Pitch Black Feels Like Pokémon Is Holding Back | Pack Fresh Podcast Ep. 31

Do we have another stinker on our hands? Or is Pitch Black going to be an absolute banger set for Pokemon? Welcome back to the Pack Fresh podcast where we talk about all things Pokemon TCG and give you a little peek behind the curtain of what it's like to be a seller in this crazy hobby. And today we're doing exactly that. We're talking about the brand new set, Pitch Black, featuring my boy, Mega Darkrai. I think it's going to be good. I think it's going to be solid. I have some thoughts for sure. I have some thoughts for sure. I think it's definitely a step up from the last couple, but yeah, let's get into it. Yeah. Coming off of Perfect Order into Chaos Rising, all single set Japanese sets turned into English. Pitch Black is no different. 115 cards in the set. 6 Mega Evolution Pokemon, 6 Sirs, 11 illustration rares, 18 ultra rares, and more than 20 trainer cards. What do you think? It's a similar story, right? I. It makes me sad, right? Like, I. I like a larger set, right? Like only having six Sirs, just like it feels like not that many cards and then like 11 illustration rares just doesn't feel like a whole lot of meat on the bone. Right? And I mean, we've said this in other episodes, the last two sets, Perfect Ordering, Chaos Rising obviously are not two of the most fan favorite sets, but if those two sets were combined into one set, it'd be kind of a banger, right? Like, there's definitely some nice cards in both those sets. And like, I think their powers combined, I think it would be pretty good. And like, this is like a similar story. I think there's definitely some better stuff which we'll get into in this set. But like, then if you did that same thing and you combined this set with our next set, which is the race set, we don't even know what that one looks like. But like, we already know that these two sets would be like an unreal set to collect. So that's, you know, immediately that's just like, I'm like, I just wish there was more. Right? I really, I really think the smaller sets, the fewer amount of Japanese sets this year than in normal years, I really think they're just ramping up production on the 30th. I mean, they have to be printing, printing, printing, especially because they're trying to release the set in all countries on the same day, right? That creates a different printing cycle. I mean, these smaller sets have gotta be easier to print for them. Not as many cards. I don't know how the logistics of all that work, but we know for sure they haven't reprinted booster boxes or even like ETBs of the. The main sets and the subsets that they've made. None. You know, ancillary product reprints and a few other like Costco boxes, you know, Target, Walmart, Sam's Club boxes, whatever. But no reprints for the mainline products. It's. It's my theory, like this next set, which when we do the episode for the 30th, I'm so excited. It's going to be so good. We got a little tease, a little taste today of what the products are going to be. We won't get into it too much, but they look just phenomenal. The 30th is going to be something crazy. So. And you know, maybe they did this on purpose too, right? Like flatline a couple sets before the big hurrah. You know, they're the number one IP for a reason. They know what they're doing. So true. You know, tone it down. If you think about it too, it's like you have these three sets, you know, two in a row. They're like, well, kind of whatever. Gas rising. Maybe you just, you know, a little bit better dark rye, little bit better. And then you have like a little bit of momentum going into the 30th. Bang. Next set after that, Rayquaza. Then rumored after that. You know, Ruby Sapphire is a rumor. Who knows if it's true or not. But there's a lot of smoke coming from that potential fire. Right. So it's like you have all this hype coming from the 30th. Then after that you have just banger after banger after banger and into the next generation next year. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. Do know what they're doing. What do you think the best trainer out of P in this set? I mean like I. I want to go misty. Right. Just nostalgia sake. Right. Like misty as a kid, that's like, you know, one of the OGs. It's always cool seeing like a Misty card. Yeah. I wish they made an sir. If they made an sir of Misty, it would be. People would be loving that. Yeah. But out of the other trainers, I think, I think the Gwyn is really cool. I. I'm not the biggest chandelier fan, but like I like the design of the card. I like the colors on the card. That's pretty sick. And then the was it the Gladion connects with One of the IRS is pretty cool. Was that the. Does that connect with the Silvali? It does. Yeah. Yeah. That's