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PreRelease Events In North America

By TokoyamiTheDark

I remember that I once went to a PreRelease for the Platinum:Arceus set back in Fall 2009 (I won’t tell where I was, and I won’t tell the day neither…). It was really exiting. Anyone who enters gets 2 free booster packs from the set which PreReleases occured (in this case, it was Arceus booster packs) plus a prerelease card. (Platinum :Arceus’ PreRelease card was a Raichu.

For a fee of 30$, one could enter a fun-orientated challenge where you get 6 additional booster packs and 60 protective sleeves with Arceus on the back…but this time, there was NO Arceus sleeves at all, as everyone got Garchomp sleeves instead… Apparently, PUSA didn’t made the Arceus sleeves in time, so that was why we all got Supreme Victors sleeves instead.

Anyone with a deck of 60 cards could challenge someone else. I used to build my deck mostly with cards I got from booster packs and Energies from Platinum theme decks, and my deck was a Grass and Psychic deck, featuring Shaymin lv.X as the « lead » ; I lost 3 times and won twice, but the most important part was having fun!

I USED to have a Gengar lv.X, but someone stole it (GRRRRAAAAH!) so the staff gave me a FREE Arceus lv.X as a consolation for having my Gengar lv.X stolen by someone. Seems that even card thieves takes opportunities for stealing cards in PreReleases. At the end of the battles, people could trade their prized cards with other people as well to buy Tin Decks, Theme Decks, additional Booster Packs and Card supplies. Even single cards were on sale, so I bought a lot of cards that I had difficulties to find, such as Palkia, Shining Milotic, Regirock, etc… So, at the very end of the PreRelease, 2 other Booster Packs were given to people when they leave, so let’s count the minimum number of cards someone who participated in these tournaments could have gotten :
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How To Spot Fake Pokemon Cards

By Carl00456

I recently bought over two hundred Pokemon cards from a person at a local car-boot sale. It cost me £10, which I thought was worth it for the amount and rarity of the cards. I went home happy until my brother explained to me that some of them were fake. I counted the fake cards and then the real cards and it turns out that only around fifty cards were real. Here are a few ways to tell if your Pokemon cards are fake and a few tips on how to avoid buying them. Please note that this only applies to English Pokemon cards.

Firstly, check the back of the Pokemon card. Though not that obvious, a real Pokemon card is usually a dark blue colour while a fake one would be paler in colour. To easily tell if a Pokemon card is fake look at the light blue spot next to the red bit of the pokeball. To the right of it you should see s light blue patch that is fairly detailed. On a fake card, however, there will just be a blue splat with no detail.

If you want to know if trainer cards are fake, look at the word ‘Pokemon’ on the card. If the card is real then the word ‘Pokemon’ will have an apostrophe on the letter e. If it is a fake card then there will be no apostrophe and the word will just be spelt ‘Pokemon’. You can also look is there are any spelling mistakes or if the image is at a slant or misplaced. The same rules apply here as you can check the back of the card to see if it’s fake.

For actual Pokemon cards, you can still use the same methods above, checking for spelling mistakes and so fourth. There is a way to tell if the Pokemon card is fake, by looking at the energy symbols. There are usually energy symbols after the hit points or HP, next to the attack moves and at the bottom of the card, as weaknesses or resistance. The symbols themselves are defined by their symbol and colour. Real Pokemon cards will have a small symbol so you can easily see the colour while fake Pokemon cards will have the symbol enlarged, almost touching the edge so they will look quite crowded. Fake Pokemon energy symbols will also look slightly darker.
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The Art Of Pokemon Card Collecting & Forum Trading

By RJG

Hi there I am here to try and help you to start and get on your way to building your collection of Pokemon cards. First and foremost try to have a goal in mind there are many ways to collect Pokemon cards you can collect sets which is picking out a certain set that you like such as Pokemon Black & White, Base set, Fossil, Team Rocket, ETC and trying to collect every card in that set. There are collecting certain type or monster Pokemon meaning only collecting cards of a certain type such as water types, fire types, and many other or collecting a certain favorite Pokemon such as many out there like to collect Pikachu’s. There is also collecting only holographic cards where only the picture parts is shiny and sparkly, or even reverse holographic cards where everything BUT the picture is holographic. There are many different ways to start your collection. Second know which language you would like to your cards in English, Japanese, German, etc this will be a hug factor when it comes to money wise seeing that Japanese being the most expensive, English being average price wise, and every other language being cheaper due to low demand for them.

