Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Yveltal Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.

Today I unbox the Yveltal Collection Box.
When I first heard of the Xerneas and Yveltal Collections boxes I was very excited. I loved the idea of getting my hands on some boxes that had both a Black Star promo and a collectable figurine in them. So imagine my surprise/disappointment when I found out that the merchandise released in the UK and the US was not going to be the same. Nope, according to EU regulations the figurines would not have been appropriate for children and so could not be sold here, too many sharp bits you see. Instead we get an alternate Yveltal/Xerneas Collection Box. One that is, in my opinion, not as cool. It comes with only 3 booster packs instead of 4, and worst yet, the figure is replaced with a Jumbo card of the exact same promo card that is available in the box.
It's very disappointing, but oh well. At least I get the promo card... that is the main reason I get these boxes.

I bought both the Yveltal and Xerneas Collection Boxes at the same time from cardteam.co.uk for £25.45. I'll open the Xerneas box at a later date.

And so here are my pulls! What wonderful pulls I get! (To make up for the lack of a figure I bet).
Check the video here or scroll down to see what I got.

The promos first:

Here is the Black Star Promo XY06; Yveltal! And next to it is its not quite identical brother, the Jumbo card.

As rares I got a reverse holo Simisear, looking very relaxed in its picture, and in contrast next to it is a very aggressive looking Arbok.

My first XY holo! Got myself a Gogoat. The sheen holographic goes very well with its pose. It looks as if rays of sun are shining down on an heroic Gogoat (reminds me of Lion King).

But the Gogoat isn't even the best part, oh no. I give you the true hero of this box:

Mega Venusaur-EX!!

Roawr!

So my initial disappointment was soon dissipated with an awesome pull. Mega Venusaur-EX really surprised me. And on top of that I also got a holo rare. I'd say that's not bad for only 3 booster packs =D

This has got me even more excited for this adventure. Lets continue!

See you in the next one, bye!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Luxray - Dark Explorers Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector with an other PTCGOpA s02 update!
This time I've opened up a Luxray blister pack. It is from Dark Explorers; a set from the Black & White series which is actually quite hard to come-by now (individual booster packs go for £4 or more now!)
I bought this blister pack - along with another from the same series - for £8.95 each (the other blister pack will be opened at a later date) from online card game retailer cardteam.co.uk

I'll apologies beforehand, I forgot to take pictures of some of the content. The coin that comes with the blister pack and one of the rare cards from the opening.

If you want to see the opening click here (you'll be able to see all the swag I got from the blister)

First off, the promo:

The exckusive card that comes with the blister is not a BW Black Star Promo but in fact an alternate holographic of a card that is usually found in the Next Destinies set. This one in particular has the "Shard" pattern (you can see the triangles in the background that sparkle like shards of glass, hence the name for the pattern)

[this is a stock picture found online]

The rare I got was an Excadrill.

Out of three booster packs, I managed to get two holos, this is a very good pull!

Volcarona and Klinklang.

Out of the two I prefer Volcarona, but honestly I do find the artwork for both rather static, but I guess these mons are not exactly the most dynamic (they barely have any appendages!) 

I am very happy with these pulls, I have very few cards from the Dark Explorers collection and owned none of these ones, so they're all new to me!

I really look forward to opening up the next blister pack for Dark Explorers, hopefully I get an EX. But who knows when it'll be that I get to open it up, since all these openings are chosen through a raffle.

So tune in next time to see exactly which piece of merchandise I pick from the raffle. Bye!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Slurpuff - Furious Fists Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here bringing you the next episode of PTCGOpA 2!

Today I open up a Slurpuff Blister Pack. I bought this pack in combination with another pack from chaoscards.co.uk. Together they cost me about £17.31 since I bought them in combination and got a discount from Chaos Cards' then loyalty scheme.

This'll be my first opening of Furious Fists booster packs!

Now lets get straight into it! Scroll down for images of the cards or check out the opening on youtube here: clickity click!

First the promo card:

Slurpuff! This one is Promo XY15. The picture up above does not do justice to the holographic pattern which makes it appear as if Slurpuff is being surrounded by glittering pollen as it walks through a patch of flowers. Very beautiful. 

A rare Golurk and reverse-holo Hariyama. I love how dynamic they look! This seems to be a theme for a lot of the Furious Fists artwork.

And the two holos! Slaking and Landorus, both keeping up the trend of looking dynamic, as if they're halfway through an attack charge.

 Overall a great blister pack opening. I got myself four rare cards in all, two of which were holographic cards, which definitely beats the ratio you usually get for XY sets. I'm happy ^^

Thanks for watching/reading. See you guys in the next adventure!
M'bye bye for now!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Thundurus-EX - 2013 Fall Tin

Hi all!
I'm the Amateur Collector and welcome to my second PTCGOpA S02 episode! (That is as long to type as it is to say!)

Today I open up a Thundurs-EX Fall 2013 tin! It's a great tin filled with 4 Team Plasma related booster packs (one Plasma Blast, one Plasma Freeze and two Plasma Blast packs).
I got it in store at Forbidden Planet for £12.99 (around a little over $19 USD).

This was a great tin that provided me with many cards that I did not have before! Click here if you want to see the video of the opening, otherwise keep scrolling down to see what I pulled.

