Opening 4 Legendary Treasures Booster Packs

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with a short but sweet adventure, all part of my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures.

As those who have been following me might remember I spent some time in China, and whilst over there came across some places that sold Pokémon booster packs. They're cheaper there than in the UK, so I brought a bunch of them back with me. Of that bunch were four Legendary Treasures booster packs. They cost $30 HKD each, that's about £2.50 each, not bad!

Lets open them up and see what's inside.

As usual check out my video opening here or just scroll down to see what pulls I got.

I didn't have much of a choice in pack artwork. Not a problem considering I still have an entire booster box of these packs to open for a future adventure!

Here are the rares and the reverse-rare that I got.

The way Legendary Treasures works is that you can end up with both a holographic AND a rare in in the same pack (the former replaces the reverse-holo that'd usually be there)

I managed to get two holos out of four packs, not bad at all! (and it gets better!)

Legendary Treasures also has a subset known as Radiant Collection. You have the potential of getting some pretty unique cards in this set, such as this full art Shaymin-EX! It's both badass and cute.

AND THAT'S NOT ALL!

I also got a hold of this wonderful ultimate rare Darkrai-EX!!

I actually got this in the same booster pack as the Zekrom holo.

It's a reprint of the same Darkrai-EX that you can find in Dark Explorers.

Nice to have none the less.

So yes, not much to say really, these wonderful pulls should speak for themselves!

I'm really glad to have gotten this Darkrai-EX, even though it's a reprint and not worth much in terms of sales, it is a card I none the less needed for my collection. Same goes for most of these pulls really!

Thanks for reading/watching, see you next episode Trainers!

Pikachu Boundaries Crossed Checklane Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.
Today I open a hard to come by product. The Raichu Boundaries Crossed Checklane Blister Pack. Ok, it's not the rarest of items, but it's not easy to come-by either. I found only one in stock at Card Team for £6.95 (the only blister pack they had at this price).

The blister pack with two promotional cards, a booster pack and a sample pack (both for Boundaries Crossed)

Lets see what I got in this then!
Click here for the video or scroll down bellow to see what I pulled.

Here are the two promotional cards. The Pikachu is part of the Black & White Black Star Promos collection.

The Raichu is simply a reprint of a card from the Next Destinies set with an alternate holographic pattern (the original is an uncommon that doesn't even have a holo background!)

These are the pulls I got from the booster pack. A rare Keldeo and a reverse-holo rare Whimsicott!

Both are cards I did not possess.

So this blister pack was a little pricy, but at least all the cards I got were ones I did not previously have. I am especially happy with that promo Pikachu, would you believe I've seen it sometimes go for £7 or more??

Thanks for reading/watching. Stay tuned for the next episode of my Pokémon TCG Adventures! Bye!

Opening 6 Dragons Exalted Booster Packs

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with another opening. Today, as part of my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures I've opened up 6 Dragons Exalted booster packs from the Black & White series. I got them on offer from Kool Kingdom for £13.70. They were originally £15.90 and would have probably cost me over £20 if I tried buying them in a retail store.

I actually originally wanted to purchase some Dark Explorers booster packs when I placed the order, but it turned out that the online store had run out of them, so I instead choose Dragons Exalted packs; a slight bad judgement on my end since I have historically terrible luck with this set! (I have opened countless packs and have only gotten one EX to show for it). Sadly this time is no exception =(

Click here to go to my youtube channel and see the pulls for yourself.
Or simply scroll down to see what cards I got.

Lets first start off with some regular rares

Sadly I got 5 rares out of 6 booster packs! That's not a good ratio.

However I am glad to say that out of these five I only own two of them already (Houndoom and Seismitoad).

I  managed to pull a fair number of rare reverse-holos. 

I suppose this makes up for the lack of EXs in some way.

And here is the one and only holo that I got; Hydreigon.

So in some ways these really weren't the best of pulls. On the other hand, I did basically get 9 rares out of 6 booster packs, with 7 of them going straight into my collection. That's really not bad despite the lack of EXs.

Yeah. 

In retrospect, I really did enjoy this opening.

Thanks for reading! 

Stay tuned for more adventuring!

Lucario Plasma Blast Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, continuing my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures!

