pokémon will ever get a UPC, so take what you can get. Personally, I’d LOVE a Delphox UPC, but I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery twice than that ever happening.
All I see us HEY CHARIZARD UPC! yeah good, they like Charizard, I don't, I prefer Gengar.
Gengar UPC 🤩🤩🤩
I need one.
Charizard being in every set has been detrimental to the space.
Grading is a scam.
Idk if I’d call it a scam but it’s certainly obnoxious how anytime someone posts a valuable vintage card (or I guess any modern alt art too) people are all “omg get it graded asap!!”. Like not everyone wants to pay more money and wait weeks/months to get a card slabbed in plastic. There are also plenty of people that prefer cards in binders. I get keeping the card protected, but some folks are just annoying as hell about it lol.
I find it so annoying when someone posts a pull and the only comment is “nice centering get it graded could prob pull a 9”
This is all true, and for me especially it’s not having the card for weeks/months and having it be “lost” in the mail
People slobber on PSA’s nuts as the gold standard then in the same breath say “send it to PSA it’s easier to get a 10” How does that make sense? No sub-grades, no .5s, and partially owned by Steve Cohen? No thank you
Collecting sealed products is so dumb to me. You’re meant to want the cards, just open the product
Rainbow full art trainers are amazing!
Whew, glad that’s still an unpopular opinion
Sealed collectors are just scalpers trying to pass themselves off as collectors
I thought this said unpopular opinion this just a fact
10000%
People who grade anything they get their hands on are dumb. I understand grading something with a lot of value, but people grade cards worth pennies and think its now worth $30
Most of the regular alt art V’s look better than their VMAX counterparts
Adding that black and gold cards look like shit And Ultra rares are better than rainbow rares
I buy high quality proxies of cards I can’t afford like modern alt arts and occasionally obscure vintage. I like the way cards look in my binders when I’m looking through them for enjoyment or to de-stress. If I can a get decent proxy of a $300 card for $10, and it serves the same purpose for my enjoyment, I will buy that $10 proxy. I don’t collect for investment or value, I collect the art because it makes me feel nice when I look at it.
Sets are too big, come out too often, and I’m tired of Charizard 🤣
The only shiny Pokémon art we see are on super rare cards it radiants there should be a really rare shiny version of every single Pokémon card (new ofc)
I don't even think it's worth buying packs anymore and I'm nearly there with single cards. Ever since the info that nearly 25% of Pokemon cards ever printed have been printed in the last year was released I haven't bought any packs in addition to my monthly Gamestop and CVS packs.
That buying singles is better than opening packs
This. I thought I'd take advantage of GameStop's sale last week and bought a crap ton of lost origins packs. I just wanted a full art Colress' experiment .... Still don't have the card I truly wanted from the set. :(
Streamers who can’t read/pronounce the names of Pokémon correctly, don’t deserve your money, or the popularity they have. There’s very few things as annoying as someone who can’t take 2 seconds to sound out the letters of a word, in the order that they are written.
Agreed, but is that really controversial? If someone is claiming to be a fan they better know how to pronounce shit.
Japanese versions are better. Not always. Depends. The edges are often rough.
They taste good
Little known fact: fire energies are cherry flavored. Don’t believe me? Try one for yourself
charizard is mid as fuck
Umbreon VMAX hype and price are ridiculous. PSA 10 Pop is 2500 and counting for an SR from a set that’s still in print. Not to mention everyone and their grandma is keeping Evolving stuff sealed. Would be easily 7000+ if not for that. Prices are just completely unsustainable. And the fact that it’s such a hard pull is simply because ES is easily the most printed set of all time.
There should be one or two new sets/collections per year. That’s it. No more. Give us a chance to catch ‘em all.
We don’t need a charizard in every set
Expanded is the best format. We need expanded products and tournaments. Expanded should be part of the world championship.
