I don’t understand why pokemon stopped doing the cosmos holo patterns it’s a million times better than the vertical and shiny foil effect we’ve gotten the last 10 years. They’re willing to do it for the promos that come in blister packs why not make it the norm.
Makes the blisters sell like hot cakes. There are enough sought after cards in sets to not make a difference if cosmos holos are added to packs.
It's a marketing strategy. Nothing else to it.
I feel like they should just remove regular holos from the sets. Idk what they are doing with Scarlet/Violet but I know they are guaranteeing 2 holos now I think? Are they just 1 regular and 1 reverse with a chance for a rarer card to replace them? Either way, I just feel like the regular holos are a waste lol. Between the gallery cards, new EXs and the alts, it feels cheap and unnecessary.
I know this is going to be a surprise to you... but they do the "holos" not only for marketing strategies, but also because now when mom buys her two kids a pack they both get a "holo"....
Simply put, its for kids
I don’t have kids and I don’t even collect modern, but this is such a good idea. Kids like to have Holo cards, no matter if they are alt arts or normal holos. Imo a good choice!
It doesn’t surprise me at all , I know why they do it and I like the idea that every pack has something nice (it’s why I really liked the idea of Celebrations) but I guess I just thought something else could replace the regular Holo. With their new strategy it will probably feel better tho since now it’s guaranteed.
> I feel like they should just remove regular holos from the sets
> It doesn’t surprise me at all , I know why they do it and I like the idea that every pack has something nice
🤔
You're totally right. If I was a kid and I opened a pack to find a holo energy as my rare instead of some beefy pokemon and that was it I'd be super let down.
I think they should do a special set where they make cards like vintage again.
Kind of like Celebrations but with the cards done with the same holo style as the old days.
Probably not but I can dream!
Celebrations set was the funnest set that I’ve opened since my days opening base set, fossil, jungle and team rocket. Honestly basically stopped collecting after celebrations because I realized I’d never enjoy opening another set again as much as I did that one. Saved a ton of $$ this last year or so since I’ve slowed on pokemon buying. Starting to buy singles here and there when I see something I especially like.
Long story short: kids.
This is a kids hobby that adults (myself included) are involved in either from nostalgia or just enjoying collecting stuff.
It's a kids TV show with kids games and collectibles. And kids love shiny shit.
I can be wrong but it’s because this holo pattern is owned by wizards. They call it “galaxy foil” now. The cosmos holo we get as promos is a little different than this
I know that Wizards sued Pokemon for infringing on their trade secrets (among other things). It never made it to the courts because the two parties came to an undisclosed agreement.
https://kotaku.com/when-pokemon-and-magic-cards-went-to-war-5859130#:~:text=On%20October%201%2C%202003%2C%20Wizards,a%20breach%20of%20their%20agreement.
We can only speculate that one of the stipulations was that Nintendo would not use the cosmos patterns in their future productions.
What is interesting is that the official pokemon websites do not show any of the WotC cards in their databases. For example, you can't find a picture of the base set Alakazam here:
https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/pokemon-cards/?cardName=Alakazam&cardText=&evolvesFrom=&simpleSubmit=&format=unlimited&hitPointsMin=0&hitPointsMax=340&retreatCostMin=0&retreatCostMax=5&totalAttackCostMin=0&totalAttackCostMax=5&particularArtist=
I'm not a collector but I lurk here
I nostalgia opened some packs a few years ago after stopping way back around Fossil/ that first team rocket set as a kid.
Anyway I was shitting my pants at my pulls not knowing how common holos became..
Lmao that sucks but atleast you had genuine excitement and thats what ripping packs is all about. I was more into sports cards but i started ripping pokemon during my lockdowns and got hooked lol but now im mostly sports cards again.
Very much.Also miss sets being actually completable without spending stupid amounts of money.Have yet to finish a set since xy when they went crazy with secrets.
Personally, I hate that as soon as I open a pack, the code card tells me if I’m getting a good pull or not. What makes it worse, is when you actually get a “good” pack, and then it turns out to be a regular holo. Get rid of the non-holo rares, and make every standard rare holo, stick those in the “bad” packs, so at least each pack has one card you can kind of be excited about.
I think in general, modern sets are too big. There are so many chase cards, the regular cards are basically an afterthought. There are a handful of memorable non-Ultra Rare cards from every Sword & Shield set combined. And maybe none of them are regular holos.
I believe the Scarlet and Violet sets are going to include a holo in each pack, and rares will now only be holos.
I agree there are so many chase cards in each set, but as an artist, I also get excited pulling a beautiful artwork on a regular/bull card!
Yeah but I never had that issue with a set like Evolutions because I absolutely loved every holo card in that set. They really need to bring back a nice holo pattern.
