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Taste The Nostalgia
The year is 1999: England is bracing itself for the new millennia and following a year of earthquakes, massacres, resignations (that Putin? He’ll never last…) and eclipses, things are feeling a bit… Nostradamus. Not only that, but the kids are getting lairie over this new card game and a dragon that’s not a dragon called… Charlie’s Lizard? Ah well, it’s just a fad, they’ll be fighting over something else soon… Probably some kind of Sea Monkey that isn’t even a monkey…
The year is 2023: England is bracing itself against the continuing events of the new millennia and following a year of earthquakes. Massacres, non-resignations (that Putin? That aged well…) and eclipses, things are feeling a bit… familiar? But guess what? Remember that faddy card game with the dragons-not-dragons and lightning rats? Those kids are still getting lairie about it, only the kids are a bit older now…
Are You A God (Pack)?
Scarlet and Violet 151 comes hot on the heels of Obsidian Flames (see previous thing about that) with a huge dose of the spirit of ’99 for all trad-trainers out there – you asked for it, you got it.
The full set contains more than the 151 though, with 165 standard cards and 42 secret cards (there are three extra secret cards, but the Snorlax art rare has been reserved for the Elite Trainer Box (ETB) and the Mew ex and Mewtoo secret art rares have been reserved for the Premium Box collection, much to the chagrin of some…) making a substantial 210 cards – not quite up to Obsidian Flames’ 230 cards but more than twice the size of last year’s holiday set, Pokemon Go. Unlike Obsidian Flames though, this is pretty much a card-for-card copy of Japan’s Pokemon 151 set, released in June this year. Which means all the cards seen in that set will be seen in this set… and there is even talk of god-packs. Well, demi-god-packs.
In case you were not familiar with the term ‘god-pack’, this is an incredibly rare booster pack found in the Japanese set that contains the whole art and secret art rare evolution lines of two of the original starters. And those cards are beee-oooo-tiful. The English set, apparently, has a demi-god pack that contains one whole art and secret art rare evolution line of the original starters. But don’t hold your breath on seeing those – Pokemon 151 is not giving up its treasures easily.
I Choose… Mew?
Pokemon 151 has been called ‘a collector’s set’, which is a polite way of saying ‘this set doesn’t contain the most playable of cards’, but if the meta is all you are here for… then all the best with your lost box/Charizard deck. As for me? Well, I am all about the meme AND the jank, so BRING IT ON.
There is, however, one card that is (possibly) destined to become a staple (probably). This is the Mew ex. I know – just as we get rid of one busted Mew, we get another.
To be fair, it’s not as broken as Mew VMAX and its grubby entourage of Genesects and Meloettas. It does have the usual zero retreat cost and a pitiful 180 HP, but it also has a really nice ability: once during your turn you can draw until you have three cards in your hand. This has elements of the Oranguru that did this, but it also comes with a dumb, potentially powerful attack: for three energy, copy one of your opponent’s active Pokemon’s attacks. In a game that is slowly becoming dominated by Dark Charizard, this is likely to become a late-game Chari-hunter. Both Charizards.
Yes! Two Charizards! You wait for one and two come along at once. Each of the original starter’s Stage 2 evolution gets its own ex, and each is… kinda flawed, but has potential.
Starting with the hotness, Charizard ex has a mighty 330 HP and two attacks. For one fire energy, it does 60 damage, but if it has any damage counters on it, this rises to 160 damage. Then for a hefty four fire energy, it will dish out 330 damage, though you will have to discard three of those energy. This may work quite well with Dark Charizard (DC) that can charge it up, but also the Pokemon Go Charizard that makes each fire energy double up and the Magma Basin stadium that attaches fire energy to a benched fire Pokemon for two damage counters. True, it’s expensive and overpowered, but that’s Charizard to a tee.
Another chonker at 330 HP is Blastoise ex. It has an ability where it takes 30 less damage from attacks (the shell, peeps) but also has a two-water energy attack that allows you to discard up to two water energy from your hand and do 140 damage to your opponent’s active Pokemon for each energy discarded this way. It could be good, but does depend on having water in your hand and isn’t quite enough to take down DC.
