Discussion Most Dissapointing TCG Set

PineDog

PineDog

Random TCG Trainer
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Which set disappointed you the most? Either a Pokemon you expected to be in a set that wasn't, underwhelming Pokemon, or just plain blah.

Personally mine is not even released yet! XY: Evolutions! I absolutely despise this set already. First of all, wherefore art thou Venusaur and Blastoise? Literally let's remove some Pokemon from the set that don't have an evolution that were released in Gen 1 (not all of these are confirmed, but they're very likely,) Caterpie, Metapod, Ponyta, Gastly, Haunter, Drowzee, Sandshrew, and Doduo. Boom! You coud add the Venusuar and Blastoise plus two more spaces for whatever they want. Second, 90% of the cards suck, or are replaced. Only a few cards actually seem playable (Charizard-EX, Starmie, M Pidgeot-EX, and Dragonite-EX.) Ouch. Plus six Charizard cards and a new CD Promo, fabulous! I'm maybe going to grab maybe a Booster Box for Christmas, but it's also possible I'll just grab a BREAKthrough Booster Box. The only thing from this set that's great is the collectible, but it seems like the TCPi just trying to grab some cash and not giving a dang about the competitive scene, ignoring things without counters like Garbodor. I just despise this set, the final set of XY is about Gen 1. Would have much rather preferred XY: Legendary Treasures.
 
Too many for me to pick from.

I know it makes me sound bad, but I'm mostly still here because... well... Pokémon has been a part of my life so long I'm attached in that manner. I've been disappointed from both ends of game design for so long it isn't funny. Instead of pacing the game so that Evolving manually was competitive but so was running a non-Evolving Basic, by now I think the powers-that-be have accepted that they gotta go fast and keep using shiny new gimmicks to attract new players.
 
I was really disappointed by the HeartGold and SoulSilver sets. Especially Call of Legends at the tail end. (Technically not a HG/SS set but still disappointing.)

The pull rates were terrible, I always got the same exact cards and some of the artwork was pretty ugly.
 
Oh, thank you @SkyeVictini because you reminded me of my real most disappointing set. I mean, adjusting for everything else and factor in it happening before I'd figured most of this out:

Base Set 2!

The Pokémon TCG had his epic fad levels and it seemed like everyone and their brother were "collecting" (or at least faking it). This meant the original Base Set and even the Jungle expansion were in high demand and short supply. WotC capitalized upon this by releasing a reprint set called Base Set 2. This was released between Fossil and Team Rocket; I know some people (if not now, back then) actually just ignored it and referred to Team Rocket as the fourth English expansion, but in reality it was Base Set 2.

Now if you're wondering why it was so disappointing, it did almost everything wrong which it could for a set of reprints.
  • Literally a set of reprints; no alternate art, no new cards.
  • Timing; if this had hit sooner it might have actually worked, but the fad was dying down and serious players already had most of the good cards from the set.
  • Card selection; they didn't just re-release everything but only some of the first two sets. It wasn't even an "all in one" set since it didn't include Fossil.
    • Fan favorites like the Eeveelutions were left out; they weren't hard to get but...
    • ...a lot of bad cards were included, stuff that WotC knew wasn't competitive, and if they were higher rarity cards, they stayed higher rarity cards. It was bad enough pulling Clefairy Doll as your Rare card in Base Set, but at least that one had some collector value at the time.
Now if it sounds like I am expecting too much, understand we essentially got a "Base Set 3" but by a different name: the Legendary Collection. It pretty much lived up to its name by:
  • Including cards from the first four sets plus (a promo) two years later...
  • ...which made them legal for current Modified (Standard) format...
  • ...and WotC were very careful about what cards went into the set...
  • ...not just skipping duds, but avoiding the stuff that was too good.
  • Rarities were adjusted as well, partially to reflect the card's current strengths...
  • ...but mostly to make this set awesome for Limited play...
  • ...which also applied to pack contents (more likely to get full Evolution line).
  • Reverse Holos were also introduced in this set.
 
For me, XY Roaring Skies was. I expected the set to have EX bird Pokemon in it and there weren't any. All we got was another dragon support set. I was expecting something and never got it, considering all the other sets were based on certain types of Pokemon. We also got no colorless support cards in the set. I always felt Pidgeot EX should have been dropped in that set and Talonflame EX should have been in Hydragon EX's slot. Staraptor EX should have been there as well.

If just felt like the set did nothing right.
 