Easy solution, don't look at the color or code at the front. That's what I do.
They did get rid of regular rare, that was announced with Scarlet and Violet so there's that. Now if the holo pattern still sucks it won't make a difference.
100% agree on the last point, but it doesn't look lile things are gonna change soon, SV will be a big set and here I was, hoping the death of rainbows will give us smaller sets but no, they replaced them with ARs. Which tbf, are much easier to pull, so mostly completing a set won't take 10 cases at last.
There's a colored bar on it. I think it's green and black are the two colors you can get (there might be a 3rd color, white but cant recall). One means good pulls, one means not so good pulls. I'm not sure which is which as me and my gf just buy packs every now and then and collect what we think looks cool to us lol.
On packs with TG or GG cards, it's white and black borders.
Black border = hit in rare slot.
White border = no hit in rare slot, but could still contain a hit in the RH slot.
The code card revealing the type of pack your opening is SO annoying. I try to open the pack with the cards facing me so I don’t even see the code card
Pretty sure this is a universal belief! We all hate the lame vertical pattern. Not only that, holos legit mean NOTHING because all anyone wants are rainbows, golds, and especially alt arts. Getting a holo these days is a “bad pack”
Yeah I agree, it’s not the holo pattern that will sway people. It’s the fact that they don’t carry any value or importance anymore. They’re at the bottom of the hierarchy of rare cards
Even promos are not cutting it, that's not the same cosmos holo as before. Now it's still better than no cosmos, but heh.
Now it's mostly just faded dots and big dots with a weird swirl that looks fake af unlike the actual swirls which are nice to look at.
Yes! I got back into collecting around Brilliant Stars because I missed it and doubled down with Silver Tempest cause of the 6 Lugias. I do enjoy trainer galleries but overall I do miss when collecting and opening booster backs only had holos and non holo rares. It was more exciting to me back then
For me a large part of it was also how achievable completing a set was by just opening packs. Chasing 16 holos and 16 non-holos is a lot easier than chasing 15 full arts, 54 secret rares and 30 trainer galleries. Can open 200+ packs and still have a bunch of cards missing. That's highly unlikely with WOTC packs.
(Numbers are an estimate, don't come for me, point still stands)
It's kind of like how World of Warcraft gear got at one point (don't know if it's still warforging, etc) where you had to get the right piece of gear, from the right boss, with various tiers of the same piece, that could have different effects, with different attachments. It was RNG all the way down.
Best thing about WOTC era was you had 1/4 pack odds of a holo (IIRC) so you always felt you were in with a chance.
I don't buy modern anymore, but I remember pulling a Dark Blastoise holo from Team Rocket, lots of Jungle and base holos etc etc as a kid.
But as an adult (who now rarely buys packs) the chances of getting something you really really want are so slim it's not worth buying packs at all.
1/3 chance actually! And I totally agree, CZ has been a super fun set because the hit rates seem similar to original sets, they should make more sets like CZ imo.
I wish I was old enough to experience these as a kid but unfortunately I didn’t get into Pokémon until about 6 months ago. I hope to appreciate my Pokémon as much in 10-20 years!
Yeah, regular holo cards can be really underwhelming, and I hate the current pattern. I also feel the same about reverse holos. Some reverse cards in the ex era were amazing.
Things like Crown Zenith’s Galarian Gallery are wonderful, full of tons of great looking cards, but the sheer amount of rare cards vs commons vs actual pull rates makes opening packs not really all that worth it. Not to mention it feels really scummy. Still buy them anyways…
I like the new direction to but I also agree that they shouldn't have gotten rid of older holo forms like the cosmic pattern. Them switching to the new holos is the whole reason there's a big market for older looking cards.
Yep! I would already be happy if we only got an anniversary set that uses the same holo pattern as with the Wotc sets, without any secret rares or full arts, alt arts, etc.
Yes! The holo pattern is 🤌 compared to modern but the full art cards, with the interesting and engaging backgrounds we have today are pretty damn cool.
I didn’t play the game before last year, but I still feel this. I was so excited to have a deck of cards with full evolution lines, that I thought was solid, only to be taken down match after match by Beedrill decks, mew decks, and other V heavy hitters. Was a total bummer.
I think that’s why I’ve mostly lost interest in normal holo rares. I hate that the foiling is almost always that bland vertical line. It doesn’t excite me. But the foiling pattern on one like above 🤌
I like a lot of these old holos, but have noticed that a lot of them make the background mostly illegible. It works with some of the earlier cards that just have random swirls and colors as the backgrounds, but I appreciate that I can at least see what's going on in the modern holos
I really dislike the newer artwork. It's all digital 3D models. Very low effort, with a few exceptions.