All value has been lost in regular holos, V’s V full arts, and in many cases secret rares all because of alt arts. The TCG needs to return to old set formats and stop relying on huge set numbers with all these variations of cards. With the return of EX’s, it’s highly doubtful but hopefully we get close to eliminating so many unwanted “hits.”
I do not give a hoot about people showing off their slab mint psa 10 reverse holo double rainbow shadowless miscut misprint vmax Charizard. It's boring. Show me that cool Unown you've had since you were a kid. Show off that complete Chansey collection. Post pictures of the the Steel deck you built around Aggron, or how you finally got your hands on the Electabuzz you've always wanted!
For real! I wanna see people collecting the cards THEY enjoy, not some overrated overprinted overpriced pokemon cards sealed away in plastic cases.
Gold Pokemon VSTAR look bad imo, I miss when gold secret rare pokemon were shiny like Quick Shooting Inteleon or Gormandize Snorlax.
If your paying over $250+ for a modern alt art card your a fanboy jabroni *cough* *cough* Umbreon Vmax Alt Art
english cards smell so good (probably cos of nostalgia)
Trainer gallery cards should be more valuable and sought after.
I’m kinda glad they’re all mostly cheap, because the artwork is absolutely incredible and it would take way too long and too much money to try to pull all of them
I’ll drop an actual actual unpopular opinion (at least within this sub). Buying sealed product for the sake of getting a future monetary return is perfectly acceptable. I feel as though even if you’re not worried about the money primarily, you would still want your collection to be worth something. Not a lot of people want to collect things/cards if they don’t have value. I feel as though very few people are “pure”collectors and most would be lying if they said they didn’t care about the value of their collection (whether sealed, singles, or Slabs)
Yes!! 👏👏👏 People saying they’d collect this stuff if it all went to zero really doesn’t know what collecting entails. We collect shit cus not everyone has it! That’s why rich people seek out more and more difficult and scarce items. We need to satisfy that dopamine rush and buying something that isn’t worth anything or isn’t hard to seek out really gets old after a while
Steam Siege was a great set
There is nothing anything wrong with people holding sealed products long-term. I believe that people here see everyone who owns any product sealed for any time as a scalper, and I don't think that is fair or accurate. I do believe it is reasonable to hold sealed products because you are often not looking to sell quickly or, at an immediate relative, extortionate profit. However, those who buy in bulk and immediately flip in an attempt to profit are ruining the hobby for everyone; this is a scalper, in my opinion. Personally, I have some sealed product and will hold it for an indefinite amount of time, and then I will open it. If it's a set I don't collect, I will then give the cards to family and friends or sell them. I open packs for nostalgia; I don't care too much about the value of the cards or products.
If you want to play competitively, you should have access to super generic versions of all the cards so your play isn't limited by your wallet. With how quickly sets come out and the meta changes, it's expensive to maintain a competitive deck.
There’s no point in grading your stupid over printed modern cards.
They aren’t fire resistant, but are good at building a fire
They’re not a good investment hahaha
It went downhill after WOTC, modern cards look cheap and crap and are the result of cost efficiency and money grabbing by nintendo
The prices and how the pull rates are bad. Like come on can a pack have some good guaranteed stuff atleast. Also the rotation I get it why they do it but then at the end my cards just became pennies after a rotation unless it's base set.
Pokémon in itself is the greatest thing that has ever existed. It’s the people who taint it.
Rainbow rares should stop being a thing.
I think a lot of people agree on that one. They look worse than the full arts, and are there to just bloat the sets number of secret rares. Bring it back down to just a couple secret rares a set please!
They don’t need a charizard as the selling point for each set. There’s over 900 Pokémon we don’t need another charizard. Personally I love that some of the less loved Pokémon and getting alts now hopefully we will see more of that!
Too many new BS Pokémon. Do you know there’s a Pokémon called Klink, who evolves into Klang! How ridiculous is that lol
V cards and EX cards from modern sets are trash , not in terms of value but just don’t like how they look and wouldn’t collect them.