First off:

Thundurus-EX BW81 Black Star Promo. This Thundurus is in its Therian Form.

As rares I got an Azelf from Plasma Blast, a Keckleon from Plasma Freeze, a reverse-holo Porygon-Z from Plasma Blast and a reverse-holo Beheeyem from Plasma Blast.

Infernape holo!! I know the tinsel holographic pattern isn't peoples' favourite pattern, but it works quite well on this guy.

And finally, the cherry (or egg as it were) on the cake:

A secret rare Exeggcute from Plasma Blast!!!

If I was going to get any of the secret rare cards from any Plasma series booster pack, it would be this one.

I just love how they randomly decided to make Exeggcute a shiny secret rare.

So overall I'm very happy with this opening. I basically got 6 rare cards out of four booster packs (2 rares, 2 rare reverse-holos, 1 holo and a secret rare! Wooo!). 

Lets hope this trend keeps up!

Thanks for watching/reading and see you in the next adventure =)

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Eevee - Legendary Treasures Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with my first episode of PTCGOpA season 2!!

First off, a little explanation of the format for this adventure. Each episode I will randomly choose a product to open from a raffle that has the names to all the merchandise I have to open. This way it guarantees that each adventure will be unpredictable and varied. It's more fun that way!
I will film a few openings in one go due to time restraints in real life, but I'll upload the opening individually throughout the months (I'll aim for about 2 to 3 videos a week), this way there will be a steady stream of videos for PTCGOpA 2 for a long while, even if I end up going to live abroad again!

So with that little explanation out of the way, lets get cracking.

We start off this adventure with none other than the Eevee Legendary Treasures Blister Pack (rather apt considering Eevee can sometimes be a starter Pokémon!)

This Eevee was purchased at chaoscards.co.uk for £8.95 last year. I think the Eevee blister pack is still available, but prices for blister packs overall have since risen on the website.

If you'd like to check out the blister pack opening without any spoilers, avoid scrolling down and just click here instead for the video.

Now then, here is what I had to open:

This blister pack contained 3 booster packs, a coin and of course the Eevee promotional card

Eevee promo card BW97 with the Zekrom/Reshiram coin.

Here is what I got in the booster packs:

Three rare cards; Gallade, Toxicroak and Empoleon. And one Zapdos reverse-holo (ordinarily a holographic card).

I did manage to get one holographic card. This Samurott, looking really cool with its battle stance.

Now Legendary Treasures has a bit of a quirk you see. Not only do you get ordinary cards and reverse holos, but you also get two cards that are part of a subset known as Radiant Collection. There are 25 of them to collect, some of them even EXs and Full Arts. All the RC cards I got in these packs were commons and uncommons, but the chances of pulling an "Ultra Rare" is actually quite high for this subset. Anyways, here is a look at the RC cards I pulled:

Each card has a special holographic foil going across the whole card. Check out the video for this pack opening to see the foil in better detail.

So this was a great opening for  the first episode of the adventure. I got 5 rares out of 3 booster packs, that's a good ratio! My favourites so far have to be the RC Serperior and the rare Toxicroak (it just looks so cool).

I look forward to opening more Legendary Treasures booster packs, this is a great set for collectors with lots of unique artwork, a cool subset and a high chance to get Ultra Rare cards. I admit I have to learn the shuffling trick for this pack though, it's different to all the other BW sets so far and I got very easily muddled up haha.

I would like to apologise for the quality of these pictures, sadly my scanner is currently not functional, so we're gonna have to make do with photo pictures instead!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to follow me, to leave a comment and/or to check out my youtube channel.

See you next time!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2 - Teaser of what's to come!

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here and - oh my! What's this? Another post so soon after the last one?

Yup, I'm just going to do a tease of some of the Pokémon TCG merchandise that I'll be opening for the upcoming PTCGOpA.

Woo! That's a lot!

Which one catches your eye? Which one are you most excited to see open? Let me know in the comments bellow!

See you soon!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures - Season 2 (starting real soon!)

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with an exciting update!

I am back in my home country and have put aside a space and some time to start the next season of Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures (PTCGOpA)!!!

Keep reading for a quick history and explanation of what exactly PTCGOpA, or scroll down straight to the video to see what this next Adventure has in store for you!

In 2013 my love for the collectable card game known as the Pokémon TCG got rekindled due watching many youtube videos of people open up various Pokémon TCG related merchandise. It reminded me of my excitement of doing the same as a child.
I have always been a Pokéfan and have never stopped playing the video games, however I did give up on the TCG due to money, change of environment and also simply that I had no one else to play and trade with as I got older.
But youtube showed that there are many people from all sorts of demographics still playing and/or collecting the card game. I loved sharing in the excitement as they'd open up booster boxes, packs, etc and ultra-rare card and such.
So I decided to buy some of the recent TCG merchandise and chronicle myself getting reacquainted with this TCG franchise, and sharing it with the Internet. And so Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures was born.

I enjoyed doing it so much that I have decided to do it again. This time with far more merchandise and a better understanding of where to buy them, how to video the openings, etc.

I won't ramble on anymore, here's the trailer to tease what kind of stuff I'll be opening:

I'll go into some more details in the next post.

Hope you're as excited as I am for this!
Stay tuned and see you soon!