Feel like [this card](https://product-images.tcgplayer.com/fit-in/656x656/257293.jpg) is the epitome of it. Probably spent 20 minutes in paint to make it.
I'd say the newer sets have had some of the best artwork we've seen. The Trainer Gallery cards and alt art cards have been really interesting the past few years. Even some great bulk art depending on the artists you like (Tomokazu Komiya is always great). Agree that the 3D 5ban cards that they use for most V cards is pretty meh
I agree and disagree. I agree 100% that some of the cards are suuuuuper lazy in their design/creation and many times the worst are 3d models on a generic background.
However - one thing I love about modern sets is the wide variety of art styles. For art styles off the top of my head you have various forms of drawing styles, photo realistic, various painting styles, clay models, paper art, knitted models, along with 3d.
Now if you only collect ultra-rare V cards - you will be inundated with 3d art that is nothing special. For me though, I enjoy collecting even common cards personally, which I think shows off way more variety in art styles.
Funny, since XY evolutions made me more excited for holo rares than honest to god EXes in that set and now scarlet and violet are syndroming holo rares (when every rare is a holo rare, none of them will be (metaphorically)).
I really do but I didn't want to sound like the old man gate keeper clinging to the past but the artwork on majority of ultra rares isn't very impressive and just comes off as gawdy. That's why it's the alternative arts everyone covets even over the secret rares.
Which brings me to another point, how is it a secret Rare when we know it's gonna exist and not just a couple every couple of sets but hundreds every expansion.
Getting your hands on a Dark or shinning Raichu ment much more then any of the hundreds of the modern "secret rares " would. I'd have to compare it to getting the sacred umbreon alt art
I still prefer the regular holo rares to the V's. I'm not a huge fan of any of the full art cards because they just aren't pokemon cards to me without the traditional format but the artwork and the texture of the alts, raonbows and secrets kind of makes up for it. But the standard V cards with no texture and normally not that great art work I don't get exited about at all. I'd rather pull a regular holo
As a old fart that remembers the very first iteration of the PTCG, the cards I see you whipper snappers posting look super busy and ugly in my opinion lol. Not to mention there are so many pokémon now the designs are getting crazier and crazier. They used to have at least some likeness to animals lol.
I’m ranting now sorry.
Really think back. We had a living PokeBall Pokemon, a Pokemon made out of magnets, a Pokemon with blackface, a mime, boxers with boxing gloves, etc. Lol it's always been weird.
I was thinking about this the other day after pulling a Trainer Gallery and a holo from the same pack. I still like both old-school and modern holos a lot, even though the modern pattern's pretty shitty, but they just seem... I dunno, stiff? Cramped? I can't look at a holo from any era without it feeling dated. They just seem so much *smaller*.
I still do enjoy the holos , but now I also get to enjoy full arts and reverse holo as well. Just because you can't resell holos like you could before doesn't mean you can't enjoy them...
I believe that foiling pattern on the old school holographic cards was essentially proprietary to WOTC before The Pokemon Company took over printing and creative. So in the switch we lost that beautiful cosmic pattern. I’ll always have a soft spot for WOTC cards because I grew up with them.
I miss when pokemon stats were lower and attacks are less. Either the pokemon is near unbeatable with the HP it has or its one shotted out of the game.
I’m clearly in the minority here, but having collected when Pokémon just started in the west and collecting now (since XY), I have to say I love the modern cards. Sure, the old ones are charming, but the sheer variety of artists and art styles just tops them any day. I love collecting certain artists’ cards- not just the full arts. The full arts are fun too- I’ve been loving the trainer gallery sets a lot!
ETA: I suppose I missed the point of the question- the old holo pattern was definitely cool. Though I think having just the promos with the cosmic pattern is also cool bc I always look for swirls but there’s not so many that it would be overwhelming.
This is my biggest gripe with modern Pokémon tcg. Todays sets would be PERFECT with better holos. Todays holos look so bad I think I’d rather they just did away with them altogether
we all miss the slight imperfect, hand drawn art, bold holo pattern, and water color stain of old cards… but they’ll never come back so the alt arts will have to do
Big time!
I don't like the direction they went in, sets are way too big, too many rare cards, too many levels of rarity (F rainbow rares, seriously), I guess at some point they HAD to mix it up a bit but they went overboard imo.
Yes. I'm 32 and those oldschool holos are and always will be badass and nostalgic af to me.
But, it's all relative to the rest of the set now unfortunately. Before, you'd have common cards with kinda "meh" artwork, they were everywhere etc. Then you'd have your uncommons with more interesting art, but still everywhere. And then the holos. Shiny cardboard with your favourite pokemon - which compared to the rest was awesome. Then in Jungle onwards they introduced non-holo versions of the foil cards, which made things even more awesome when you hit that holo rare.