Finally comes Venusaur ex, which is probably the weakest, but has the highest HP yet with 340 HP. MASSIVE. The attack, for two grass and a colourless, does 150 damage but leaves your opponent’s active Poisoned and Confused. As it is a grass type, this has the potential to one-hit a DC if you have Radiant Sneasler in play. It can also take a hit from a DC with one prize card remaining (surviving 330 damage is no mean feat) and has an ability that allows you to heal 60 from one of your Pokemon if you are in the active slot. Did I say weakest? I might have to reconsider…
The other exs are a mixed bunch, but there are certainly some with appeal. Zapdos ex has a low 200 HP but has an ability that gives it free retreat if it has any electric energy attached. It also has an attack for three electric energy that does 120 damage to the active and 90 damage to one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon that already has any damage on them. Interesting, but a bit nerfed. Wigglytuff ex has an ability that ups its meagre 250 HP to 350 HP if it has any special energy attached, but its attack for three colourless only does 180 if you play a supporter card. Bulky, but awkward. Like me. Kangaskhan ex has a potentially great attack, with its draw three cards for one energy and a three-energy attack that does 100 for every heads on a four-coin flip. A possible 400 is tempting, but very risky. Golem ex is another big 330 Stage 2 Pokemon that for one energy has an attack that does 50 damage and adds 120 damage to the next attack, then a second attack that does an unresisted 180. Interesting. Jynx, Arbok and Ninetales also get exs – Jynx KOs if the active is asleep, Arbok can discard cards from your opponent’s hand and Ninetales will hit 220 for two energy if you have the same number of cards as your opponent. Better pack a judge or four. But the real Interesting Stage 2 ex is spoon-botherer Alakazam because, in a first for the TCG, this Pokemon ATTACKS FROM THE BENCH. Yes, for two psychic energy Alakazam does 120 to the active from the bench. With those blocker Pokemon like Spiritomb, Mimikyu and Miltank, this could be very interesting.
All the ex’s get their own Full Art, and the deliberate colour clash of back and foreground for most of them really makes them stand out - the Ninetales ex Full Art looks like it has been carved out of butter though. Only five exs get the Special Art Rare treatment – the three starter stage 2s, Zapdos and Alakazam. Of the three starters, Mitsuhiro Arita’s Blastoise is undoubtedly the best – Blastoise floating in the abyss; truly awesome. Ironically, you know that the Charizard will be the most collectable because Charizard. Each evolution line also gets Art Rares – I think the Charmander looks best here. The Zapdos, with Moltres and Articuno as wing… birds, is a lovely looking card from Shiburingaru, very dynamic, and Alakazam gets the special treatment and Shinya Komatsu, who gave us the Machamp V Gallery Rare in Astral Radiance (also Wailord in Silver Tempest… and you know how I feel about Wailord), gives moustachioed spoon-charmer a homely Professor Layton feel.
But I mentioned jank, and I would not be a good man if I didn’t produce. Let’s jank it up!
Hail To The Nidoking!
When you go back to the original 151, it is surprising how many Pokemon started out with limited evolutions or no evolutions at all… there was no Kingdra (boo), so the Horsea line stopped at Seadra, no Magnezone and certainly no Sir Fetch’d (I mean, we only just got that in Sword and Shield anyway). Also, Onix had no Steelix – imagine! So I can’t get grumpy about the incomplete evolution lines because... they just didn’t exist then.
