Lance’s Charizard V · Sword & Shield Promos #SWSH133

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Lance’s Charizard V · 220 HP · {R}

Pokémon (Charizard) › Basic · is: V, Lance’s

{R}{R}{C} → Flamethrower : 200
Discard an Energy from this Pokémon.

weak: {W}×2 | resist: n/a | retreat: 3

· V rule: When your Pokémon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

illus. Hideki Ishikawa

Sword & Shield, Promos › Sword & Shield Promos (Promo_SWSH) › #SWSH133 : Promo · ↘ Oct 8, 2021

Mark: E · Formats: Standard: D–on, E–on · Expanded: Current

External: Pokemon.com ↗, Bulba ↗ · Shop: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, eBay ↗

Ambassador

(8 months ago)

I return to this card to muse on the Gym and VS sets because it’s kind of the only card we ever got to directly acknowledge a set we never got, and I have some thoughts on why we never got it. (This is all hypothetical. In the absence of any hard evidence, it is for the reader to consider.)

At some point, TPC told WOTC they were no longer allowed to print any cards from Gym Heroes or Gym Challenge [https://archive.ph/t7ZjY]. From context, it’s a bit hard to tell the full meaning of this, but it sounds like they were stopped from being able to include any Gym cards in any of their Base Set 2 or Legendary Collection-style sets, save a ‘couple’ (I assume the Gym cards that got Best Of reprints?). I should stop short of believing they were even forbidden from continuing any unlimited prints of the set but.. maybe?

QUESTION 1: What would be special about the Gym sets?
(Will be answered later. We’ll move on for now.)

Pokémon VS released in Japan in 2001. WOTC got questions about whether the set would come out state-side pretty early on, I think even before it released, and the answer they gave was an ambiguous “no plans” [https://archive.ph/dfoo3]. Later on, I recall that the answer became more blunt – they wouldn’t release the set because none of the cards were consequential to the meta. I can’t find the more blunt “no” I remember but I can find something close enough;

“VS was considered to be a separate and simpler game. This is a quote from TPC. These two game do not mix.” [https://archive.ph/nOujC]

This quote is as patronizing as WOTC’s infamous “think of Pokemon like checkers and Magic like chess” but manages to be even more stupid because of its incoherence.
◆ Why would TPC be telling people that VS was separate from the rest of the TCG? That’s not how you sell a TCG set. It’s also clearly *not* what they were telling people. They gave out VS half-decks to competitors at the Tropical Mega Battles, it was advertised as a set on pokemon-card.com the same way any other expansion was – and not, like, say, Cardass or something actually separate. So, no not separate.
◆ Simpler? It’s definitely the case that a majority of the cards in the set aren’t very consequential to gameplay. But let’s take them at their word – “[VS] does not mix” is a quote from TPC. Sure. But maybe it’s omitting something important. It’s a quote from TPC, to WOTC.

I originally started digging into this when I realized there was something ..weird about Pokémon Gym and Pokémon VS, and it occurred to me “what if the whole thing where WOTC said VS sucked was sour grapes and something they just said because they actually weren’t allowed to print the set” but I think that’s not it. I think TPC didn’t want them to print the set for some reason, and …kind of lied to them? Or, emphasized the wrong parts.
◆ VS is actually separate in a way. It’s the first set with the new backs. But every set subsequent has the new backs. It still *is* the Pokémon TCG. The cards *do* mix with those from prior sets.
◆ VS is a simpler game. This is actually true. But maybe that’s deliberate. Suppose I’m right and for some reason TPC didn’t want WOTC to print any Gym cards ever ever again, and found it frustrating when WOTC pushed hard and they had to grant concessions to reprint some cards like Rocket’s Hitmonchan, because they were consequential to gameplay. Well, how do you handle that if a future set comes out that you don’t want WOTC to print? You make sure none of the cards are particularly consequential to gameplay.

QUESTION 2: Why might TPC have not wanted WOTC to print VS?
(We will answer both questions now.)

QUESTION 1: What would be special about the Gym sets?
ANSWER 1: I have no idea. Maybe it’s the artwork?