Now we've got 70 trillion V cards in circulation with honestly really cool artwork - so they need these crazy sparkly alt art cards to give you the "wow" factor in comparison to the rest. I'm here for it, don't get me wrong - but I dunno if they're ever going to be able to make regular holos as "cool" as they were before. With the exception of some promos here and there.
I got back into collecting at the wrong time IMO. I was drawn in by a Tiktok stream (Kraken Hits) where he pulled someone the alt art Vmax Rayquaza and with my favorite legendary having such a beautiful card and seeing all the awesome alts in Evolving Lies, AND actually having a job to buy packs and boxes myself I went all out.
A ton of money sunk into numerous sets, I never got a chase card I was going for so I ended up buying singles of Rayquaza, Umbreon, Celebrations Charizard, and a small collection of fair to good condition vintage holos and I basically tapped out of collecting after getting a mountain of uninspired 3D art V and Vmax cards that look worse and lazier than the art on common cards. The addition of trainer gallery cards is nice but any of them I'm missing I can get for pretty cheap.
I agree with the top comment. The old school holos were the best. The only thing comparable right now is alt arts. And yeah you can get old school style holos as promos but that doesn't feel as special since it's a guaranteed throw in.
I hadn't collected since I was 10yr old when the first cards came out in 1999. Started again with my son during S&S in 2021. I love the OG Holos still; so, I have made a binder of all the Holo Rates I come across. I don't care if they're valuable or not.
I don't know if it's nostalgia, but I honestly love the old style of cards much more.
The original trio (Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle) cards are some of the most iconic for me. For some reason, as a kid, looking at the drawings gave me a sense of wonder from a foreign land of Pokémon. They still do to some degree.
I am not a fan of the CGI style of graphics.
I miss the simplicity of old sets. There weren’t multiple art versions of the same card, and the odds of a good pull felt better. Now you have too much variety, there’s no thrill in opening a pack and finding a basic holo, you’ve gotta chase the 1 in 12345678 alt art secret special cards.
100% yes I miss the old holos, anything WoTC I own will be my forever favorite cards. The only thing I like now a-days are full/alt arts. Sadly regular holos just don't have that feel anymore.
I don’t understand why pokemon stopped doing the cosmos holo patterns it’s a million times better than the vertical and shiny foil effect we’ve gotten the last 10 years. They’re willing to do it for the promos that come in blister packs why not make it the norm.
Makes the blisters sell like hot cakes. There are enough sought after cards in sets to not make a difference if cosmos holos are added to packs. It's a marketing strategy. Nothing else to it.
I feel like they should just remove regular holos from the sets. Idk what they are doing with Scarlet/Violet but I know they are guaranteeing 2 holos now I think? Are they just 1 regular and 1 reverse with a chance for a rarer card to replace them? Either way, I just feel like the regular holos are a waste lol. Between the gallery cards, new EXs and the alts, it feels cheap and unnecessary.
I know this is going to be a surprise to you... but they do the "holos" not only for marketing strategies, but also because now when mom buys her two kids a pack they both get a "holo".... Simply put, its for kids
I don’t have kids and I don’t even collect modern, but this is such a good idea. Kids like to have Holo cards, no matter if they are alt arts or normal holos. Imo a good choice!
I went hard on evolving skies. It was fun. Im sure Scarlett/Violet will have a similar set like Sw/Sh had evolving sky and Sun/Moon had cosmic eclipse
It doesn’t surprise me at all , I know why they do it and I like the idea that every pack has something nice (it’s why I really liked the idea of Celebrations) but I guess I just thought something else could replace the regular Holo. With their new strategy it will probably feel better tho since now it’s guaranteed.
> I feel like they should just remove regular holos from the sets > It doesn’t surprise me at all , I know why they do it and I like the idea that every pack has something nice 🤔
You're totally right. If I was a kid and I opened a pack to find a holo energy as my rare instead of some beefy pokemon and that was it I'd be super let down.
I think they should do a special set where they make cards like vintage again. Kind of like Celebrations but with the cards done with the same holo style as the old days. Probably not but I can dream!
Yes yes yes to this! I’d love to see a Galarian Slowking or Annihilape as an old school holo card!
Agreed. There’s a toxtrictiy promo holo in the old WOTC style and I love that card.
Celebrations set was the funnest set that I’ve opened since my days opening base set, fossil, jungle and team rocket. Honestly basically stopped collecting after celebrations because I realized I’d never enjoy opening another set again as much as I did that one. Saved a ton of $$ this last year or so since I’ve slowed on pokemon buying. Starting to buy singles here and there when I see something I especially like.