gotta look pretty sick. I see that now. Yeah. I mean, obviously the two trainer sirs. Great. Misty would definitely be a chaste sir had they. They made that. But like I said, I just think they're toning it down on purpose. Like they know. They know that. I mean like they knew if the mist. If they put a Misty sir, it would at least for sure in Japanese, it would be the top chase over Darkrai. Right. Like, who knows if that would translate over to English, but it could. Misty's super popular. I think this set shines in the sirs. I think it is extremely top heavy. These Sirs, like these set of sirs are pretty banging, right? Like the two trainers are really cool, but obviously you have some of the other big dogs. We'll get into the Mega Zero. Aura is so sick. I like it. I like the like the blue Lightning. Like it's. There's not a lot of detail. Right. It. It almost looks like a fancy full art, basically. That's what. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. It remind. I get like black and white era vibes of like those full arts, but just plussed a little bit. Right. Like it's just modernized a little bit more. It's pretty sick. And then that brings us into the Mega Chandelure. As far as Chandelure cards go, I like this one. I mean, it's nothing crazy, right? Yeah, like it just. I don't know. Chandelier has a. Has an audience though. I. I'm always surprised. There's a lot of people who are fans of Chandelure. It's a pretty cool card. I mean, again, it's similar vein to the Megazero Aura doesn't have like a whole lot going on in terms of like outside of the Pokemon itself, but it's just a stylized version of. Of the Pokemon itself. I think. I think it's cool. Is it one I'm chasing? Not necessarily, but I'm excited to see it in person. But what do you think about the Morpeko banging? This card is so sick. This was the most shocking card for me out of any of them. It is so good. It is so freaking cool. If I didn't have reservations for Darkrai, like, this would easily be my favorite card in the whole set. Just the art, the color, style, like awesome. Yeah. No, that this is going to be. Which is going to be nice to have two sir. Yeah, that Are, you know, of a like, better looking caliber. Usually it's like we've had just one and then that's it. Right. Or even in perfect order, we had none real, like the Meowth, I guess. Yeah. Like, the main star usually is the Chased sir. And then, you know, you got the Meowth. This having like two that are great. Yeah. Man, it is such a cool card. It is really sick. Then we have, you know, the two trainers. Nothing like bomb. A little bit. Nothing. Nothing crazy, you know. Right. The connecting art, it's cool. People, like, connects with the Pokemon. It's. Other than that, it's just, you know, it's whatever. Some of the trainer cards are really awesome, really detailed. This is just. It's okay, you know. Then you get into the dark. The Darkrai, outside of reminding me of an old grandpa in the face, just can't unsee it. I just see it and it's like some old cartoon grandpa. But outside of that, that card is absolutely just awesome. It is. It's spectacular. I mean, going into this set, I was a little bit concerned. I love Darkrai. I collect Darkrai. I am not the biggest fan of the mega Darkrai design. When that released, I was kind of just like, how do you mess this up? Like, it's such an easy Pokemon to just be like, oh, yeah, make him just more badass looking, more menacing looking. And somehow it like, it's just. It's not my favorite. But I was like, I think the artists for tcg, they've done it time and time again. They make goofy looking Pokemon look really, really good. Right. Nobody liked Mega Dragonite when those first renderings came out from the game. And then that sir came out and it looks spectacular. Right. Very similar here. You know, I still think he looks goofy, but the art style just suits it so well. And it, man, it is a cool card. And that's just by seeing the photos. And like, we've obviously seen the Japanese version with the texture. The English usually has a little bit of a different finish. It's gonna look even better in person. Like, that's the great thing about Pokemon as a whole is just the art. The art. Basically. It's like holding little paintings. The way that they finish these off and you have the different texture patterns that they add to this and the reflections. But just like they've kind of went into a lot of like brighter, more psychedelic colors in recent set. And now this being just like black, like very dark and not like black bolt white flare where we had the bwr like Completely black monochrome, but like adding in a component where it's. It's just like more depth and darkness. It's. Yeah, it's a really cool card. It is really sick. And I. One of the things