1. Base Set 2: for the obvious reasons
2. Skyridge: I hate the e-card series because of the ugly designs and it was the period where WOTC got inspande trying to make big money out of the last sets they were allowed to produce.
3. BW1-BW3: all three sets have almost duplicates of all Pokemon. It feel like a lack of inspiration.
 
Breakpoint. I HATE Breakpoint. I love the cards, I love the art, but the cards I got SUCKED. The one time I got an ultra rare was a Luxray BREAK which I ordered from Amazon two months earlier. *seethes with anger*

Update: Ancient Origins added to the list. Same reason, except no ultra rares at all.
Update #2: I also got a double Zoroark BREAK in a Breakthrough pack.
 
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For me. It's gotta be a mixture of sets from the E Card series and the early XY sets. I hated the E Card series simply because the cards were flat out ugly as hell. You can't get me to buy those cards if you tried. The XY sets, basically XY Base Set to Furious Fists were all horrible in my honest opinion. Simply because the card art just seemed blah, and how poorly made overall they were. Though there were a few cards I liked from these sets. The full art trainers in Flashfire looked incredible. But yeah, the E Card series and the portion of XY that's been rotated out are both bad.
 
EX: Ruby & Sapphire for me. It just felt so... Generic to me. (The pre-Delta Species EX sets in general, really.) No cards particularly stood out, there wasn't a ton of variety in the art styles, etc. It just wasn't a really exciting set to me. It also did a poor job of introducing its era's new mechanic, Pokemon-ex. None of them were at all playable, or very interesting. (I guess the fact they were based on previous top-tier cards was kind of interesting, but they were still not good cards in their own right, which hurt them.)

Either way, Pokemon's been doing much better with sets lately. I think Furious Fists was the last time I felt underwhelmed with a set.
 
The set that I would have to say disappointed me the most was Double Crisis. Even though we got the stadiums, and Team Magma's Camerupt, all the other cards in the set were awful. The tools were only allowed to be attached to Team Aqua/Magma Pokémon only, and the supporters didn't really do much. The EXs from the set are pretty much unplayable, considering you needed 5 Team Aqua/Magma Pokémon in play to even attack. And the double energies having to be discarded immediately after your turn ends, not to mention it only can only be attached to either team's Pokémon or be discarded.
 
Generations is pretty bad. Small set. Mostly reprints, a lot of which didn't even receive new artwork. The name doesn't even make a lot of sense because everything in the main set except for the EX cards is from Generation 1. And what exactly were they thinking slapping the Jungle Tauros artwork on the XY Tauros card? Everything about the set seemed pretty half-hearted and lazy.

In hindsight I really hated the Team Plasma block too. Thankfully, 2013 rewarded us with Legendary Treasures after three sets of ugly CGI and blue borders.

At the time I really hated Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge. In 2000 they felt like total filler because all of the Gen 1 Pokemon had been released in card form already, and most of the artwork was Sugimori stock images pasted against generic backgrounds. They've grown on me a little bit more as an adult, but as a kid they were my first real disappointing sets.
 
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Frost said:
At the time I really hated Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge. In 2000 they felt like total filler because all of the Gen 1 Pokemon had been released in card form already, and most of the artwork was Sugimori stock images pasted against generic backgrounds. They've grown on me a little bit more as an adult, but as a kid they were my first real disappointing sets.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. At the time I also didn't like the idea of the pokemon on the cards belonging to someone else (the Gymleaders). Now, because I haven't seen much of it 16 years ago, I actually really like them because I don't know them that well, and they remind me of the good old days.

Worst set in my opinion would have to be Emerging Powers.. Just don't find anything in that set worth collecting.
 
Well, I would actually have to say BOTH of the 20th anniversary sets, Generations and Evolutions (which is slightly better).

The fact that Imakuni? was in there kind of drove me away. I mean, I bought Pokémon cards for Pokémon related stuff, not some Japanese singer dude dressed up in a black onesie a that has no relation to the English audience, other than the inclusion of it in the TCG video game. Releasing it as a promo would have made me feel better.

Also, for a reprint set, Legendary Treasures and Call of Legends were good. Why? mainly because of the alternate artwork on each of the reprints, and some cool new cards alongside the old (Radiant Collection and Shiny Legendaries). Some rare cards even got demoted to uncommon, making them easier to collect.

In Generations, most of the artwork was exactly the same, and common and uncommon cards actually got PROMOTED to rares. If the artwork on those cards had've been different, I wouldn't have minded, but...hey, they didn't. Overall, the set just felt, I don't know...lazy.