There are five artists credited in Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge:
◆ Keiji Kinebuchi, a regular contributor for the era, contributes 25 cards (excluding Energy).
◆ Shinichi Yoshida, a sporadic contributor of artwork for the TCG around this time, contributes 3 cards.
◆ Sumiyoshi Kizuki, who just started off in Rocket and Vending, contributes 3 cards.
◆ Atsuko Nishida, GAME FREAK employee and regular TCG artwork contributor, contributes 30 cards.
◆ Ken Sugimori. GAME FREAK employee and…not really a regular TCG artwork contributor. His stock artwork made for the games is almost entirely what he’s been credited for in the TCG, and though these sets continue to use his stock art, art like what he did for Lt. Surge’s Electabuzz and several of his Trainer cards were almost certainly drawn for these sets. Altogether you’re looking at over 150 Sugimori cards.
◆ Imakuni? is #6. Of course we didn’t get it.

That is a LOT of Sugimori art in these sets. Why?
◆ Mitsuhiro Arita contributes art for Base, Fossil, Rocket, Neo 1, Neo 2…why was he ‘absent’ for the Gym block?
◆ Kagemaru Himeno contributes art for Jungle, Fossil, Rocket, Neo 1, Neo 2… why was he ‘absent’ for the Gym block? The answer is he wasn’t. (Your Name)’s Chansey was in Japan’s Gym 2 and we didn’t get it in English. Either way, 1 is a low contribution for Himeno at the time (though he does only contribute 2-3 cards for Neo 2.)
◆ Imakuni? contributes art for Imakuni?’s Doduo.
◆ You have a few folks who contributed artwork to the Vending cards who return to the TCG later on – e.g. Tomokazu Komiya illustrated cards for vending and then came back for Neo 1. Why not illustrate any Gym cards?

I don’t know if a breakdown of the artwork and an observation that Sugimori completely dominates the artwork in the set really answers the question, though.

QUESTION 2: Why might TPC have not wanted WOTC to print VS?
ANSWER 2: I have no idea. Maybe it’s the artwork?

Pokémon VS is a much more diverse set in terms of the variety of artists contributing to the set. In fact, it probably has more diversity than some ‘modern era’ sets and while it doesn’t have every last person who had contributed artwork to the TCG so far, it seems to be trying for it.

Usual names for the era you would probably recognize as artists for the TCG;
Atsuko Nishida, Kyoko Umemoto, Miki Tanaka, Naoyo Kimura, Yukiko Baba, Mitsuhiro Arita, Shin-ichi Yoshida, Tomokazu Komiya, Kimiya Masago, Toshinao Aoki, Yuka Morii, Hajime Kusajima, Aya Kusube, “Big Mama” Tagawa.

You might recognize some of these names but they’re still unusual;
◆ Masako Yamashita appears to be a freelance artist. She started off with Vending, then came back for Neo Revelation and this set. 13 cards for e-Card era and that’s it.
◆ Etsuya Hattori may have been a staff member of GAME FREAK at the time. The only card we ever got in English was N4 Sunkern, and the only other cards he drew are in this set. All 2 of them.
◆ Asuka Iwashita is/was a staff member of GAME FREAK. He only ever drew 4 cards, 2 in this set.
◆ Satoshi Ohta is/was a staff member of GAME FREAK. The English edition got 7 of his cards, scattered across the whole of the Gen 3 and 4 blocks.
◆ Motofumi Fujiwara is a name you probably recognize, because he went on to become a regular artwork contributor, but he’s a member of GAME FREAK and he started with this set.
◆ Hironobu Yoshida is a GAME FREAK member who has a weird presence in the TCG. My comment on N1 Lugia and Twylis’ response there means I ought to curb my enthusiasm here a bit, but let’s suppose it’s a special occasion when Yoshida contributes to a set.

CONCLUSION:

In some ways I’m contradicting myself – the Gym block is special because Ken Sugimori dominates the artwork of the entire block, the VS set is special because no single artist dominates it – and I don’t cleanly answer either question. So it’s patently ridiculous but I’m going to jump to the conclusion I want to make anyways.
◆ Maybe the Gym block was something of a labor of love for Sugimori? Someone had a soft spot for the block, anyways, and saw it as the crown of the ‘Base’ era of the TCG rather than just ‘block 2′ – so when WOTC started working on the set and basically made a mess of the localization – butchering the theme deck concept to throw it all into two large sets, omitting the cute (Your Name)’s Chansey and the fun Imakuni?’s Doduo because MUH SERIOUS CARD GAME, promoting random cards like Misty’s Goldeen to rare – they took offense. They probably wanted to end the contract with WOTC entirely, but settled for forbidding them from continuing to mess with what they saw as their favorite block of the TCG so far.
◆ Again, rather than just “here’s filler until Gen 3 is out”, VS was a purposeful set. We know e-Card wasn’t just new sets for the sake of new sets – Creatures was developing the e-Reader, and we know a lot of Creatures staff worked on artwork for the e-Card sets meant to complement the e-Reader. If e-Card was soon going to be Creatures’ sets, maybe VS was GAME FREAK’s? Depending on whether Hattori counts or not, the 5 or 6 GAME FREAK staff (don’t forget to count Nishida) don’t dominate the set, but there’s four of five of them who appear to be making a point to contribute to the set as a group, alongside the who’s who of TCG artists for the era.