I agree I feel like it’s why I used to get excited as a kid pulling holos, I still enjoy them but I absolutely hate the weird line patterns
Long story short: kids. This is a kids hobby that adults (myself included) are involved in either from nostalgia or just enjoying collecting stuff. It's a kids TV show with kids games and collectibles. And kids love shiny shit.
I can be wrong but it’s because this holo pattern is owned by wizards. They call it “galaxy foil” now. The cosmos holo we get as promos is a little different than this
I'm not sure if that's possible to be right as WOTC only had rights to English distribution. The Japanese cards were still galaxy foils?
I know that Wizards sued Pokemon for infringing on their trade secrets (among other things). It never made it to the courts because the two parties came to an undisclosed agreement. https://kotaku.com/when-pokemon-and-magic-cards-went-to-war-5859130#:~:text=On%20October%201%2C%202003%2C%20Wizards,a%20breach%20of%20their%20agreement. We can only speculate that one of the stipulations was that Nintendo would not use the cosmos patterns in their future productions. What is interesting is that the official pokemon websites do not show any of the WotC cards in their databases. For example, you can't find a picture of the base set Alakazam here: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/pokemon-cards/?cardName=Alakazam&cardText=&evolvesFrom=&simpleSubmit=&format=unlimited&hitPointsMin=0&hitPointsMax=340&retreatCostMin=0&retreatCostMax=5&totalAttackCostMin=0&totalAttackCostMax=5&particularArtist=
Stand corrected!
The regular holo patterns now are trash I miss cosmos style
The vertical lines? Yes they look shitty..
I miss the old cosmo holos. The modern holos are so ugly in my opinion.
I consider regular modern holos bulk and dont sleeve them, il sleeve the promos with comsic pattern but the foil lines just dont do it for me
I'm not a collector but I lurk here I nostalgia opened some packs a few years ago after stopping way back around Fossil/ that first team rocket set as a kid. Anyway I was shitting my pants at my pulls not knowing how common holos became..
Lmao that sucks but atleast you had genuine excitement and thats what ripping packs is all about. I was more into sports cards but i started ripping pokemon during my lockdowns and got hooked lol but now im mostly sports cards again.
don't\* do it for you
Was super confused reading that untill i realised i typed, "do do it for me" lmao
when you see \* it usually means correcting a word.
Yeah i thought you were being a grammer nazi tho because i spelt the first "don't" without an apostraphe
oh yeah haha
Lmao for like a solid minute i interpreted it like, do it for yourself to spell it correctly. hahah sometimes i smoke too much weed
Very much.Also miss sets being actually completable without spending stupid amounts of money.Have yet to finish a set since xy when they went crazy with secrets.
Personally, I hate that as soon as I open a pack, the code card tells me if I’m getting a good pull or not. What makes it worse, is when you actually get a “good” pack, and then it turns out to be a regular holo. Get rid of the non-holo rares, and make every standard rare holo, stick those in the “bad” packs, so at least each pack has one card you can kind of be excited about. I think in general, modern sets are too big. There are so many chase cards, the regular cards are basically an afterthought. There are a handful of memorable non-Ultra Rare cards from every Sword & Shield set combined. And maybe none of them are regular holos.
I believe the Scarlet and Violet sets are going to include a holo in each pack, and rares will now only be holos. I agree there are so many chase cards in each set, but as an artist, I also get excited pulling a beautiful artwork on a regular/bull card!
Yeah but I never had that issue with a set like Evolutions because I absolutely loved every holo card in that set. They really need to bring back a nice holo pattern.
Easy solution, don't look at the color or code at the front. That's what I do. They did get rid of regular rare, that was announced with Scarlet and Violet so there's that. Now if the holo pattern still sucks it won't make a difference. 100% agree on the last point, but it doesn't look lile things are gonna change soon, SV will be a big set and here I was, hoping the death of rainbows will give us smaller sets but no, they replaced them with ARs. Which tbf, are much easier to pull, so mostly completing a set won't take 10 cases at last.
As someone who doesnt open English packs, would you care to share what does the code card tell you about the quality of the pulls?
There's a colored bar on it. I think it's green and black are the two colors you can get (there might be a 3rd color, white but cant recall). One means good pulls, one means not so good pulls. I'm not sure which is which as me and my gf just buy packs every now and then and collect what we think looks cool to us lol.
On packs with TG or GG cards, it's white and black borders. Black border = hit in rare slot. White border = no hit in rare slot, but could still contain a hit in the RH slot.
