Discussion Why Does Pokemon do This to us!?

Reshiram's Mayhem

Reshiram's Mayhem

Aspiring Trainer
Member
It's starting to get on my nerves how all Pokemon is doing to make these new boxes is taking away valuable cards that we want from the set, and put them into an extra box! I was looking VERY much at getting BurS boxes just to get the gardes, Darkrai, and Charizards. But hey, guess what?
They restricted Charizard full art from the box
Garde's full art and hyper rare are virtually unpullable with differed pull rates it seems.
Thank god Darkrai is actually normal in this set.
They add full arts of previous promos to the set.

This is really getting on my nerves. Making you spend more money to get a card you love in a different rarity. Making you spend 20-40 more dollars trying to get a single card. Its really starting to ruin the market too for normal cards, and the promos. Before late XY, promos would barely be worth anything.
Now Decidueye FA is upwards of 15 dollars, the Mews are more expensive than the normal Mew from DE, Darkrai EX went down 5 dollars because of the tin, and it's getting worse and worse!
 
yeah if any card should have been pulled from the set and put in a separate box it should have been machamp gx and salazzle gx because their basics aren't in the set, which makes pulling them dead cards during prerelease/drafting unless the tournament is using the unofficial mutant rule.
 
The conventional model of trading card games is only fair if you get a serious buzz from gambling or trading. Remember, Pokémon card rarities are artificial in that the powers-that-be decide them. Assuming they had authorization, TPCi could release all cards as "Commons", and allow effective rarities to emerge from the actual supply and demand. Instead, it is predetermined that a more expensive manufacturing process will be used on select cards, and those cards (as well as some using the standard process) are going to be printed in different amounts than others. The main expense of the Pokémon TCG is probably in a department like Research & Development, where the rules and/or ideas for future physical gimmicks (like a new kind of holo-foil) are created (not sure if both happen within R&D). What makes trading cards so appealing to vendors, especially good ol' booster packs, is that they have a high markup and take very little space. Plus, if you can't move product quickly but can hold onto them long enough, they can see their value rebound.

For competitive players, booster packs have long been a dubious investment. Only the best expansions have enough valuable cards so that you are likely to get your money's worth. Honestly, the same might be true for traders. Those who love the gambling aspect (booster pack = lottery ticket), the surprise factor, or are excellent at trading are less vulnerable to this issue, but for me, it is part of why I went to PTCGO-only play.

I guess what I am saying is, I don't much understand your complaint. While moving cards from a set make the expansion less valuable, it makes getting those specific cards easier. Which might devalue the set and so make it less expensive to complete. As long as the powers-that-be aren't overcharging for these gift boxes and they are selling well (fiscal health of the game and all), it doesn't seem like too big of an issue. Are you upset because specific promotional cards are being ignored? That gets to the whole side issue of unique cards being too rare; promos really shouldn't be the only way to gain access to a particular card. For that matter, premium rarities would be better off if they also only were reserved for things like Full Arts, Rainbow Foils, alternate art pieces, etc.
 
Otaku said:
The conventional model of trading card games is only fair if you get a serious buzz from gambling or trading. Remember, Pokémon card rarities are artificial in that the powers-that-be decide them. Assuming they had authorization, TPCi could release all cards as "Commons", and allow effective rarities to emerge from the actual supply and demand. Instead, it is predetermined that a more expensive manufacturing process will be used on select cards, and those cards (as well as some using the standard process) are going to be printed in different amounts than others. The main expense of the Pokémon TCG is probably in a department like Research & Development, where the rules and/or ideas for future physical gimmicks (like a new kind of holo-foil) are created (not sure if both happen within R&D). What makes trading cards so appealing to vendors, especially good ol' booster packs, is that they have a high markup and take very little space. Plus, if you can't move product quickly but can hold onto them long enough, they can see their value rebound.

For competitive players, booster packs have long been a dubious investment. Only the best expansions have enough valuable cards so that you are likely to get your money's worth. Honestly, the same might be true for traders. Those who love the gambling aspect (booster pack = lottery ticket), the surprise factor, or are excellent at trading are less vulnerable to this issue, but for me, it is part of why I went to PTCGO-only play.

I guess what I am saying is, I don't much understand your complaint. While moving cards from a set make the expansion less valuable, it makes getting those specific cards easier. Which might devalue the set and so make it less expensive to complete. As long as the powers-that-be aren't overcharging for these gift boxes and they are selling well (fiscal health of the game and all), it doesn't seem like too big of an issue. Are you upset because specific promotional cards are being ignored? That gets to the whole side issue of unique cards being too rare; promos really shouldn't be the only way to gain access to a particular card. For that matter, premium rarities would be better off if they also only were reserved for things like Full Arts, Rainbow Foils, alternate art pieces, etc.
Click to expand...