Even if that’s not quite right and it’s not the artwork that makes the sets special, and it’s not necessarily someone from GAME FREAK who saw VS as special, Gym and VS could still have been special sets to *someone* up high enough, and it seems like they wanted to do what they could to keep WOTC doing to VS what they had done to the Gym block. But since the relationship between TPC and WOTC was already on the rocks, they didn’t want to tell WOTC a hard no. They decided to take a more 4D chess approach and designed a set that WOTC wouldn’t *want* to print. Then, the line about a “separate and simple game” would be a very carefully chosen phrase – precision-crafted, even – that wouldn’t be the truth, but it wouldn’t be a lie either. The phrase served its purpose to make WOTC lose interest in the set, and perhaps spared VS from being massacred in the localization process the way Gym had been.

6 comments

Sabba

(1 year ago)

Thats not right

Sabba

(1 year ago)

Thats so price and a have this card and it Only costs 10$

Ambassador

(9 months ago)

Lance’s Charizard was a card in the Japan-only* Pokémon VS expansion released in 2001. The card was a Basic Pokémon with a Flamethrower attack with the same Energy cost and discard requirement. It seems ironic that this card apparently hasn’t been released in Japan, since they’re the country that actually got the set. With E block done and over with, it seems unlikely they’ll get the card at all. (But never say never until we at least see what VSTAR Universe is going to include.)

*Sort of. Some of the cards from Pokémon VS were included in a special Tyranitar Half Deck distributed to participants of the 2001 Tropical Mega Battle, and decks were made to match the language of the participants – Japanese players got Japanese prints, but English players got special English prints, German players got German prints, and so on. See also pokumon for some scans https://pokumon.com/promo_set/vs-tropical-mega-battle/

Ambassador

(8 months ago)

I return to this card to muse on the Gym and VS sets because it’s kind of the only card we ever got to directly acknowledge a set we never got, and I have some thoughts on why we never got it. (This is all hypothetical. In the absence of any hard evidence, it is for the reader to consider.)

At some point, TPC told WOTC they were no longer allowed to print any cards from Gym Heroes or Gym Challenge [https://archive.ph/t7ZjY]. From context, it’s a bit hard to tell the full meaning of this, but it sounds like they were stopped from being able to include any Gym cards in any of their Base Set 2 or Legendary Collection-style sets, save a ‘couple’ (I assume the Gym cards that got Best Of reprints?). I should stop short of believing they were even forbidden from continuing any unlimited prints of the set but.. maybe?

QUESTION 1: What would be special about the Gym sets?
(Will be answered later. We’ll move on for now.)

Pokémon VS released in Japan in 2001. WOTC got questions about whether the set would come out state-side pretty early on, I think even before it released, and the answer they gave was an ambiguous “no plans” [https://archive.ph/dfoo3]. Later on, I recall that the answer became more blunt – they wouldn’t release the set because none of the cards were consequential to the meta. I can’t find the more blunt “no” I remember but I can find something close enough;

“VS was considered to be a separate and simpler game. This is a quote from TPC. These two game do not mix.” [https://archive.ph/nOujC]

This quote is as patronizing as WOTC’s infamous “think of Pokemon like checkers and Magic like chess” but manages to be even more stupid because of its incoherence.
◆ Why would TPC be telling people that VS was separate from the rest of the TCG? That’s not how you sell a TCG set. It’s also clearly *not* what they were telling people. They gave out VS half-decks to competitors at the Tropical Mega Battles, it was advertised as a set on pokemon-card.com the same way any other expansion was – and not, like, say, Cardass or something actually separate. So, no not separate.
◆ Simpler? It’s definitely the case that a majority of the cards in the set aren’t very consequential to gameplay. But let’s take them at their word – “[VS] does not mix” is a quote from TPC. Sure. But maybe it’s omitting something important. It’s a quote from TPC, to WOTC.