I'm just disappointed in the set as a whole. Right. Is obviously we talked about the size of the set, but they really leaned into the. The darkness in this set all through the commons and a lot of the illustration rares and all of these Sirs, for the most part. Right. The Zera Aura, the Chandelure Dark, Ryan Morpeko, all are very dark. And I appreciate that a lot. Right. Like, I. I think it's really cool when a set really stays on the theme. And they just really did with this. And. And I wish there was more. Right. I. I really wish that they could have just expanded that more because they did a great job. Another cool thing I've seen about this Mega Darkrai card is the same artist that did the golds, the four golds from Crown Zenith. And I don't know if it's like, intentional or if it's just because it's the same artist. She decided to put it kind of in a similar style, but they like connect with. With those golds and it just like when you put it next to the golds, pops, it's really cool. I'm excited to kind of see that also in person with how that kind of all works together. Speaking of golds, how do you feel about the gold? I'm so over if this gold. Somebody said in stream today if this. If they made this gold monochrome like the Zekrom, how sick would that be? Yeah, it would be incredible. Yeah. Like, why are we stuck on the gold? And it's like they're not changing the design. It's just the same style. Yeah. Obviously it's different, like a different pattern, a different whatever, but the. The main picture just looks so similar to the sir. And then they're just like, make it gold. And like, some of them. Some of them work. Right. Like, I think the Greninja gold really looks cool. I think the Charizard gold from Ascended, I think looks really cool. The original two Lucario and Gardevoir look look nice, but like, it's just like lost its like, sheen to me a little bit. Like, the Rarity is obviously cool, but I just wish they would have done a little bit more like something, you know, I just. Yeah, they. They left a little bit to be desired. But like I said, I. I really think that's part of Their plan, right? Like, yeah, no, somebody, one of the artists bring up a picture and they're like, it's too good. I need less. Need less. You're doing too much. Take it back a notch. I just, I just don't know the full plan, but I know that like for the 30th, they' pulling all the stops and we'll obviously know more in a month or so on that. But everything they've shown so far has just been unreal. This set, it's going to be a normal full set. So you're going to get booster boxes, ETBs, booster bundles, three pack blisters, character boxes. You'll get pretty much everything. Check lane blisters and sleeve blisters. It'll be a full set. So you won't have any shortage of being able to find different products on. On this one. Still might be tough. I mean, I think they're not to keep up with demand still. Yeah. And we're at the point where everyone's into Pokemon and we keep getting more and more collectors into the space every day. And like, even like some people post stuff, I see it and they're like, oh, there's stuff at my local store, you know, I don't know, maybe like they live in a very rural area. Yeah, I mean, I have an out in California here that, I mean, there isn't anything like I think on a shelf in years, literally at this point. And I only live in a town of like 26,000 and I haven't seen anything on the shelf. And at least three, four years, like since right outside of COVID when everything kind of just dipped and there's stuff everywhere. It's just been nothing. So. And I've noticed like, so Target changing their rule. I think I saw like two total products per person. That's great. You know, you're really, you're really like helping to create, spreading the, the product that way. But then like, in your mind, are you stopping every day out of your way to get two packs? That just doesn't make any sense either. Yeah, I mean, maybe if it's two ETBs, it might make sense. Right? But like, they're down to like sleeve packs or like, what, what are we doing? Like, I'm not waiting in line for three hours to get two sleeve packs. Like, yeah, when I seen it's not even to like resell. I'm not like, that's not even. I'm not even talking about reselling. Just to rip it. Like to rip it. MSRP. Like, I'm not doing that, I mean, for two packs is crazy. I'd rather pay $20 a pack for a hundred packs than take eight hours of my day. Right. It's just a waste of time. I mean, if you have that kind of time, that's awesome. Right. More to those people that that's all they have to do in a day is like, yeah, I can jump to this store and this store and get them. And then some people enjoy it too. Right. Like there is like that side. Right. Like there is people