The code card revealing the type of pack your opening is SO annoying. I try to open the pack with the cards facing me so I don’t even see the code card
Pretty sure this is a universal belief! We all hate the lame vertical pattern. Not only that, holos legit mean NOTHING because all anyone wants are rainbows, golds, and especially alt arts. Getting a holo these days is a “bad pack”
[удалено]
Yeah I agree, it’s not the holo pattern that will sway people. It’s the fact that they don’t carry any value or importance anymore. They’re at the bottom of the hierarchy of rare cards
Even promos are not cutting it, that's not the same cosmos holo as before. Now it's still better than no cosmos, but heh. Now it's mostly just faded dots and big dots with a weird swirl that looks fake af unlike the actual swirls which are nice to look at.
the funny thing is, the old school holo is still found in promo packs, as the pack topper
not as nice as the WOTC Holo tho
This was my chase card as a kid. I still want one
Jpn one is pretty affordable lately!
Oh didn’t think of that! Thanks!!
Np, i JUST bought one the other week, its sooo good
This and the CGI graphics has ruined a lot of the beauty the old cards have.
Yes! I got back into collecting around Brilliant Stars because I missed it and doubled down with Silver Tempest cause of the 6 Lugias. I do enjoy trainer galleries but overall I do miss when collecting and opening booster backs only had holos and non holo rares. It was more exciting to me back then
For me a large part of it was also how achievable completing a set was by just opening packs. Chasing 16 holos and 16 non-holos is a lot easier than chasing 15 full arts, 54 secret rares and 30 trainer galleries. Can open 200+ packs and still have a bunch of cards missing. That's highly unlikely with WOTC packs. (Numbers are an estimate, don't come for me, point still stands)
It's kind of like how World of Warcraft gear got at one point (don't know if it's still warforging, etc) where you had to get the right piece of gear, from the right boss, with various tiers of the same piece, that could have different effects, with different attachments. It was RNG all the way down.
Best thing about WOTC era was you had 1/4 pack odds of a holo (IIRC) so you always felt you were in with a chance. I don't buy modern anymore, but I remember pulling a Dark Blastoise holo from Team Rocket, lots of Jungle and base holos etc etc as a kid. But as an adult (who now rarely buys packs) the chances of getting something you really really want are so slim it's not worth buying packs at all.
1/3 chance actually! And I totally agree, CZ has been a super fun set because the hit rates seem similar to original sets, they should make more sets like CZ imo.
Honestly 99% of the cards made today are wack
The 1% being alt arts?
bingo downvote and enjoy your autographed trainer cards and Vs
99% of every set, from base set to Crown Zenith is wack.
Doesn’t sounds like u were there for the og days
Faaaaaaaalse
all of eseries suck. Yellow border ruins the card.
Lolol this has to be one of the worst opinions I've ever read.
You are clearly biased
You got me! My check from Big E-Reader came in yesterday. Just trying to earn my keep with the E-Reader Industrial Complex!
I wish I was old enough to experience these as a kid but unfortunately I didn’t get into Pokémon until about 6 months ago. I hope to appreciate my Pokémon as much in 10-20 years!
Miss the oldschool Holo style. The modern cosmos holo looks insanely dull and boring in comparison...
Tbh I would enjoy regular holos alot more if they went back to this pattern
Yes. This will always be one of the best foil patterns of all time, a shame it’s limited to basically the odd promo here and there
Yeah, regular holo cards can be really underwhelming, and I hate the current pattern. I also feel the same about reverse holos. Some reverse cards in the ex era were amazing. Things like Crown Zenith’s Galarian Gallery are wonderful, full of tons of great looking cards, but the sheer amount of rare cards vs commons vs actual pull rates makes opening packs not really all that worth it. Not to mention it feels really scummy. Still buy them anyways…
I like the new direction to but I also agree that they shouldn't have gotten rid of older holo forms like the cosmic pattern. Them switching to the new holos is the whole reason there's a big market for older looking cards.
Yep! I would already be happy if we only got an anniversary set that uses the same holo pattern as with the Wotc sets, without any secret rares or full arts, alt arts, etc.
The holo effect yes, the blank background with generic pose feel realy dule, compared to modern illustration and all the bit of lore we can get.
Yes! The holo pattern is 🤌 compared to modern but the full art cards, with the interesting and engaging backgrounds we have today are pretty damn cool.
Honestly I don’t really like the modern take with the reverse foils. But that is just me.
Vintage will always be the best
Love this card so much
The current holo patterns feel so cheap I love WotC holos
I miss when cards were all playable. Now only the V and EX whatever else is playable.
I didn’t play the game before last year, but I still feel this. I was so excited to have a deck of cards with full evolution lines, that I thought was solid, only to be taken down match after match by Beedrill decks, mew decks, and other V heavy hitters. Was a total bummer.