I personally collect Japanese cards due to many reasons but when I first started off I started collecting English cards for which I suggest a beginner to start off collecting and then when you know more about the rarity, price, high demand of cards you can grow over to Japanese. Lastly is to get out there and buy a couple of booster packs you can go to your local cards shop such as a comic book store, Target, Wal-Mart, and even online. I prefer as a starter to buy them at Target or Wal-Mart seeing that you can never be to sure about being sold a fake card at your card shop or online. Once you have grown a pretty good collection and want to get rid of some cards you don’t want for some that you do you can try and find some friends how also collect and trade with them or you can go online and join Pokemon TCG trading forums such as Pokebeach.com or Pokegym.net they are both respected trading forums that I highly recommend.
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Pokemon The 1st Movie Topps Trading Cards

By TokoyamiTheDark

I remember back, in 1999, when the 1st Movie was going to be in theaters across America. There was a huge poster saying “Pokemon Movie Topps Trading Cards ON SALE HERE AND NOW!” Back then my parents didn’t wanted me to buy these cards, but my neighbor bought some packs. With rich colors and information about the mocie, the cards were really great.

Eventually, back in March 2011, I ordered a Booster Box of Topps Trading cards of the 1st Movie. There was two editions released for the 1st Movie, the Blue Squared edition which mispelled names while the Black Squared edition had corrected names. I ordered one Pokemon Booster Box of each edition to see and compare the differences. There was somewhing funny in the Blue Squared edition that caught my eye when I opened a pack and got a Foil card. The Foil card had four Pokemon, separated with squares, Raichu, Cubone, and two other Pokemon I never saw before I watched the movie in 1999. I know they are Snubbull and Marill. so I went to read the back of the card.
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Japanese Pokemon Cards Are Better Than English Ones

By RJG

Today’s article is about the comparison of which Pokemon cards are better to collect English or Japanese. There are many collectors out there who think that the English ones are better to collect and vise versa. I personally think that Japanese cards are WAY better to collect for the obvious two reasons first being the rarity of the cards for example the there are many cards that were never released in English such as the Masaki Promos, Trophy cards, Vending series cards, and if they were released in English they weren’t released in the same illustration such as Misty’s Tears.

Second being the price difference between cards as everyone knows Japanese card are by far more expensive then the English ones for example the Japanese Pokemon illustrator being worth at about $10,000 if I am correct and even if they were released in English there is a price difference. Example being the bumble bee Pikachu card, the English one is a promo and the Japanese is a Vending series promo obviously both are promos but a price difference between both none the less.
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Coming Back To Pokemon Card Collecting

By RJG

I first started collecting Pokemon cards when I was about the age of 12 or so back when yellow version cam old for the gameboy man gaming sure has changed from back them when the gameboy was only in black and white. I had a huge binder full of cards some of them that not until now did I realize the rarity of them such as my old neo shining Mewtwo. Pokemon was pretty big back them everyone collected and everyone had some sort of Pokemon merchandise from backpacks to shirts back when the rarest card out there was the base Charizard. One day for no apparent reason I some how didn’t care much about Pokemon collecting and was deciding about a good way to get rid of them all. So one day I just decided to dump my entire binder in the toilet and flush them not knowing I could have sold them.

After that I didn’t really care much about Pokemon I still watched the episodes every now and then but never really got back into it. It wasn’t until years later that one day I was at a yard sale and stumbled across some Pokemon cards for sale and thought to myself “man those were some good times collecting them” I still didn’t really know much about the newer sets so I decided to buy some holographic cards and frame them on my wall for decoration (little did I know that I purchased a Pikachu *). Slowly I bought more and more until early November I decided to take up collecting again I bought some boosters and some collector boxes (the ones that come with 5 boosters and a promo). Once I grew a pretty good collection I decided to try and find people to trade with I searched online to find if anyone traded Pokemon cards around my neighborhood and some how stumbled across a Pokemon trading forum so I signed up and joined.
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The Differences between The Value Of Japanese Pokemon Cards And International Cards

By TokoyamiTheDark

It has been in my knowledge that many people are asking the question about : what is the difference in value between Japanese cards and International Cards? Well, let’s start with the rare cards. In Japan, each pack guarantees 1 Foil and 1 Rare. The random Mirrored card can also be rare, bringing up to 3 Rares in one pack! I got a Foil Slowking, a Rare Beedrill and a Rare Mirrored Lapras in a single HeartGold booster pack. One of my friends even got a Lv.X AND a hidden reprint card in the same pack! Outside Japan, you only have 20% of finding a regular holo in any packs, and you aren’t even guaranteed of getting a Rare card (marked by a star). LEGEND cards were a lot controversed outside Japan, since Japanese packs includes both halves while International pack have only one half, which makes it extremely difficult to get the other half without purchasing it on Internet.