This adventure we open up the Lucario blister pack for the Plasma Blast extension. I bought it along with the Genesect blister pack for £17.45 from Chaos Cards.

This cool looking pack comes with one promotional card, a coin and three Plasma Blast booster packs.

As usual, click here to check out the video opening of this blister pack or simply scroll down to see what pulls I got in more details. Or do both. Your choice really! =D

Lets start off with the promotional card you are guaranteed to get... providing you choose the Lucario pack of course... Lucario!

It's number BW85 of the BW Black Star Collection set.

I got four pulls out of the three booster packs. The least interesting of which is this Reuniclus.

I have about three of these already, so another one was not really welcomed! (something I hate saying because I try to appreciate all cards for their artwork and collectibility) 

I got two holographic cards. The Machamp I have already, but it looks really cool so I don't mind a second one.

I also got this lovely Blastoise. I LOVE the artwork on this one. The soft light blue colouring, the cool pose that highlights dinosaurian features, the splashes of water everywhere and that soft looking textured skin that makes it seem like a vinyl toy. I've wanted this one for so long and now I have it!

The Blastoise made me very happy, but arguably the best pull was this ace spec card!

For the uninitiated, ace specs are ultra rare Trainer cards that are very powerful, so much so that you can only have one in a deck. They are a short lived mechanic in the TCG scene, but look visually very striking. I quite enjoy them for that reason.

So yeah, an overall very good opening. I may own half of these cards already, but the ones I didn't have more than make up for the others.

Guys and girls, thanks for watching/reading! Stay tuned for my next adventure!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2 - The Lost Episodes - Xerneas Collection, Ampharos Triple Blister Pack & the Delphox-EX Tin

Hi all!

Today I bring you an opening of three different TCG merchandise! These openings will be exclusive to my blog... mostly because the video recordings were corrupted =/

Let me list what I opened up:

- The Ampharos Plasma Storm Triple Blister Pack, bought for £6.51 on ebay over a year ago. A VERY good price for a triple blister pack. It comes with a promo card, a coin and three Plasma Storm booster packs.

- The Xerneas Collection Box, bought in combination with the Yveltal Collection box from Card Team for £25.45.

- The Delphox-EX Kalos Power Trio tin from Summer 2014, bought together with the Chesnaught-EX and Greninja-EX tins for £28.75, also bought from Card Team.

Unlike usual - no youtube video this time round sadly! Simply scroll bellow to see what goodies I got in these products!

The Black Star Promo BW67 Ampharos and a coin of what appears to be either Black Kyurem or White Kyurem (I'm really not sure which it is!)

In this blister pack I managed to get two rares and a holo. This Manaphy looks so cute!

Delphox-EX looks really cool. It's not one of my favourite starters design wise, but this image looks really cool. It came in the Delphox-EX tin and is promo XY19

This tin of four booster packs came with five rares. One a normal rare (Azelf) and a reverse-holo rare (Staraptor)

The three other rares were holographics. A Team Plasma Kyurem, a Dusknoir and a Greninja from Plasma Freeze, XY and Flashfire respectively.

The promotional cards in the Xerneas Collection box were this XY05 Xerneas card and a Jumbo card of the exact same card.

The three booster packs in the Xerneas Collection box had these goodies. 

Sadly no holos or ultra rares, but it was four rares out of three packs.

Altogether the pull rate out of ten booster packs was pretty average (4 holos out of ten packs). They were all holographic cards that I needed too so I'm happy. I'm especially happy with the promos of course, the cards I generally aim to have when buying these kind of products. The Ampharos card stock quality isn't great but at least it wasn't damaged. 

I apologise for not having a video of these openings, I try to keep Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures at the bare minimum consistent and hate how many errors and such have already occurred over the span of the adventure so far. But I'll keep trying to to make it entertaining and bring you all fun and suspenseful pack openings. I hope you can bear with the hiccups that have occurred already or may occur in the future and continue enjoying and supporting my contents. 

And with that said, stay tuned for the next adventure and further fun! Thanks for watching =)
Bye!

Chesnaught-EX 2014 Tin

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here back with another PTCGOpA update!