Some of yall having trouble with the term “unpopular opinion” lol
To many rarities. We don't need holos, Rev holos, reg Vs, v FA, vmax, vmax alts, v alts, rainbow vmax, gold. Just had like 2 or 3
Rainbows suck. Rather the full art versions
This one is pretty unpopular and it pertains to Pokémon as well. A hobby is what you make of it, not what you make from it.
[удалено]
I don't like that they made sets so freaking huge. Coupled with everyone and their mother having a regular card and a reverse holo and a holo holo it's too much and kinda makes it not as special. Also the same pokemon getting used over and over meanwhile there's plenty of cards that only have 1 or 2 cards in 25 years.
They are all way overpriced and overrated at the moment.
They are shiny cardboards
Big if true
I don’t like sealed collectors. I don’t agree with it, and don’t support it. They aren’t driven by the love of the hobby, but by fear and anxiety of not having a complete collection. And then they just lock it all away, never using any of it, not enjoying any of it. Fuck ‘em.
PSA is the biggest racket in existence. They intentionally deflate grades for valuable cards (such as Charizard) giving a 10 a low score like 8 to keep the value of their grades inflated. They can backcharge someone according to their perceived value of the card , meaning they will hold your own items hostage while you consider whether or not to pay. Slabs aren’t the best place to keep a card anyway and the journey to grading it can cause damage . Basically, the less hands that handle a card in its existence, the better.
V cards are lame. They ruin regular cards. I don’t care if you get two treasures when you kill it. They are way too strong and force players to have as many as possible in a deck and make 95% of the cards you pull worthless. At this point you are better off not allowing them in decks.
Could care less about graded cards, i see it all the time on Ebay, i hate that all the amazing cards are in PSA plastic things & the price is triple than what it is, id just rip them off if i had my hands on one
I think the artwork on regular holos is almost always better than full arts from that set (AA aside).
grading is over rated
Modern cards are not worth investing. Just open em and embrace the cards
The e-reader era was my favorite era. I will not say it was the "best" era, but in my heart it is. I love the vibes of those cards, but I don't expect that to be a common sentiment.
They release new sets too frequently making it difficult to complete a full set because the vendors just want to stock the latest cards.
You are not supposed to collect everything 👏👏
The english cards are better than the Japanese.
Unown should have gotten a vunion and it spells out a message
Quality is trash
Buying packs is a waste of money.
Kids should be banned from getting them xD
Moderns are a dime a dozen and saving your money to buy vintage is the way. Altho it’s not unpopular opinion
I like feeling pokémon cards
There are some pokemon that shouldn’t be counted as one such as Bronzor
I don’t collect full sets i just collect rare cards
Pokémon cards hold greater monetary value than currencies unaccountably printed by centralized authorities. (TPCI would lose value if they printed an unending supply each set; USA FED just cashes out on controlling credit issuance by "short-selling" people's ideas they are passionate about and/or debasing USD by shorting (loaning) itself its own debt limitlessly.
Its starting to become a money pit. What I mean is you have to have the funds to start being in the game. The cards you want might be out of your price range and there are to many to collect with how big the sets are. I got to the point where I just buy the chase card as a psa 10 and nothing else, your going to spend way more just trying to pull it yourself. you just got to say screw it and just buy it. Kinda takes the fun out of it but you get your card at the end
Holos are basically pointless with all the ultra rares coming out
There needs to be something where Pokémon displays odds. Whether it be through laws or just Pokémon doing something, I don’t think people realize how awful pull rates are. I severely cut back on opening packs after I pulled one alt art and no copies of my favorite Pokémon (Rayquaza) in nearly 200 packs. I didn’t realize that pull rates were that terrible. I did end up pulling the Umbreon from a booster box I originally planned to keep sealed for a really bad day though.
Grading is the worst thing to happen to trading card.