I originally started digging into this when I realized there was something ..weird about Pokémon Gym and Pokémon VS, and it occurred to me “what if the whole thing where WOTC said VS sucked was sour grapes and something they just said because they actually weren’t allowed to print the set” but I think that’s not it. I think TPC didn’t want them to print the set for some reason, and …kind of lied to them? Or, emphasized the wrong parts.
◆ VS is actually separate in a way. It’s the first set with the new backs. But every set subsequent has the new backs. It still *is* the Pokémon TCG. The cards *do* mix with those from prior sets.
◆ VS is a simpler game. This is actually true. But maybe that’s deliberate. Suppose I’m right and for some reason TPC didn’t want WOTC to print any Gym cards ever ever again, and found it frustrating when WOTC pushed hard and they had to grant concessions to reprint some cards like Rocket’s Hitmonchan, because they were consequential to gameplay. Well, how do you handle that if a future set comes out that you don’t want WOTC to print? You make sure none of the cards are particularly consequential to gameplay.

QUESTION 2: Why might TPC have not wanted WOTC to print VS?
(We will answer both questions now.)

QUESTION 1: What would be special about the Gym sets?
ANSWER 1: I have no idea. Maybe it’s the artwork?

There are five artists credited in Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge:
◆ Keiji Kinebuchi, a regular contributor for the era, contributes 25 cards (excluding Energy).
◆ Shinichi Yoshida, a sporadic contributor of artwork for the TCG around this time, contributes 3 cards.
◆ Sumiyoshi Kizuki, who just started off in Rocket and Vending, contributes 3 cards.
◆ Atsuko Nishida, GAME FREAK employee and regular TCG artwork contributor, contributes 30 cards.
◆ Ken Sugimori. GAME FREAK employee and…not really a regular TCG artwork contributor. His stock artwork made for the games is almost entirely what he’s been credited for in the TCG, and though these sets continue to use his stock art, art like what he did for Lt. Surge’s Electabuzz and several of his Trainer cards were almost certainly drawn for these sets. Altogether you’re looking at over 150 Sugimori cards.
◆ Imakuni? is #6. Of course we didn’t get it.

That is a LOT of Sugimori art in these sets. Why?
◆ Mitsuhiro Arita contributes art for Base, Fossil, Rocket, Neo 1, Neo 2…why was he ‘absent’ for the Gym block?
◆ Kagemaru Himeno contributes art for Jungle, Fossil, Rocket, Neo 1, Neo 2… why was he ‘absent’ for the Gym block? The answer is he wasn’t. (Your Name)’s Chansey was in Japan’s Gym 2 and we didn’t get it in English. Either way, 1 is a low contribution for Himeno at the time (though he does only contribute 2-3 cards for Neo 2.)
◆ Imakuni? contributes art for Imakuni?’s Doduo.
◆ You have a few folks who contributed artwork to the Vending cards who return to the TCG later on – e.g. Tomokazu Komiya illustrated cards for vending and then came back for Neo 1. Why not illustrate any Gym cards?

I don’t know if a breakdown of the artwork and an observation that Sugimori completely dominates the artwork in the set really answers the question, though.

QUESTION 2: Why might TPC have not wanted WOTC to print VS?
ANSWER 2: I have no idea. Maybe it’s the artwork?

Pokémon VS is a much more diverse set in terms of the variety of artists contributing to the set. In fact, it probably has more diversity than some ‘modern era’ sets and while it doesn’t have every last person who had contributed artwork to the TCG so far, it seems to be trying for it.

Usual names for the era you would probably recognize as artists for the TCG;
Atsuko Nishida, Kyoko Umemoto, Miki Tanaka, Naoyo Kimura, Yukiko Baba, Mitsuhiro Arita, Shin-ichi Yoshida, Tomokazu Komiya, Kimiya Masago, Toshinao Aoki, Yuka Morii, Hajime Kusajima, Aya Kusube, “Big Mama” Tagawa.