This time I have opened up a Chesnaught-EX Kalos Power Trio Tin (that is its full official title it seems!) I bought it along with the other two tins that come in the collection (Delphox-EX and Greninja-EX) from Card Team for £28.75 altogether.

The Chesnaught-EX tin.

It came with the promo, a code card for the tin on PTCGO and four different booster packs; Flashfire, XY Base Set, Plasma Blast and Plasma Freeze. A good variety. 

As usual, I'll put up pictures of my pulls down below, but if you don't like spoilers then I suggest checking out my video opening on my youtube channel.

Lets start off first with the promo:

Chesnaught-EX promo card XY18

I don't know why, but it's bald skull like chrome head weirds me out, even though I'm quite fond of this Pokémon!

Three rares: Cofagrigus from Plasma Freeze, Floatzel from Flashfire and Simisage from XY. 

I also got a reverse-holo rare in the form of a mean looking Team Plasma's Chandelure from Plasma Freeze.

But the Awesome Pull Award for this opening must naturally go to this beautiful ultra rare card; Virizion-EX from Plasma Blast.

Overall this was a good opening. I think I needed most the rares and reverse-holoncards that I got. I most defenitly needed the Chesnaught-EX promo card and am happy as hell that I got that Virizion-EX - it is quite possible my first EX card for Plasma Blast!

Thanks for sticking with me for this adventure, please stay tuned for the next one. Lets hope it's as awesome as these past two have been!
Bye for now!

Hoenn Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, happy as a clam, because today I bring you not only a box with lots of lovely promotional stuff, but also some great booster pack pulls!

Today I open the Hoenn Collection Box, the last piece of Pokémon TCG merchandise I purchased before starting this PTCGOpA.
I bought it from Chaos Cards for £14.95. A decent price for something that offers so much extra promotional stuff.

Here is the box with all the lovely goodies displayed. Three XY promo cards, a pin, a Jumbo card and three booster packs!

Before I go on showing you images of the contents I will tell you that I got some very good pulls. If you want spoilers, keep scrolling down. If not, click here to check out the video opening of this box and join in the suspense with me!

Lets start off with the contents we know I'm going to get in the box:

The Jumbo card with the pin. The Jumbo card is of Primal Kyogre-EX from Primal Clash, which is played in the same manner as a Mega card for the mechanics of the TCG (well, for the normal sized card anyways, Jumbos are not tournament legal!)

A more detailed look at the pin. It has all three Hoenn starters together, very cute!

The three Hoenn starters as XY promos! It's very hard to say which of these cards is my favourite they all look so good.

The Torchic and Mudkip came out fine, the Treeko sadly has a visible dent on the back of it because of the packaging (curse you Nintendo!)

And now finally for the contents, in reverse order of both coolness and openings:

A Honchkrow rare from Phantom Forces. Easily the least exciting card I got in this box, but a card I do not yet own none the less. 

A Full Art AZ trainer card!! I actually pulled this guy from the very first Phantom Forces booster pack I've ever opened, talk about good luck!

It also happens to be the first full art trainer card I've ever gotten!

As if AZ wasn't enough, this box keeps giving. A Mega Kangaskhan-EX from Flashfire. But not just any old ultra rare M Kangaskhan-EX, oh no; a SECRET RARE Mega Kangaskhan-EX!!

You can tell it's a secret rare because of the gold bordering on the card as well as this cards number in the set (109/106. 106 is how many cards are in the set; any cards that go beyond that are secret rares)

Needless to say, I am overjoyed. I was happy enough to get three promotional cards from this box, so imagine my surprise when I get both a full ultra art rare and a secret rare card!

I'm not actually a fan of these secret rare cards' designs since they're the exact same one as the ultra rares but with a gold framing, that's all. But I'm just so happy to have gotten a secret rare card in a box like this that I ended up not caring at all. Just what I needed after a long dry spell of pulls.

Well this was exciting. Do you think the next adventure can top this? Stay tuned to find out!

Till next time Poké-trainers!

Xerneas-EX 2014 Tin

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here and today I'll just do a quick update for this adventure, because honestly, it wasn't that great!

This adventure I open up a Xerneas-EX 2014 Spring Tin. Bought from Card Team together with the Yveltal-EX tin for £19.75.

Click here for the video opening or just scroll down below to see what swag I got.