Evolutions? Well, it's basically just the same lineup of Pokémon that were in Generations, with older images and effects. I think the EX's look good, but the artwork is exactly the same as in XY and Flashfire. Sheer laziness.

Blastoise and Venusaur aren't in the set. Why do cards like Mewtwo-EX and Slowbro-EX only heal for 60 damage? Why are there so many incomplete evolution lines? All these and more rack my brain every time I think about it.

The 'evolution' part just isn't there for me. More like 'De-evoutions.' Misty FA is all that can save me now...

It seriously would have been better to include a mix of reprints from over the years, across all 6 generations of the TCG...

Sorry if it sounds like I really hate the set, I'll get over it...in due time.
 
I really don't like Furious Fists. It's just so...bland. The whole set mixes together into a bunch of bad CGI. Dragonite Ex and Lucario Ex are the only cards that really stand out to me. Even the secret rares were boring in the first few XY sets, they were just the Megas with gold text.
 
Hmm... some good points.

Thanks to everyone who is being specific, and actually do me a favor and be a little more with some of the points. ;) Yes, this is me asking because - as is the best example - not everyone worries about card art as much. Least important part for me, though it still matters. So a set with useful or at least interesting cards, gives them well selected rarities, but has bad art isn't going to disappoint me much, but I completely understand it disappointing someone else. Just... spell it out for me so I don't sit there for a moment like "Wait, that set had..." before I realize you were talking art.

I mean, I agree with most of these posts; s'why I can seem so pessimistic about the game. Obviously I can't have all of these be "the most disappointing", but few of these are "Well, that doesn't bother me."

I loved the e-card sets, and to some degree I still do but at the same time they were pretty disappointing. No one is ruining something I love by pointing out the art wasn't that good because... well on a lot of them the art wasn't that good. Sometimes I think it was something like a filter being applied to the image, because I liked the picture except it somehow looked "wrong". The cards were very mixed, probably because there were still growing pains happening: Supporters were just introduced but not yet refined, we still had stuff that was (for the card pool) way to strong like Focus Band and Cleffa (Neo Genesis) not because they were in the e-card sets, but because they were still Modified legal when these sets first released.

The dot code/e-reader is great... sort of. I enjoyed mine quite a bit but the execution was wanting. Having to buy not only an extra device, but then in order for it to directly affect existing games, you had have a second unit and link cable. @_@ Imagine if on less crowded cards we had a QR Code for the camera on the 3DS or WiiU tablet to scan. I mean we already have a card with a code for various devices to read so that you don't have to manually enter a redemption code for the PTCGO. ;) I think with Aquapolis and Skyridge both (for sure the latter), the rarity scheme for packs hit a sweet spot. I don't remember the exact card count, but basically your normal rare wouldn't be replaced by a Holo-Rare (or higher rarity) card; that just replaced a Common! So you could get up to three cards that were Rare+: normal Rare, Holo-Rare, Reverse Holo!
 
For me, Generations was an extremely disappointing set because the only card I needed out of that set, and since purchased off eBay, was Slowpoke.
 
I think Breakthrough.

For one the name is terrible.

Then you have the fact they replaced all of the non mega exs with breaks.

Also Glalie was chosen as an ex.

About the only thing it has going for it is the fact you can still get a full art in the same pack as a break. The only set to allow this.
 
I'm going to go with Evolutions. For as much as TPC was hyping it up as the "20th anniversary of everything Pokémon" they spent an annoying amount of time focussing on gen 1. Yeah, I get that that's the actual gen turning 20, but do you think they'll even mention it when another generation turns 20? If they do, I'll be shocked. I don't like gen 1 all that much. The games are fun, but most of the Pokémon are bland or unmemorable, or I actually dislike some of them (Like Charizard, Tauros, and Magmar), so I would be skeptical of an entire set full of them. Then the set reveals itself and not only is a majority of the set borderline unplayable, there is no Venusaur or Blastoise line, there's a ton of incomplete evolution lines, and there's 7 Charizard cards. Oh, how I hate Charizard...
 
@thegrovylekid But... but... the Snorlax!

*whisperwhisper*

Wait, no Snorlax or Snorlax-EX in XY: Evolutions? Okay yer right, that is very disappointing. ;)

(Seriously though, I wrote a sort-of-set review elsewhere basically to put out the hype before it really flared up).
 
This is tough because some sets were disappointing when the cards were spoiled, but actually playing with the cards changed my mind. While others had promising spoilers, but weren't as fun in actual gameplay. The latter was the problem with Primal Clash and Breakthrough. Both had a lot of interesting cards that were hard to make decks out of (because stage 2).
 
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