Mamoswine.

Nintendo has been slacking off with many of their Pokemon designs since at least Generation III. Many of the new Pokemon have been made to change the more serious metagame - that is, to balance out types, show off new abilities, and pimp new mechanics.

The problem with this? In a word, Mamoswine:



The Swinub family had been blessed with awesome typing since its debut in Gen II. Ground-Type made it immune to Electric attacks and Sandstorm; Ice-Type made it immune to Hail and good against Dragons, which are getting more and more broken as the generations go on. (Seriously, Nintendo, that's a problem). The icy pigs got even more love with the Physical/Special split, an Ice-Type priority move in Gen IV, and an evolution with amazing stats.

Did it really have to look like a huge pile of suck?

There is nothing wrong with making a mammoth Pokemon evolve from a pig. In fact, that's really creative, given the similarity between an elephant's trunk tip and the front of a pig's snout. Mammoths are one of the better-known mammals of the Ice Age, so it even makes sense to have Mamoswine be an Ice Type that requires Ancientpower to evolve.

Mammoths are one of the most well-known prehistoric mammals ever. Unlike, say, a Cynognathus, everybody knows what they looked like. Mamoswine is not a mammoth.

Where's the trunk? Where's the majesty? Mamoswine could have had an awesome design; instead, it looks like...nothing. If only they had made a shaggy elephant just like they made a shaggy pig way back in the G/S/C days.

Oppose Nintendo's half-assed designs. I miss when they actually CARED how Pokemon looked.

NCS: FINALLY found that Doctor Who Pack!

I found that Doctor Who card pack during a quick excavation of my room yesterday. No, I do not consider cleaning my room 'cleaning;' 'excavation' is a far more accurate term regarding the amount of work entailed and the end results. In this case, the end result was a super-shiny Donna Noble card (which I THINK is a 'super-foil emboss' card found in 1/4 packs). No, I will not share her; she is one of my favorite characters from the series AND is a shiny card. ;)

Word to the wise: Be wary of trading card companies making trading card games. Yes, it's cool that one can get cards printed that way, but I have seen some TC companies (namely UDE) doing some very scary things with their TCG properties, such as creating their own fakes and deliberately misprinting cards to increase their value.

See ya!

6/7/10 NCS + Konami did something right.

Decent pulls this time, too...and awesome sleeves are awesome! Seriously, Konami, PROPS on finally making these! They have been in Japan since "Tactical Evolution," so it's good to see them finally bringing the tradition over. There are also Majestic/Savior Star Dragon sleeves out somewhere for you 5D's fans. Cool.

Before you ask...Ai-sama ordered me to buy those sleeves. Yep.

I Surrender.

No, I'm not quitting this blog in favor of my creature one. I still have plenty of card game love left in me, as my eBay watch list will attest. Speaking of, I need to ask WTF happened with my Digimon card game decks...

But I digress. I have bitched long enough about how Pokemon has been mooching Digimon's designs since Gen III (as well as, perhaps, YGO's since Gen II), about how Bakugan mooches from everybody, and so on. Corporations mooch off of each other all the time, no matter how shamelessly.

I surrender. I'm going to stop complaining about that. Digimon, though cool, is all but dead. What made it better than Pokemon originally has been all but lost; the new Digimon seem almost like Transformers or Megazords. Pokemon has won by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Deal with it. (Plus, Bandai fails hard at marketing.)

Similarly, I actually like how Bakugan mooches, sometimes. For example, Skyress looks an awful lot like Magic Knight Rayearth's Windam. The two are similar down to the color. No other monster series had ever tried to base something off of a monster from a shoujo manga (and a rather famous one at that!) that had been made YEARS before. This could grant CLAMP some extra revenue should people dig deep enough. That's not a bad thing.

There will, however, still be times when I bitch at copying...especially when it's done poorly. YGO, although based off of Magic:the Gathering itself, is EXTREMELY prone to being copied. Duel Masters is the most notorious copy of BOTH games, no matter how unique people claim that it is. That I will pick up on like no tomorrow.

No more bitching about the designs. Franchises evolve. They are just using what works.

NCS 5/18/10- SHINY!

Woot! I swear I'll have a mini-vid about Primes and Legends later, but for now, shiny! :D

Shiny: Ur Doin it Rite, Pokeymanz.

Although many hail Magic: the Gathering as the paragon of card games, it is not particularly shiny. It has exactly one (1) style of foil used for a lot of rarities. Like Pokemon, it has a full parallel set in shiny foil. Foil does not determine rarity or playability; generally, this is a wise mindset to have when it comes it card games.

Pokemon, however, takes the cake when it comes to doing shiny things right. Not only does it have a variety of creative uses for foil, when it does create premiums, they are usually pretty balanced.