who enjoy going and the experience of waiting in line with other people who are also there for the same thing. You know, getting an ETB or two or an ETB and something else. Right. Like, I get that for sure. But if it's like an every week type of thing. No, I just have a hard time being like that. I don't know a lot. It's a lot of time to. I don't have a lot of free time either. So it's like. Right. Convenience is everything. Whereas of course, like, cost is everything to a lot of people as well. And it is fun. It's fun to. For the chase. Right. And then you finally find product in the wild. Sure. That's great. You know, or you could be the third type of collector that just doesn't try and complain on both ends. Perfect. That's everyone's favorite collector in the Pokemon space. So I just. I don't know. I'm the same way with this set as I have been even the past two. There's just a couple cards that catch your eye, really. They're just kind of stringing it along. I don't know what happens. I mean, chaos rising. The prices of boxes and like the physical products has held. Yeah. Which is weird because the. The price of the cards hasn't. Yeah. Price of the cards have dipped like a ton. Yeah. Settled more. And then like, we're not going to see a ton of these cards back for quite a while from grading. Right. So there's no grading upside. You don't know where the market's going to really reach on something like that. So it's. It. We're kind of at a weird, weird point where especially with this set coming out, PSA is already closed. Obviously people are going to express the dark ry the golds. Probably a couple, like a few other cards from the set. But like none of these irs. And we haven't even talked about the IRS yet. But yeah, I don't really know if anybody's like, express grading. I don't think it makes sense. Like, the. We have some cool irs for sure, for sure in this set. But I. What's the. The most popular one going to be worth in a 10200? Yeah, I mean, the Slowbro is banging the slow, bro. I love that. It's probably. I love that card. It's probably my favorite one, honestly. Yeah. But again, like, you're saying it's like I. Nobody. We're not. We're not express grading that. Spending over $100 to grade that card to maybe get maybe 300. Who knows, right? Like, and then you get a nine. Yeah, exactly, man. I mean, let's kind of break down the IRS here. I. There's. There's a decent. There's a handful of them I really like for sure. Ones that I like the best are not really the most popular Pokemon, right? So the Bastiodon, I think that artwork style is cool. And I think they used a very similar art style in the Dhelmise. And I just. I don't know. I like that art style like that. And the Del Mis, to me, that's like one of the top. My favorite ones in the set. But are you going to be chasing that? I don't know. Like, probably not. But I think it looks outside of the Slowbro as like, one of my top three. I think a lot of these are going to be those types of cards that when you open it and you pull it, you're like, well, this is actually really nice. Right? But on paper, you're like, you know, am I really excited about a Goldeen, Right? Goldeen card is nice, but, like, for me, my favorites are the Slowbro, for sure. I really like the Thieval, I think, is a really nice card. The Armor Rouge, I think is really cool too. And then I don't know what it is, but that Toucanon, I think, is banging. I like the Toucanon also, I think. I think that card is banging, dude. Yeah, I'm just like, man, I don't know what it is either, but yeah, it just looks just. It just looks good. But it's like, you know, like, I'll definitely grab those cards, put them in the binder. But I'm not, like, I'm not chasing the set for a lot of these irs, I think, like I said earlier is like, this set is so top heavy. The Sirs, we're chasing those outside of that. And the Thieval and the Toucanon, they have a very similar art style as well. Kind of like the. The Delmise and the Bastiodon I mean those two look similar. The other two look similar. I mean the, the Fomantis and the Primarina. More the like cutesy binder collectors chases out of this set and then the Sil Valley that we talked about. That connects to the. Yeah. The other guy. As far as like what they're looking for in the like cutesy binder collectors, I feel like they're going to be stuck with just those two. Yeah. Flowers and the different colors and I don't know. The Lurantis full art. I mean full arts are always the same thing to me. Contrasting colors on the art. It's just nothing that really draws me in. It just. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm kind of with you on those. Just. I don't know. I've never. I don't know of one full art that I could just be like. That was such a great full art card. Yeah, they, they've lost their sheen from the old, you know, the old full arts. Now that we have the crazy arts and stuff. Like they don't hit the same that they did in like XY Black and White Arrow. If you were going to hold one product from the set long term, what are you going to hold? Gotta be a booster box. I mean either that or Pokemon center etb. Right. You have Dark R on the, on the outside. It's a really cool looking etb. It's not a bad one either. I like that for this set. It. It. They have. It's a very dark ETB art and they haven't really done anything like one color esque like this. I, I agree. I think the, the ETB will be a good one. What's the ETB promo going to be? The Zarude. The Zarude. Not my, not my favorite of the promos we've had recently for etv's. But. All right. It's all right. I mean they changed the ETB game by adding promos in every single one. I mean you go back before the ETBs and like the boxes are so expensive sealed. It's like for what reason? For sealed packs. Only if you're a sealed collector does it make sense. Right. Outside of that you're not getting. There's nothing in the box that makes the value go up. So. Right. ETBs are just. That makes them tough for sure. I agree with you. I think booster boxes number one hold out of pretty much any set. Right. If you like the, the art style of it, of course. I mean outside of if they have like a UPC or an spc. Booster boxes are the way to go, right? Always. Do you think the Dark Rye has what it takes to become a top 10 of the era? Of the era? I think so. I think it has. I think it has an opportunity. I think Ascended is really tough because it is so stacked. Right. And like, it just doesn't stop. Yeah. So. So aside from that, you gotta beat out. You're not gonna beat the Charizard. No. I think it obviously beats the Greninja, the Zygarde. Yeah. I don't. Mega Base. Like, I. I love those cards. They just haven't really caught on like I thought they would. The Gardevoir has been. It's went from like 350 up to like 7, 750 in a PSA 10 now. So it's starting to. Yeah, it's starting to kind of get there better. But I think that this so great. And I think this Dark R, though, is just. It's special. I agree. I think as of right now, I mean, you're competing with Ascended and you know, the G. My opinion out of this entire era so far. So when it's all said and done, like, who knows how the 30th cards are going to kind of pan out. Right. If there's going to be a crazy top chase, like the futuristic Rares, maybe Rayquaza sir will for sure be in the top five. Without. Without a doubt. So who knows? I mean, I think it has a shot. I think it should probably be in there as it stands currently. I also don't know how long Mega goes for. Yeah, well, the beat till next year and then they come out with Gen 10 and they started one. The rumor though is that Gen 10, like the game itself isn't coming out until the end of next year. So that would make more sense because then Mega would go for the two years like normal. Yeah, you'd get the. The correct amount of sets then. Yeah. So we'll get 30th. We'll get the Ray. We'll get. Probably. I think it's a Lucario set is what. Another Lucario set is what we're rumored. And then the next special set is that rumored Ruby and Sapphire set, which will be. Yeah, unreal. That'll be crazy. So we've had. What have we had out this year? We've had Phantasmal Flames was November of last year. Okay. Ascended Heroes. Was that the first set of the year? I believe so. So we got Ascended. So you had one special set and then now you've Hit. And then this will be the third standard set. Yeah. Because perfect order was in March, so you had perfect order chaos, now pitch black. So they're on track for the same amount of sets, but they're print like four main sets, two subsets. But in Japan, they were putting out a set every month, and now they haven't been. And so now we're not getting the large sets in the US I'm curious after the 30th if they go back to that after they so much, because we really don't know. Right. Like the Ray set. I think people are just assuming it's going to be just the Ray. It could be since the timing doesn't really work right now as it sits. Maybe they go back to double sets. Right. And we get Ray with Lucario. Those two sets together, create that. Who knows? I would like that because I think like another Lucario set as cool as the Mega Lucario Y looks or X, whatever the new one is. I forget it's a very cool design. I just. Like, we already had Lucario, right? Like, do we need. We need another Lucario set already? Like, we can do better than that. It's strange, but if you pair it with Rayquaza, it makes more sense. Right? Like, okay, cool. Yeah, I'm down. Yeah. And I mean the 30th set to come out September 16th, the race