Sadly, a lot of these incomplete lines don’t get the buffs they deserve – in fact, a lot of them are hot garbage (Porygon gets an attack that changes your opponent’s active Pokemon’s weakness – that’s not get-around-able at all, is it?). One of the few that really get any love at all is Onix, which gets a two-energy attack that discards the top five cards and does 80 damage for every four-energy-retreat Pokemon discarded this way. Specific as all heck, but if it works…
Apart from this and Ditto, which can transform into any other Basic Pokemon if it is in the Active on your first turn, Basics are totally basic, but the Stage One Pokemon fair a little better. Both Arcanine and Kingler get devastating yet expensive attacks – Kingler does 220 for four water energy, Arcanine does 240 for two fire, two anything, discarding two fire energy. It also has a four-energy-retreat cost, and yes, I did copy and paste that. Gyarados also gets a four-energy retreat card and has a four-energy attack that does 200 and discards an energy from your opponent’s Active Pokemon, but chomps through the top five cards of your deck when it evolves. Yikes. Better by far is the Raichu, which does 180 for two lightning and a colourless, but does 50 to itself. It also has an ability that helps to charge it up as you can attach an electric energy from the Active Pokemon when it gets knocked out – handy. Aerodactyl also gets a very interesting attack; for two colourless, put the top evolution from your opponent’s Active Pokemon in their hand and do 100 damage. This could potentially upset a lot of Charizard and Gardevoir decks, but it will reduce your prize haul to one card rather than two. Still, upsetting Charizard decks is never a bad thing. Raticate gets a two energy 30 plus 30 for every damage counter, which is potentially devastating. Venomoth has an attack that can lock up your opponent’s items for one grass energy. There is also a new Seaking that makes me very happy indeed, because it has Swim Freely, an attack that allows Finneon form Lost Origin to charge it up and an attack that does 60 plus 30 damage for every water attached to it. This could be a lot of fun. The Stage One that has the most potential though is, surprisingly, Dodrio. It only has 100 HP, but has an ability that allows it to draw one card if it takes 10 damage. It then has an attack for one energy that does 10 plus 30 for every damage counter on this Pokemon. Not only is this a solid draw card and a potential rogue attacker, but will help to power up either Tera Tyrranitar or Hisuian Zoroark. C-C-C-COMBO!
Finally, the big boys. And girls. The original 151 had good few Stage 2s and they can be awkward but sometimes they are worth the trouble. Not always though, and though Poliwrath, Victreebel, Butterfree and Beedrill have interesting attacks, they are too specific to be effective. Prove me wrong. Dragonite has an ability that gives everything free retreat – could be good for Palafin decks - - and Gengar HAS free retreat and Poltergeist (do 50 damage for each Trainer in your opponent’s hand), but is still not the optimum Gengar. The Machamp is potentially interesting, doing 100 damage for two fighting energy and milling two cards from your opponent’s deck. It also has an ability that can turn any KO into ’10 left’ on a coin flip. Get trolled, y’all!
But the jankiest pairing of all, the Scott and Charlene of Pokemon, Nidoking and Nidoqueen, offer me a chance to make the kind of deck I haven’t been able to make since Caturday – a zero energy deck!
Nidoqueen in itself has nothing to recommend it as a frontline Pokemon – its attacks are very meh. Nidoking however has an attack that does 190 damage plus poison for two dark and two anything. Pretty pricey – until you see that if Nidoqueen is on the bench you get it FOR FREEEEEEE! I know, two stage twos: totally awkward. Easy to boss to oblivion, but there is an answer to that. If it works though? I mean, how funny would it be to annihilate Mew VMAX and Gardevoir ex decks with this new King of Jank? TOTALLY.
If You Can’t Be Good Player, Be A Good Supporter…
As I said, it’s not all about the Pokemon, we have 11 Trainer cards too. Not a huge amount, but compared to the pitiful 12 found in the Main Set Obisidian Flames and the 7 found in the Pokemon Go Holiday Set, it’s pretty generous. From the Supporters, Giovanni’s Charisma allows you take an energy from your opponent’s Pokemon and put it in their hand whilst allowing you to attach an energy in your hand and attach it to your Pokemon – disruptive! Erika’s Invitation forces your opponent to play a basic from their hand to the bench (if there is space) then move that Pokemon into the Active – selectively disruptive! The other two are less aggressive, with Bill’s Transfer allowing you to search the top eight cards of your deck and retrieve any Pokemon you find there, and Daisy’s Help allowing you to draw two cards and look at your prize cards, both of which could be handy in the right deck.
There are two items (I am not counting the Fossils as, though they do have their own abilities, they are just the awkward things you evolve prehistoric Pokemon from), one which could be useful, one which is just annoying: Energy Sticker allows you to attach a basic energy from your discard pile on coin flip; Grabber allows you to look at your opponent’s hand and put a Pokemon you find there at the bottom of their deck. Great for putting those DCs out of reach and nice to see if their hand is worth Judging/Ionoing. Nice cards you got there… would be a shame of anything happened to them…
There is only one stadium, Cycling Road, which allows each player to discard a basic energy and draw a card. Good for Gardevoir ex decks, for sure, and not bad for dark energy decks, but there are better stadiums out there. But the nostalgia, peeps, the nostalgia!