To clarify, a "premium" in this case is a rarity beyond common, uncommon, rare, and foil. Currently, Pokemon has 5 different rarities: common, uncommon, rare, foil, Prime, and Legend. The two premiums have been bolded for convenience. The "reverse holo" rarity encompasses, and parallels, all rarities except premiums.

Now, some people would say that, holy crap, THOSE rarities are too much. Clearly they have not played Yu-Gi-Oh!, which has several rarities that can only be pulled after spending HUNDREDS of dollars on packs. Even scaling does not keep people from pulling crap. Pokemon is tame by comparison.

For starters, the foil ratios are not insane. Although the odds are not listed on the pack, I have personally found them to be 1 foil per about every 3 packs. These usually average about a dollar or two on eBay- slightly more for better holos. If it's not that good, there is probably someone, somewhere, who will want it in their binder. It is very easy to trade up after just a few packs.

Making this job easier are the parallel holos (also called 'reverse holos,' 'parallel rares,' and various other names) inserted into every pack. This can be a common, uncommon, rare, or even foil. It's this one-per-pack rarity that gives us Primes in HG/SS sets, Arceus in the Arceus set, and holofoil Unowns in EX: Unseen Forces.

Thanks to this system, there are many ways to pull two rares per pack. A regular PH adds a dollar or so. A rare/foil, usually a little bit more or less. Sometimes, the regular rares are worth more than their shiny counterparts; this is something you have to look up on eBay, i.e. do not guess at tournament events. Different people will trade for shiny versions of cards that are already in their decks, leaving ample opportunities for collectors and players to trade alike. (Note that this is NOT how things work in YGO; often, the shinier Konami makes something, the better it is in the game. This creates a gap, not synthesis, between collectors and players. It pits them against each other!)

The best part is that PokePremiums are good and useful in-game, but not broken. For those of you unfamiliar with CCG lingo, "broken" refers to something so good in play that the game is not balanced, and, by extension, not fun.

For example, the recent "Ho-Oh Legend" card is awesome in every regard. The art is stunning, the card is actually good (remember base set Charizard and how it kinda sucked? Nintendo fixed that), and you do not need to spend your life savings to get it.

There is a very good, cool reason why you do not need to break the bank to acquire this shiny birdie: Ho-Oh (and every Legend card) is split into two parts. Both parts need to be played at once in game, which balances the card nicely. It also means that players do not need 4 of each piece of Ho-Oh; since each card is named "Ho-Oh Legend," and a deck can only contain any 4 cards of the same name, realistically only 2 of each piece is needed. If a player using said Ho-Oh managed to get a 3rd top part, that person could trade it off for something more useful. There's enough Ho-Oh to go around, even with its rarity.

That is how a rare card SHOULD be: Shiny and pretty enough to retain its value, but also semi-useful in the game.

So, what happens when certain premiums - in this case, Primes - get reprinted? Nintendo did something smart: The tin promos have alternative artwork. This allows the pack-printed Primes to retain their value while, once again, evening the playing field. Good work!

I swear, there'll be a video for showing the Premium Rares (and how they work) whenever I get a complete set of Legends. *Still stuck with just pieces.*

I Wish I Knew How to Quit Yu.

Yes, this is another reminder as to why Konami is not getting any more of my money. YGO is notorious for being expensive and poorly-managed, yet somehow keeps a steady player base going. This is what a good dealer of crack, cardboard or otherwise, does to make money - have repeat customers and make it really, really hard to quit.

There are a number of reasons that people quit. YGO is a really freakin' expensive game that only cares about the players when the company is suffering. The amount of rarities is staggering, and there are few if any good commons to make trading up easier. Nearly all of the good cards are Super or higher these days (and back in the old days...but more on that in another entry).

Another reason is the tournament scene. YGO has always been a 'broken' game; at most, there have been 3-4 decent, game-winning decks. At worst, there has been one "Cookie Cutter" deck that never failed to cut through every other theme. If a theme cannot win, then it just isn't fun. Many themes do not stand a snowball's chance in Hell.

This is, of course, because Konami barely tries to make themes playable. It doesn't matter if they play well or not. What matters, primarily, is that they go with the anime. That way, at least the kiddies will buy packs.

By and large, the little kids keep the game ticking. There are shows designed to show how awesome YGO is. Regardless of whether the kids play the game or not, they want the cards. Parents, being parents, will buy them. As long as Konami is making money, the vicious cycle will continue.

The anime is like a defibrillator for the game. If it, the kids, or the players need a jolt to keep the franchise alive, the anime will almost certainly provide. This applies to old and new players alike; nostalgia goggles, anyone? Remember Mai's Amazoness cards? Yeah, Konami made more of those...ten years later. Nice timing.

I guess flipping Konami the bird was one of the better ways to make the announcement final. Maybe they'll get the idea that they're screwing themselves over.