Super Scoop Up · Black & White (BLW) #103

6 comments

1. 

   Ambassador

   (1 year ago)

   This is one of only two cards––

   Eh, forget that. I have a better fact. This is one of 4 Trainer cards in the set – the others being Energy Switch, Pokémon Communication and Switch – that are printed without a Pokémon in the artwork for the first time. Barring some incidental reprints, they never would be printed with Pokémon in the artwork again. I’ve seen some comments on the site suggesting that the classification of Trainers into Items/Supporters/Stadiums (as opposed to leaving some alone as ‘Trainers’) seemed to make things sterile, but that’s not quite right, either. The Japanese HGSS block is actually what introduced the classification, intl. was just slow to catch up, and there’s an abundance of Trainers with neat cards. Nor is it really the absence of Pokémon in the artwork – Spirit Links and Memory cards are Items with Pokémon in the artwork, but just look at them. They’re done as if by an SOP, with no deviation from the standard template allowed. Trainer cards provided an opportunity for the TCG to have its own flavor and starting with this set.. they began to have a bit less flavor.

   The modern state of the TCG has a lot of problems, in my opinion, and because I skipped Arceus – mid-XY I was sort of oblivious to the cut-off. But going through the archived cards on the set, the entire BW block is abysmal, and it’s right from the get-go. The question isn’t the artwork, it’s the direction. And it lines up with what happened in other sectors of the franchise. GAME FREAK decided to make a Pokémon game that, for no apparent reason, didn’t feature any prior Pokémon in its Regional Pokédex. The anime decided to make Team Rocket trio serious characters for …why? It’s baffling that in every pillar of the franchise they decided to shake things up when things seems to be perfectly fine. HGSS are beloved games that sold well, the anime was doing as well as you could expect it to do.. I am not sure of the TCG so I won’t speculate. Nonetheless.

   For me, Black and White is the worst set in the TCG. Many Item cards lost their soul here. Professor Juniper appears to usher in the first TCG block with no original characters as Supporters in the era (a miserable distinction it appears to be unique in). I’m not going to comment on this also being the set that debuted the Full Arts. I originally sat out the TCG from Arceus – mid-XY – and going back, Arceus is a fine set, HGSS is good, XY is a bit eh, but BW? BW is completely uninteresting to me. There’s a very strong before and after with it, too. The other sectors learned from their mistake – XY makes a point of interrupting the story to give you a choice of one of the three starters from RGB, the anime recanted on its weird attempt to reinvent the wheel (not only reverting Team Rocket to comic relief but made a point of reverting their outfits to the iconic white, midway through the BW anime), but in a lot of ways, the TCG feels like it hasn’t fully recovered. The newly announced S12 Paradigm Trigger looks neat, but barely holds a candle to Neo Discovery? I don’t think it’s a question of nostalgia. It’s a question of Generation 5, and its consequences, which have been a disaster for the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

   (The fact I cut off was that this is one of only 2 cards Daisuke Iwamoto is credited for in the EN TCG. Since Japan never got CL Palkia 19, this is the *only* card Daisuke Iwamoto is credited for in the JP TCG.)

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     TwylisAmbassador

     (1 year ago)

     I’m in absolute agreement. Gen 5 was abominable for the meta as well, being a sudden surge of absurd power creep on basics, including the basic-only EX cards, coupled with the functional return of Gust of Wind in Pokemon Catcher that made evolving bench-sitters free prize cards. And I *would* contend it represented an immense drop in artwork quality too, including the advent of 5ban Graphics at their absolute worst (essentially just recreating stock art with 3D models) and a general drop in artwork quality in general after how phenomenal the HGSS block was.

     While the rest of the franchise was doing well, though, I hear the TCG sold quite poorly in Gen 4 despite its very healthy meta overall. Which is what likely prompted a very conscious manipulation of the meta to favor EX cards while rendering single-prize evolutions almost entirely unplayable.

     Never knew HGSS was where the Item system originated, though. Always viewed that as the one good thing Gen 5 did for the TCG — but apparently it wasn’t even the originator of that.

     The general “sterilization” aspect also reminds me quite a bit of what happened to the Mario & Luigi RPG series. Once creative with unique designs and lots of original characters, it eventually stagnated in the name of brand consistency, with everything being painfully on-model and “safe” in later games.

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       Warnock 2022Twylis

       (1 year ago)

       BW is much vaunted as the debut of the Full Arts, but even that cool feature was first revealed in HGSS (sorta) — Lugia LEGEND and Ho-oh LEGEND were kinda the bridge between Lv.Xs and full arts.

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       AmbassadorTwylis

       (1 year ago)

       w/r/t the 5ban; I mean, a lot of my comments on the site lately have been in service of suggesting a formal continuity from CR CG gangs, which I personally love, through to 5ban Graphics, which I don’t mind, but see much maligned. And going through this stuff, everything really does seem mostly fine and then you just hit this set and it’s like a brick wall. But why? For the most part, it’s the same people. It’s not like Creatures had a complete turnover of its staff for the debut of Gen 5 of a franchise they only have 1/3rd control of, more likely it’s a question of a direction coming from “higher above” – which is why in the above editoralism I contexualized it alongside awkward changes in the games and anime. I know the former can be contentious and the latter seems bordering on irrelevant to some, but to me it seems relevant, somehow.

       Like I said, I don’t mind 5ban, but I see why people don’t like it. They make a horrible first impression here, and it’s bizarre because it’s very, very likely the same people working on CG artwork in previous sets are the same people making CG artwork as “5ban Graphics”. They’re capable of better. They’re just …not being allowed? On that front, it’s tough for me to do anything to speculate.

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         TwylisAmbassador

         (1 year ago)

         5ban is definitely more capable than most their artwork indicates. There was a brief time early in the Sun & Moon block where their GX arts were actually quite good — Sylveon GX, Turtonator GX, Alolan Ninetales GX, and Decidueye GX are good examples. Dynamic poses, varied perspective, lighting that isn’t painfully flat, and textures that are neither too basic or overly realistic. Then the quality suddenly plummeted again, with the Ultra Beast cards being *especially* atrocious.

         Sun & Moon was a huge jump in artwork quality in general, especially compared to the rocky start of XY. 5ban was part of that, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t sustain it — likely the direction aspect you theorize. But it’s still odd that higher-ups would *tell* them to make worse artwork, unless making good artwork is simply too time-consuming and budget-intensive for it to be mass-produced. Perhaps the reason Sun & Moon’s good GX art is so frontloaded is simply because they had done most the artwork well ahead of time, since the generation hadn’t yet begun.

         Also, as an aside to the above, I don’t like CG full-arts ;)
         So that addition of Gen 5 has zero appeal to me.

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           TwylisTwylis

           (1 year ago)

           Oh, and the original non-promo Xerneas EX and Yveltal EX are also *phenomenal*, way back from beginning of Gen 6. Hard to believe they’re even 5ban.