The last year haཧs been pretty incredible for the Pokemon TCG, at least from a collector’s perspective. The restructuring of rarities and🤡 pack distribution for the Scarlet & Violet era, along with the greatly increased focus on Illustration cards, has made opening packs more fun than ever. That the TCG can still feel fresh and exciting after 25 years is a testament to the talent of the artists, and The Pokemon Company’s willingness to push the creative boundaries of the game continuously. These days, one of the game’s biggest problems is that it’s making too much good stuff.
There are too many great cards in modern Pokemon expansions, and not enough opportunities to get them. As long as you don’t set your heart on any specific cards, you can have a great time opening packs. But with more than a quarter of every set dedicated to secret rares, the TCG has rea♓ched a saturation point on ‘chase’ cards that makes the entire premise - opening packs to chase certain cards - essentially futile. The creative ambition of the game has outpaced the format of booster packs, and the best solution Pokemon has is to take a page from Magic: The Gathering’s book and create a new type of booster pack for collectors.
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Collector Boosters, as the name implies, are a special kind of pack released alongside the standard play boosters for most Magic sets that include an increased number of foil cards, more slots for rare and mythic rare c꧃ards, cards otherwise exclusive to the tie-in Commander decks, and, of course, exclusive art treatments. They cost a lot more than regular packs, but for those who want to collect Magic rather than play it, they offer a much better pack-cracking experience.
A big part of the Pokemon TCG market is people who like to collect the cards but don’t necessarily play the game. T🅰he Illustration Rares that have become standard in the𝓀 Scarlet & Violet era are directed towards the collector side of the hobby, but pack distribution and pull rates being what they are, opening packs isn’t as rewarding to Pokemon collectors as it should be.
In a full booster box, you might find one or two full arts, three or four Illustration Rares, and if you’re very lucky, a Special Illustration Rare. You’ll have to be luckier than me with my Temporal Forces booster box, pre-release kit, and Elite Trainer Box, though. I opened 48 packs and f꧑ound no Special Illustration Rares. There are ten in the expansion, so, at this rate, I’m looking at taking out a second mortgage if I want a chance at finding them.
I’m not saying everyone who open 48 packs is entitled🎐 to find any of these highly sought-after cards (they’re the second rarest card type in the set, after the six gold Hyper Rare cards), and, as always, buying singles is always going to be more cost-effective than buying packs if you’re looking for specific cards. If you want to collect all 15 of the Special Illustration Rares from Paradox Rift, for example, you can buy them for about $250, or a little more than the price of two booster boxes. It would be one thing if SIRs were $150 a pop, like Lorcana’s Enchanted cards, but when the typical chase is worth less than $15, why even open packs?
Collector boosters could solve this problem. Instead of regular common and uncommon bulk (which I have no use for💯 anywayဣ), Pokemon collector boosters could be filled with reverse-foils and rares. Every pack would have a guaranteed ex card or better, and there’d be a chance of pulling multiple Full Art, Illustration Rares, and Hyper Rare cards in every pack.
Although Magic’s Collector boosters are often crit💃icized for their high price and contributing to the explosion of alt-art the game’s seen since their 2019 debut, I would pay a premium for packs like that, and I think a lot of other Pokemon collectors would too. Pokemon is not shy about releasing expensive, collector-targeted products, either. The Charizard Ultra Premium collection and the new Paldea Adventure Chest, for example, have nice packaging, accessories, and promo cards, and💯 cost significantly more than the average Pokemon TCG product. Ironically, the packs that come with these premium products are the least valuable thing they come with.
I don’t need another ornate metal box, or metal damage counters𝔍 I’ll never use. I’d much rather pay extra for better packs. Pokemon is making a🐷 lot of incredible cards in this era, now it just needs to make them easier to get.