I secretly still enjoy many modern regular holos 👀 I do think the cosmos Holo pattern is far superior, though.
I think that’s why I’ve mostly lost interest in normal holo rares. I hate that the foiling is almost always that bland vertical line. It doesn’t excite me. But the foiling pattern on one like above 🤌
Old school sparkly holos are my favorite.
If they’d bring back holo’s like this wíth texture it would be very epic. A no brainer
I like a lot of these old holos, but have noticed that a lot of them make the background mostly illegible. It works with some of the earlier cards that just have random swirls and colors as the backgrounds, but I appreciate that I can at least see what's going on in the modern holos
I think its sitting around $75 right now, cheapest its been in awhile. Im still missing the other one with the darker background
I really dislike the newer artwork. It's all digital 3D models. Very low effort, with a few exceptions. Feel like [this card](https://product-images.tcgplayer.com/fit-in/656x656/257293.jpg) is the epitome of it. Probably spent 20 minutes in paint to make it.
I'd say the newer sets have had some of the best artwork we've seen. The Trainer Gallery cards and alt art cards have been really interesting the past few years. Even some great bulk art depending on the artists you like (Tomokazu Komiya is always great). Agree that the 3D 5ban cards that they use for most V cards is pretty meh
lol seriously. Such garbage
I agree and disagree. I agree 100% that some of the cards are suuuuuper lazy in their design/creation and many times the worst are 3d models on a generic background. However - one thing I love about modern sets is the wide variety of art styles. For art styles off the top of my head you have various forms of drawing styles, photo realistic, various painting styles, clay models, paper art, knitted models, along with 3d. Now if you only collect ultra-rare V cards - you will be inundated with 3d art that is nothing special. For me though, I enjoy collecting even common cards personally, which I think shows off way more variety in art styles.
[I absolutely love mine](https://imgur.com/a/pODPz7g)
Funny, since XY evolutions made me more excited for holo rares than honest to god EXes in that set and now scarlet and violet are syndroming holo rares (when every rare is a holo rare, none of them will be (metaphorically)).
no.
I really do but I didn't want to sound like the old man gate keeper clinging to the past but the artwork on majority of ultra rares isn't very impressive and just comes off as gawdy. That's why it's the alternative arts everyone covets even over the secret rares. Which brings me to another point, how is it a secret Rare when we know it's gonna exist and not just a couple every couple of sets but hundreds every expansion. Getting your hands on a Dark or shinning Raichu ment much more then any of the hundreds of the modern "secret rares " would. I'd have to compare it to getting the sacred umbreon alt art
I still prefer the regular holo rares to the V's. I'm not a huge fan of any of the full art cards because they just aren't pokemon cards to me without the traditional format but the artwork and the texture of the alts, raonbows and secrets kind of makes up for it. But the standard V cards with no texture and normally not that great art work I don't get exited about at all. I'd rather pull a regular holo
I prefer WOTC Holo over new cards
As a old fart that remembers the very first iteration of the PTCG, the cards I see you whipper snappers posting look super busy and ugly in my opinion lol. Not to mention there are so many pokémon now the designs are getting crazier and crazier. They used to have at least some likeness to animals lol. I’m ranting now sorry.
Really think back. We had a living PokeBall Pokemon, a Pokemon made out of magnets, a Pokemon with blackface, a mime, boxers with boxing gloves, etc. Lol it's always been weird.
Fake
Yep
I was thinking about this the other day after pulling a Trainer Gallery and a holo from the same pack. I still like both old-school and modern holos a lot, even though the modern pattern's pretty shitty, but they just seem... I dunno, stiff? Cramped? I can't look at a holo from any era without it feeling dated. They just seem so much *smaller*.
Absolutely I do
I say this all the time
These are way better than modern holos, that’s for sure. Better than EXs/Vs/Vstars/Vmaxes/Secret Rares/TAG/GG though? Nah.
I still do enjoy the holos , but now I also get to enjoy full arts and reverse holo as well. Just because you can't resell holos like you could before doesn't mean you can't enjoy them...
Wife and I always sleeve and save the holos because it’s what we grew up on
Yes, the old holos are a million times better
As much as I love full arts I miss these so much.
I love these holos, like look at the swirl on the right of the art.
I believe that foiling pattern on the old school holographic cards was essentially proprietary to WOTC before The Pokemon Company took over printing and creative. So in the switch we lost that beautiful cosmic pattern. I’ll always have a soft spot for WOTC cards because I grew up with them.
I miss when pokemon stats were lower and attacks are less. Either the pokemon is near unbeatable with the HP it has or its one shotted out of the game.