The second aspect is about Booster Boxes. While the Japanese Booster Boxes has less packs than an International one, they are a lot cheaper and guarantee rare cards that are very difficult to get outside Japan. Let’s compare what we would find in a JPN Booster Box and an US box, shall we? Well, for 2 Japanese Booster Boxes, you are guaranteed to get at least 97% of the entire set, or even the FULL set, if you’re lucky. But in US Booster Boxes, you’ll only get at least 88% of the full set… So, why is the way cards are made and sold in other countries aren’t in the same way as Japan does?
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What Is The Pokemon TCG?

By TokoyamiTheDark

The short word ‘TCG’ stands for ‘Trading Card Game’. Since 1998, the series has grown widely popular and features many things. There are many kinds of cards, and this small text will explain every aspect of them.

First, we begin with the most important aspect of them ; Basic Cards. You CANNOT have a deck without Basic Cards and they feature both un-evolved Pokemon or Pokemon that doesn’t evolve. Most Basic cards are very common and easy to obtain via Pokemon Theme Decks and Booster Packs. Another kind of card that is a MUST in any deck are Energies. These allow the Pokemon to attack, and there are 9 kinds of Energies ; Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Darkness, Steel and Colorless. There are no basic Colorless Energies at all, as any other Energy can be used for a Colorless mark. Unless the card tells you to discard an Energy card, don’t discard them after attacking!

Evolution cards are rarer, and can only be played if you have the pre-evolved form (for example, to play a Donphan card, you must have a Phanpy in play). When evolving, the Pokemon loses all of its previous attacks, regain HP and get rid of any Special Conditions. There are a few exeption where Evolved cards evolves from Trainer Cards, and not from Basic Pokemon. These Trainer cards are also called Fossil cards, and act like a Basic Pokemon, which means if they’re KOed, your foe takes a Prize card.
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You’ve Lost That Legendary Feeling – A Look At The Card Art Of The Rarest Pokemon

By Becca Mander

Some might say that legendary Pokemon have lost their sparkle over the years. These people might say that movie upon movie filled with legendary appearances have cheapened them. They may also go on to say that, aided by the popularity of the Action Replay, their desirability for the casual video game player has also diminished to something of a faint spark. For competitive video game players, most legendary Pokemon are classed as ‘Uber’, and banned accordingly. In the card game, legendary Pokemon have also become sidelined. Gone are the days of decks incorporating the majestic Rayquaza Star and Mew ex, and soon, even the glittery bordered level X cards of Mewtwo, Uxie and Regigigas will become obsolete for competitive play. Decks are now supported by the diminutive Cleffa, while the heavy hitters progress from Gyarados and Garchomp to Yanmega, Jumpluff, Cinccino, Samurott, Magnezone… not a legend to be seen. Or so some might say.

What’s your take on legendary Pokemon? Are they defunct, just a draw for kids? There’s no denying that legendaries do not pack such a powerful punch as they did back in the halcyon days of the first generation; in my area, Mewtwo was IT. If you caught Mewtwo on Pokemon Blue, you were IT. If you owned a Base Set Mewtwo, then you too were IT. Charizard, that rare starter whose draconic form just reeked of legend, was THE most desirable Pokemon around. But now, after four further generations of critters and with the advent of Pokemon Black and White, there is a sizable roster of “legendary” Pokemon, from elemental birds to monochrome dragons, and their scarcity and mystery would seem to be irreparably hindered by their sheer number.

However, I’m not of the opinion that all is lost for legendaries. Here’s why.
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For The Player And Collector: Pokemon Black And White

By The Pidgeot

Hello again and I am back with another set to talk about. This time it is the newest expansion and addition to pokemon Black and White. This set’s cards are based on the new pokemon from the Unova Region, like the new starters, Oshawatt, Tepig, and Snivy. This set is a great expansion to both players and collectors of the pokemon world. For the players there are many new trainers and supporters added to the game and also there are new pokemon with awesome abilities. And for the collectors out there this set has two amazing full art pokemon cards to find. I will be talking about everything that a player and collector may like and not like about this set.

Let me start with the negative aspects of this set on both the sides of the competitive player and serious collector. For the player there are a few cards that render useless in the addition of pokemon cards. Unfezant is a good example as one of the few cards that seem useless to be put into a deck. It has an attack that needs three energy to use and only does 70 damage to the opposing pokemon with no added effect. For any pokemon card collectors out there, there is really nothing bad or negative that I have to say about this set. Except for the fact that there is one set of pokemon that does not come with the second stage evolution. With that lets move on to the positive side of this set.
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