I agree that this isn't really an issue.
  • If you're a competitive player, the rarity of the card is hardly important, and buying low-rarity singles will always be the best method.
  • If you're a collector... in reality, this probably saves you money.
Purchasing a collection for a card will, nine times out of ten, be more cost efficient than gambling on packs.​

As a competitive player myself, I gambled on Guardians Rising, buying packs to try and nab a Lele...
Two booster boxes later, I'm scouring eBay for the Lele I never got; essentially having thrown away $200+, when I could buy a playset of Lele for less.

While it's fun opening the packs, it's hardly ever worth it...
I see this as a win-win; especially since the secret rare is still in the set.
 
Ecourts said:
I agree that this isn't really an issue.
  • If you're a competitive player, the rarity of the card is hardly important, and buying low-rarity singles will always be the best method.
  • If you're a collector... in reality, this probably saves you money.
Purchasing a collection for a card will, nine times out of ten, be more cost efficient than gambling on packs.​

As a competitive player myself, I gambled on Guardians Rising, buying packs to try and nab a Lele...
Two booster boxes later, I'm scouring eBay for the Lele I never got; essentially having thrown away $200+, when I could buy a playset of Lele for less.

While it's fun opening the packs, it's hardly ever worth it...
I see this as a win-win; especially since the secret rare is still in the set.
Click to expand...

I have to ask you this though. Do you even consider the secret rare cards as a selling point of the set? I don't consider them as a selling point because I'm not likely to pull them and since I can't have the hyper rare Ho-Oh-GX from the set, the only other card I'd want (for collection purposes) is the full art Charizard-GX, which I also can't have.

The collection does save me money since it'll cost me 40 bucks to get the Charizard full art. The Ho-Oh-GX hyper rare, which I want three of is going to be a pain.
 
crystal_pidgeot said:
I have to ask you this though. Do you even consider the secret rare cards as a selling point of the set? I don't consider them as a selling point because I'm not likely to pull them and since I can't have the hyper rare Ho-Oh-GX from the set, the only other card I'd want (for collection purposes) is the full art Charizard-GX, which I also can't have.

The collection does save me money since it'll cost me 40 bucks to get the Charizard full art. The Ho-Oh-GX hyper rare, which I want three of is going to be a pain.
Click to expand...

They're a selling point for some people, yeah.
It's for the ones who want to pull the "cool shiny rare."

and, in my opinion, those are primarily the people still buying packs.
 
crystal_pidgeot said:
Do you even consider the secret rare cards as a selling point of the set?
Click to expand...

Yes; while the odds are against you, the chance of pulling any of the higher rarities, which is usually enough for the pack to "break even", is quite appealing. My main issue is when they have cards available in those premium rarities that are not available anywhere else. Yeah, yeah, I brought up making all cards Commons, but we know that ain't happening. Plus, I do enjoy the Reverse Holos (a wonderful idea). The new, insane rarities are fine when they aren't really affecting competitive play.
 
Reshiram's Mayhem said:
It's starting to get on my nerves how all Pokemon is doing to make these new boxes is taking away valuable cards that we want from the set, and put them into an extra box! I was looking VERY much at getting BurS boxes just to get the gardes, Darkrai, and Charizards. But hey, guess what?
They restricted Charizard full art from the box
Garde's full art and hyper rare are virtually unpullable with differed pull rates it seems.
Thank god Darkrai is actually normal in this set.
They add full arts of previous promos to the set.

This is really getting on my nerves. Making you spend more money to get a card you love in a different rarity. Making you spend 20-40 more dollars trying to get a single card. Its really starting to ruin the market too for normal cards, and the promos. Before late XY, promos would barely be worth anything.
Now Decidueye FA is upwards of 15 dollars, the Mews are more expensive than the normal Mew from DE, Darkrai EX went down 5 dollars because of the tin, and it's getting worse and worse!
Click to expand...

So I can buy something that guarantees a full art Charizard, buy it as a single that will be least fifty dollars and possibly more, or randomly buy packs for it and never get it? Gee, which option would I prefer. Don't even get me started on hyper rares, those things are the one of the biggest if not the biggest cash grabs in Pokémon history as far as I'm concerned. I personally dislike them. Who cares if they had previous promos as full arts?

Let's remember one thing here. No one makes us spend money to get cards we want. If I want to spend hundreds of dollars for full arts but not hyper rares then that is my choice. Those who want to spend the money for full arts and hyper rares do so of their own choice. We choose to do this, end of that argument. That last statement almost seems contradictory, saying promos are worth nothing except for when they don't seem to go down like those Decidueye GX FA or the Mew EX, it's not necessarily wrong there but it just seems lie a weird sentence.