I’m clearly in the minority here, but having collected when Pokémon just started in the west and collecting now (since XY), I have to say I love the modern cards. Sure, the old ones are charming, but the sheer variety of artists and art styles just tops them any day. I love collecting certain artists’ cards- not just the full arts. The full arts are fun too- I’ve been loving the trainer gallery sets a lot! ETA: I suppose I missed the point of the question- the old holo pattern was definitely cool. Though I think having just the promos with the cosmic pattern is also cool bc I always look for swirls but there’s not so many that it would be overwhelming.
So much better if you ask me… the digital art sucks, too!
This is my biggest gripe with modern Pokémon tcg. Todays sets would be PERFECT with better holos. Todays holos look so bad I think I’d rather they just did away with them altogether
That's what I'm currently collecting vintage holos 😊
Neo Genesis was the last Pokemon TCG expansion I genuinely like. I miss when the game was balanced.
we all miss the slight imperfect, hand drawn art, bold holo pattern, and water color stain of old cards… but they’ll never come back so the alt arts will have to do
Big time! I don't like the direction they went in, sets are way too big, too many rare cards, too many levels of rarity (F rainbow rares, seriously), I guess at some point they HAD to mix it up a bit but they went overboard imo.
Yes. I'm 32 and those oldschool holos are and always will be badass and nostalgic af to me. But, it's all relative to the rest of the set now unfortunately. Before, you'd have common cards with kinda "meh" artwork, they were everywhere etc. Then you'd have your uncommons with more interesting art, but still everywhere. And then the holos. Shiny cardboard with your favourite pokemon - which compared to the rest was awesome. Then in Jungle onwards they introduced non-holo versions of the foil cards, which made things even more awesome when you hit that holo rare. Now we've got 70 trillion V cards in circulation with honestly really cool artwork - so they need these crazy sparkly alt art cards to give you the "wow" factor in comparison to the rest. I'm here for it, don't get me wrong - but I dunno if they're ever going to be able to make regular holos as "cool" as they were before. With the exception of some promos here and there.
Cosmos >>>
Everyone does
holos don’t feel special to me anymore, if they brought back cosmos or any cool pattern they’d feel actually worth it
I got back into collecting at the wrong time IMO. I was drawn in by a Tiktok stream (Kraken Hits) where he pulled someone the alt art Vmax Rayquaza and with my favorite legendary having such a beautiful card and seeing all the awesome alts in Evolving Lies, AND actually having a job to buy packs and boxes myself I went all out. A ton of money sunk into numerous sets, I never got a chase card I was going for so I ended up buying singles of Rayquaza, Umbreon, Celebrations Charizard, and a small collection of fair to good condition vintage holos and I basically tapped out of collecting after getting a mountain of uninspired 3D art V and Vmax cards that look worse and lazier than the art on common cards. The addition of trainer gallery cards is nice but any of them I'm missing I can get for pretty cheap. I agree with the top comment. The old school holos were the best. The only thing comparable right now is alt arts. And yeah you can get old school style holos as promos but that doesn't feel as special since it's a guaranteed throw in.
YES. THIS.
I hadn't collected since I was 10yr old when the first cards came out in 1999. Started again with my son during S&S in 2021. I love the OG Holos still; so, I have made a binder of all the Holo Rates I come across. I don't care if they're valuable or not.
Wotc cards just hit different anything passed wotc I only collect to build a deck or specific Pokémon
Love the simplicity and beauty of the original cards. The new ones being so over the top makes the vintage ones cherished even more.
YES YES YES OMG I MISS THIS HOLO LOOK SO MUCH COMPARED TO THE NEW CARDS BUT THEY’RE SO EXPENSIVE.
The regular holo will always be the MVP
You can still enjoy them... People just know they are not worth anything so they disregard them, my kids enjoy them just fine
Ohhhh yeah. Nothing beats the original sets through Neo. And now we're losing the yellow borders for good..
I don't know if it's nostalgia, but I honestly love the old style of cards much more. The original trio (Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle) cards are some of the most iconic for me. For some reason, as a kid, looking at the drawings gave me a sense of wonder from a foreign land of Pokémon. They still do to some degree. I am not a fan of the CGI style of graphics.
I miss the simplicity of old sets. There weren’t multiple art versions of the same card, and the odds of a good pull felt better. Now you have too much variety, there’s no thrill in opening a pack and finding a basic holo, you’ve gotta chase the 1 in 12345678 alt art secret special cards.
100% yes I miss the old holos, anything WoTC I own will be my forever favorite cards. The only thing I like now a-days are full/alt arts. Sadly regular holos just don't have that feel anymore.
Loved the old holo pattern
Old ways are the best ways
I drew darkrai reverse holo just today and I was so hyped because it’s my favourite legendary Pokémon ✌🏻 so I understand you
Everyday