You might recognize some of these names but they’re still unusual;
◆ Masako Yamashita appears to be a freelance artist. She started off with Vending, then came back for Neo Revelation and this set. 13 cards for e-Card era and that’s it.
◆ Etsuya Hattori may have been a staff member of GAME FREAK at the time. The only card we ever got in English was N4 Sunkern, and the only other cards he drew are in this set. All 2 of them.
◆ Asuka Iwashita is/was a staff member of GAME FREAK. He only ever drew 4 cards, 2 in this set.
◆ Satoshi Ohta is/was a staff member of GAME FREAK. The English edition got 7 of his cards, scattered across the whole of the Gen 3 and 4 blocks.
◆ Motofumi Fujiwara is a name you probably recognize, because he went on to become a regular artwork contributor, but he’s a member of GAME FREAK and he started with this set.
◆ Hironobu Yoshida is a GAME FREAK member who has a weird presence in the TCG. My comment on N1 Lugia and Twylis’ response there means I ought to curb my enthusiasm here a bit, but let’s suppose it’s a special occasion when Yoshida contributes to a set.

CONCLUSION:

In some ways I’m contradicting myself – the Gym block is special because Ken Sugimori dominates the artwork of the entire block, the VS set is special because no single artist dominates it – and I don’t cleanly answer either question. So it’s patently ridiculous but I’m going to jump to the conclusion I want to make anyways.
◆ Maybe the Gym block was something of a labor of love for Sugimori? Someone had a soft spot for the block, anyways, and saw it as the crown of the ‘Base’ era of the TCG rather than just ‘block 2′ – so when WOTC started working on the set and basically made a mess of the localization – butchering the theme deck concept to throw it all into two large sets, omitting the cute (Your Name)’s Chansey and the fun Imakuni?’s Doduo because MUH SERIOUS CARD GAME, promoting random cards like Misty’s Goldeen to rare – they took offense. They probably wanted to end the contract with WOTC entirely, but settled for forbidding them from continuing to mess with what they saw as their favorite block of the TCG so far.
◆ Again, rather than just “here’s filler until Gen 3 is out”, VS was a purposeful set. We know e-Card wasn’t just new sets for the sake of new sets – Creatures was developing the e-Reader, and we know a lot of Creatures staff worked on artwork for the e-Card sets meant to complement the e-Reader. If e-Card was soon going to be Creatures’ sets, maybe VS was GAME FREAK’s? Depending on whether Hattori counts or not, the 5 or 6 GAME FREAK staff (don’t forget to count Nishida) don’t dominate the set, but there’s four of five of them who appear to be making a point to contribute to the set as a group, alongside the who’s who of TCG artists for the era.

Even if that’s not quite right and it’s not the artwork that makes the sets special, and it’s not necessarily someone from GAME FREAK who saw VS as special, Gym and VS could still have been special sets to *someone* up high enough, and it seems like they wanted to do what they could to keep WOTC doing to VS what they had done to the Gym block. But since the relationship between TPC and WOTC was already on the rocks, they didn’t want to tell WOTC a hard no. They decided to take a more 4D chess approach and designed a set that WOTC wouldn’t *want* to print. Then, the line about a “separate and simple game” would be a very carefully chosen phrase – precision-crafted, even – that wouldn’t be the truth, but it wouldn’t be a lie either. The phrase served its purpose to make WOTC lose interest in the set, and perhaps spared VS from being massacred in the localization process the way Gym had been.

- Jiří z PoděbradAmbassador
  
  (8 months ago)
  
  Thank you for sharing all these great thoughts and insights :) Wonderful analysis!
  
- TwylisAmbassador
  
  (8 months ago)
  
  Solid thoughts, though I would emphasize the card back issue further. TPC wanted Wizards to adopt the new card backs, and Wizards refused. In the long term, the old backs were intended to not be playable with the new backs, which is likely where Wizards got the idea of VS being a “separate and simpler game”. The e-Card era was also competetively inconsequential for the most part — I think TPC just consciously wanted a “weaker” meta than they had in Gen 1 and early gen 2, now that they could have a clean slate with the card backs changed.
  
  Making the cards simpler to discourage Wizards from getting their grubby hands on it is certainly possible, but I present another conspitacy: Wizards getting to print VS was contingent on Wizards playing ball and switching to the new card backs. When Wizards refused, they decided to make misleading excuses on why they couldn’t print it, but in reality they probably totally could — but only if they were willing to cooperate and accept the international card backs. Hence us having an upside-down pokeball button to this day.

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