Rooie said:
And here I thought you got boosters in those boxes too.
Click to expand...

True although often enough they don't give anything good, at least in my experience lol.
 
Pokemon doesn't need to break sets to make the money though so they could have made shiny versions of the card as promos, though in Ho-Oh's case, its shiny color is pretty much that of the hyper rare card. They didn't remove Tapu Koko from the set for the sake of the two promo GX cards it has. I don't want to see this continue as a trend. Its not like Sun and Moon packs don't print money.
 
Most of the promos, if you price out what's in the box with them, are valued at $5-10 which is about what the cards would cost on the singles market if they were pulls from the set if you look at the cost of comparable GX cards. So basically it's TCPI trying to take a chunk out of the single sales market that they otherwise don't see profits from.

They include packs in the box, otherwise they'd hurt demand for packs. But if you can only get the card by committing to buying 4-6 packs the 'value' of a pack isn't really reduced.
 
Is it true that Gardevoir GX has lower pull rates than other GX, or is it just a rumor.
 
Dalton said:
Is it true that Gardevoir GX has lower pull rates than other GX, or is it just a rumor.
Click to expand...
Personally, I do believe that this rumor is true. Derium's Pokemon opened 1000 BUR booster packs and pulled every single GX except for 6: RR Golisopod, RR Tapu Fini, RR Ho-oh, RR Tapu Bulu, FA Gardevoir, and RR Gardevoir. They pulled duplicates of almost every Ultra Rare, but somehow only ended up with 10 regular Gardevoir. How does this happen? Well, maybe TPCi just likes to keep a hold of their Gardys.
 
They do this to us because they want to make more Money. Simple, isn´t it?
The Pokemon TCG is still one of cheapest if you compare it to Yugioh or something like that. You can still buy all Cards at a fair price.
 
Anthony Orosco said:
Personally, I do believe that this rumor is true. Derium's Pokemon opened 1000 BUR booster packs and pulled every single GX except for 6: RR Golisopod, RR Tapu Fini, RR Ho-oh, RR Tapu Bulu, FA Gardevoir, and RR Gardevoir. They pulled duplicates of almost every Ultra Rare, but somehow only ended up with 10 regular Gardevoir. How does this happen? Well, maybe TPCi just likes to keep a hold of their Gardys.
Click to expand...

RR Ho-Oh-GX isn't in the set. I too have heard that the Gardevoir pull rates were questionable but the only way to know for sure it to buy 6 or so booster cases since they represent actual print runs.
 
crystal_pidgeot said:
RR Ho-Oh-GX isn't in the set. I too have heard that the Gardevoir pull rates were questionable but the only way to know for sure it to buy 6 or so booster cases since they represent actual print runs.
Click to expand...
A full print run, from what you said, would be 1296 packs. I'm still skeptical because while there are 296 packs left to have observed an entire run, there's only 8.2 boxes left which is very slim since a RR isn't even assured in a box and there are plenty of duplicates to pull.
 
Anthony Orosco said:
A full print run, from what you said, would be 1296 packs. I'm still skeptical because while there are 296 packs left to have observed an entire run, there's only 8.2 boxes left which is very slim since a RR isn't even assured in a box and there are plenty of duplicates to pull.
Click to expand...

I assumed a case was a print run but I assume you're right in assuming anything would change in about eight booster boxes.
 
Personally I have found that Pokemon tcg always works in dubious was. The one biggest advantage that is still there however is how you can collect Pokemon quite easily online and unlike Heartstone or Magic the Gathering there arn't many additional costs involved in order to actually do this. To me this is a great reason to still buy packs and promotional cards.

Other than that TPCi just promotes what it wants to. I don't think the marketing team is as much of aware of what is extremely good or bad for the competitive setting and frankly speaking they don't have to be either. In many cases it's the popularity of some Pokemon that will cause X or Y to show up as a Promo. The same examples of Pokemon continueing to appear in sets has the same reason to me. Some Pokemon are just more popular as others. Both Pokemon Go and Pokken also play a role in this and offcourse as we know the TCG follows the trend that is set by the theme of the Nintendo game setting.

All in all I wouldnt worry because ultimately we have no say in these things. I personally wish that TPCi will continue making competitive viable cards, while others who collect have no worry about that whatsoever and just want great art and card design.
To me every Rare and up in a set should have a competitive function however this is a vision Ive had for years and isn't really followed by any cardgame in particular, not even MtG, YuGiOh or Heartstone to name a few of the biggest right now.
 
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