set. More than likely November, last two sets of the year. So I mean, you have all of September, October, half. It's like two full months. Right. And I think in Japanese, the race set comes out before the 30th, if I'm not mistaken. If it does, I would assume. Yeah, let's. Let's check that out. It will release in Japan on July 31, the race set. That makes sense because Pitch Black is set to come out the 17th. Right. And they always leak the Japanese right around the time of that. So I mean, July 31st, the race set. Yeah. Then in, it's a global release of September 16th. And then do they put out another Japanese set? So it says here the. The upcoming Japan release schedule. July 31 is the mega Ray. Then they have a. Also on the same day, like a new starter set deck thing. September 16th is the global launch of the 30th. Then November 13th or October 16th 30th celebration card sets. That's the first partner collection in Japanese. We already have that in English. Then November 13th, it has a special deck. And then the. 27th November is Mega Lucario Z set or a Seeker or whatever. So November 27th, 27th. I don't know. Unless either it could work like. I mean I feel like that'll make. That'll be just in time for them to do one set. Cuz the Ray will come out probably November, two weeks before the 27th. So you're probably looking at a November 13th release date for the Ray set in English. Two weeks later the next Japanese set comes out. So it's probably just going to line up to a one to one, a one and one again. Yeah. Bring back two in one sets. Pokemon please. We love the chase of the bigger sets. Yeah. It does make it easier for people to master set for sure. There's way less cards still. They keep the odds pretty tough. They do. The Chase cards, the Gold cards, the big Sirs are still very. You know I think they're pretty steady at about a 1 in 72 packs for an Sir. But to hit one of the big Sirs, I mean you're. I don't even know off the top of my head. If I had to guess. I bet you're at like 1 in 1500, 1 in 2500 between that mark. Yeah. I mean like the Mega Chars are like we. We expected because it was a smaller set that it was going to be like it's going to be easier to hit. Granted it probably is easier to hit than some of the others but like it's not easy to hit. Right. Like it's not like that thing's not popping out all the time. It's. I feel like when it first came out we saw it so much. Right. It almost felt like one per case. Right. And then it just felt like. I don't know if that was just a certain run of it but because it was being like so much was being ripped that like it felt like it was popping out all the time. Could be great card though. That card is phenomenal. Also kind of settled in value a little bit. So I mean I think the market as a whole and I think there's some reasons for this but it was just kind of the prices cooled down a little bit and I think that. Not necessarily planned but just like a perfect whirlwind of things going on. Yep. And it's summer, you know, things just slow down. It's just nice out actually it's miserable. It's been just miserably humid and hot here the last couple of days. Nobody wants to go outside. It's awful. You don't have that problem as much. But it's lovely. I don't know I think this. I think it'll be good, though. I mean, these are just like, good sets to rip. Yeah. Really, it's nothing crazy. There's at least a chase card. The graded chases are worth decent money. That makes it worth ripping the sets, decent pull rates. It'll be a lot of fun. I can't wait till we get into it. Yeah, I'm excited to rip it, too. I mean, something new to rip, new cards to look at. Always, always a good time. And, you know, especially when there's a chase of one of my favorite Pokemon. It's gonna be awesome. It makes sense. What are the viewers going to think, you know, what cards are you chasing? I'm curious. I'm very, very curious to see what people think of this set. What's your. What's your favorite set? Take. Take ascended heroes out. Take base out the last four sets. Now let's do the last three. We don't want phantasmal in there. Chaos, pitch black, or perfect order. You know, have they. Did they kind of start at the low tier and kind of work their way up or us, know what you think in the comments. And then I can't wait till we do this episode for the 30th. It's gonna just be. I'm so unreal. Unreal. Make sure to drop us questions in the. In the comments. We're still looking to do a Q and A episode. We've just been gathering comments as people turn them in. And outside of that, appreciate everybody for watching and we'll see you in the next one. If you want to rip some pitch black, come hang out on whatnot with me. We'll have all the links in the description. Yeah. All right, we'll see you later. Peace.