There are four tools though, all pretty conditional. Rigid Band reduces damage to Stage One Pokemon by 30 – a more and less selective Pot Helmet. Protective Goggles removes the weakness of Basic Pokemon – I am so glad this only works for Basic Pokemon. Leftovers heal the active for 20. Finally, Big Air Balloon makes Stage 2 Pokemon retreat for free – see the Nidoqueen/Nidoking combo. I mean, if you’ve got no energy in your deck, you’ve got plenty of room for tools, yeah?
So that is the 151… 165. Though there is nothing new like Terastalised Pokemon and a lot of the cards are playing the nostalgia… card, it is not a completely terrible set. Once the fuss has died down, there are a lot of interesting cards to consider in here. It all depends on how the packs and pulls work out. Best open some packs.
Just The Packs, Ma’am, Just The Packs…
As this is a Holiday Set, there is no Booster Box option, and usually the best way to obtain the most packs for your hard-earned cash is the ETB. In the past, these were also the products that came with Promo cards as well, only now every ETB that is released comes with its own Promo card. There is, however, another option now. For the first time ever, Pokemon are making Booster Bundles available for a Holiday Set. This is a big deal, as Booster Bundles contain six booster packs and that’s it. They also sell for around £25, which means just over £4 a booster pack – about the same price a single booster pack from a Main Set such as Obsidian Flames. The ETB sells for around £42, but as with other ETBs it includes sleeves, dice and an exclusive Promo card, in this case the Snorlax – napping on the job again. This product also has nine booster packs in it, so that works out at about £4.60 a pack, if you ignore all the other bits and pieces – the dice are nothing special, red on white with a transparent flipping dice, but the sleeves feature the 151 Pokemon design and are very pleasant to look at. That Snorlax is nice as well, so I wouldn’t ignore all the bits and pieces. It all comes down to the packs, though, so let’s have a look at that.
Taking the six packs from the Booster Bundle first, it becomes clear fairly quickly that this will be a hard set to pull the sweetness on. Out of the six packs, I only manage to get one ex – the Arbok ex, which I kinda like for its hand disruption, but a Blastoise Special Art Rare it is not. I also manage to pull two of the Cosmic Holo energies – the Japanese set had the Great Ball reverse holo pattern on one card per Booster Box, but we are getting the still-nice-but-not-Great-Ball Cosmic Holo pattern energy in greater frequency. It’s a pay-off, and they do bling up a deck and those swirls are a lovely holler-back to the holo patterns of old.
Six packs down, so it’s on to the ETB. Considering that the Booster Bundle only gave up one standard ex, I am hoping for maybe two hits, but pessimistically expecting one. As it turns out, the first pull I get is the Zapdos full art – I really wanted to pull the Zapdos for my ‘leccy decky’, so to get the full art is very nice indeed – the yellow-on-blue design is really stunning, and though the Special Art Rare does feature all three legendary birds, this is such a striking card. Another couple of packs in and I hit the Nidoking Art Rare – I didn’t even know this was in the set, but there are 16 Art Rares in this set, so it is not surprising – which is a lovely looking card from relatively new designer Misaki Hashimoto and very much appeals to my desire to make stupid decks. My final pull is a Venusaur ex, plain and simple, but very much welcome for my Torterra Anti-Charizard deck. Plus a couple of Cosmics. I am, suffice to say, very pleased with my haul, and there I was wondering if I would open the ETB at all.
Box Or Bundle?
I think it is probably clear from the last bit that, yes, it is definitely the ETB. Sure, it is not the cheaper option and you end up with a load of gubbins (not Grubbins) that you may already have plenty of, but from a player’s/collector’s point of view, the pulls here just feel more generous. Bear in mind that I have only opened one ETB. On the other hand, I have opened two of the Booster Bundles and have only managed to pull an Arbok ex in each of them. Make of that what you will.
This said, I do have a friend who opened one Booster Bundle and ended up pulling the Erika’s Invitation Special Art Rare and Bill’s Transfer full art in one pack and the Zapdos ex standard and Special Art Rare in another. He may well have sold his soul to Arceus, but he is keeping shtum about it…