The Xerneas-EX 2014 Spring Tin comes with a promo card, 4 booster packs and a TCGO card for this tin.

The beautiful promo card Xerneas-EX XY07.

All the booster packs yielded were rare cards. 

I did manage to get a reverse-holo rare though, one I still needed.

I usually don't complain about getting rares, but I have hit a dry spell for holos and ultra rare openings for a long while now. It'd be nice to get something shiny =P

Still, 5 rares out of 4 booster packs and a beautiful promo that I still needed ain't too bad. Be thankful for what you get ey?

Stay tuned for more openings. Let's cross our fingers for better luck next adventure!

Krookodile-EX Box

Hi all!

I'm the Amateur Collector and I've opened myself up a Krookodile-EX box as part of my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2!

This box cost £13.60 and was purchased from Chaos Cards.

As usual click here to check out the opening on video or/and scroll down to check out the pulls I got!

Here is the box in all its Krookodilian glory!

Here are the promo cards, the Krookodile-EX XY25 with its Jumbo equivalent.

The rares and reverse-holo rare. 

I don't know why, but I'm really digging that Butterfree.

And two holographic cards, wooo!

Rhyperior and Delphox, both from the XY Base Set boosters.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with this box. No ultra rares, but I did get two holos out of four booster packs which is an above average pull rate. 

Krookodile looks really cool too, but I was bound to like it since Krookodile is just an awesome dude-mon anyways!

Well thanks for reading/watching, hopefully this spells out a trend for future good pulls. They are really needed after the dry spell we've had this past week in terms of pulls. Stay tuned to see if things really do get turned around! 

M'bye bye!

2 Flashfire Checklane Blister Packs: Honedge & Skiddo

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here!

Today I have not one but two checklane blister packs to open from the Flashfire series. Both packs come with a booster pack, a coin and an exclusive promo card; a Skiddo and a Honedge.
Individually they cost me £3.45 from Card Team.

If you look at the picture bellow you will see that one of the blister packs (and the promo card within it) got damaged. I am not sure when this occurred. I very much doubt Card Team would send out damaged goods, so I believe it got damaged either during transport (curse you Royal Mail!), by being forcefully shoved through the letter box (curse you again Royal Mail!!) and/or by being badly stored by those to which the package was delivered to (I was abroad when this package was delivered).
Well whatever happened, it means I'm going to have to purchase myself another copy of the damaged card (the Honedge). Thankfully, it does not seem to be expensive to buy individually at all.

Anyways, as usual click here to check out the video or scroll down to view the pulls I got.

It might not be immediately evident, but the blister pack on the right hand side is quite bent on the bottom left. This sadly also affected the promo card inside.

Two awesome coins. My favourite of the two has to be Chespin. Not necessarily just because Chespin is my favourite of the Kalos starters, but also because this green reflective colour goes very well with the coin and image.

Promo card XY11 Skiddo! 

This image does not do justice to just how sparkly that holofoil is!

My damaged Honedge, Black Star Promo XY12

As you can see, this card has been bent quite severely bent at the bottom =(

And these are the rare cards I pulled from both blister packs. A Snorlax and a Durant.

Again, I am disappointed that the promo card was damaged, especially since they are the main reason I purchase these kind of blister packs in the first place, but I am lucky that it does not cost much to buy separately. 

Well, not the most amazing of openings. But I can garantee you that the next adventure will be epic ;)

Stay tuned to see exactly how epic it is! 

Deoxys-EX - 2013 Fall Tin

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.

Today I open the Deoxys-EX Tin, I got it on ebay for £11.45. At the time of purchase this was a good price. Now, it's an even better price. These tins go for anywhere between £15-£18.

If you want to check out the video, click here.
Keep scrolling down if you want to see what pulls I got.

The tin itself.

This is the promo, part of the BW Black Star Promo collection.

(This picture was taken from Bulbapedia since I forgot to take a picture of my own like a numpty!) 

As you can see, I did not get the greatest of pulls.

Five rares is good, but none of them were holos or ultra rares.

So I'm not overly happy with my pulls this time round. I don't usually mind pulling rares if I don't have them already, but out of five rares I already own three of them.

Oh well, stick around and lets see if the next opening will be better ey! 

See you!