Black & White Booster Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with my very first booster box opening ever!!
This is a first for both my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures and for myself personally.

This is a booster box of the Black & White base set, bought during a clearance sale at Chaos Cards over a year ago for £59.99!

This booster box was VERY good to me as you will see from the plethora of great pulls that I got, as well as the fact that it was cheaper than usual and due to some weird factory error, had an extra booster pack in it!

Lets get straight to seeing what pulls I got, but be warned there is a lot!

You can check out my video opening of this box on my youtube channel (separated into four parts: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4).

Lets start with the rares. I got many that I still needed for this collection, putting me VERY close to having all of them (just missing one now!)

Naturally I did get a bunch of repeats so I did not include those ones in the photos.

If you think getting all these rares is impressive (and by booster box standards, it's not); then wait till you see all the reverse-holo rares I managed to get:

None of these I got as repeats. 

You may notice that they do not have the energy symbols in the background like more recent ones. That trend did not start until Emerging Powers, the set straight after this one. That means that Black & White base set is the only set in the BW series that has no energy symbols for its reverse-holos.

Now for the actual holos!

I managed to get both pairs of Serperior and Samurott.

I get what they were going for with the 5ban graphics artwork, but I definitely prefer the other arwork.

Sadly there were only two Emboars to get in this set and I managed to pull the one I already had, bummer!

And now for the pieces de resistance! 

In this booster box I managed to get not one, not two - but three ultra rares!!

(well technically the Pikachu is a secret rare)

I have no idea if this is common in Black & White booster boxes or if getting an extra booster pack is how they insert secret rare cards into the box, but I'm glad!

Out of the three, Zekrom full art is the only double. I actually got one all the way back in my very first Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures episode. The texture on this one does seem to be a little different though, slightly more bumpy.

Reshiram is the full art I did not have for this set. It looks like the standard pose for a Reshiram, but I can understand how at the time these must have been fantastic to get. And honestly, I'm still ecstatic to have pulled it! 

Nothing to say about this one except SECRET PIKACHU GFBLT*@£%!!!

Love it.

I don't really know how to sum this opening up other than to say HELL YEAH!

I got so many cards that I'm now very close to finishing my regular Black & White set collection (the reverse-holos still need work of course). Also getting an extra pack and three ultra/secret rares is fantastic. These cards may not be worth much individually, but that does not in anyway take away from the joy I had of pulling them and now owning them.

This was my first booster box opening, but will be by no means my last. Please stay tuned for future TCG merchandise openings, I have a feeling that they can only get better! (Pretty sure I just jinxed it by saying that haha)

Bye!

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!

Sylveon Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with a wonderful opening.
I give you the huge, jam packed and fun Sylveon Collection box! It comes with multiple promo cards (9 of them!! All based on the Eeveelutions), a figurine (the only XY TCG figure to make it to Europe), a sneak preview Fairy Energy card (obviously no longer a big deal haha) and four different booster packs (Next Destinies, Dragons Exalted and two Legendary Treasures)!

Here is the large box. It cost me £15.95 and was bought from Chaos Cards.

As usual click here to check the video or scroll down to see the contents and pulls I got.

WARNING: about half of the video is blurry. My camera got damaged and so sadly half the footage turned out blurry (it does get fixed half way through though)

Anyways, lets start off with the promo cards. There's a lot of them and I'll be taking a look at them individually, so expect loads of pictures!

Lets start off with the mon that starts off this line; Eevee!

This one is a reprint with new artwork of the Plasma Freeze Eevee.

What's interesting to note is that there is no specific artist credited with the artwork for the Eeveelotuion promo cards (except Sylveon). The credits simply go to the Nintendo Art Team.

Here is Vaporeon. All the cards (again, except for Sylveon) have a background motif to go with their typing or attribute. I will admit though, I don't know how the flower/ribbons link to Vaporeon! (unless they're lily pads?)

The artwork is very simple for these cards (except of course, you've guessed it, for Sylveon).

They have a kind of paper cut-out look to them. I quite like it.

I love that Flareon is just lying down waiting for someone to come rub its belly.

A very natural look.

I find that the background patterns remind me a lot of Christmas or Birthday gift wrapping with the repetitive pattern, glittering and shapes chosen.

I find the motif of moons and stars in the background suit Umbreon very well.

In fact this is probably one of the most apt background for the Eeveelutions out of all the cards.

The 'paper cut-out' look suits Leafeon's leafy appearance very well. Its tail looks very flat, which is how I've always imagined it to look.

All the evolved Eeveelutions' cards are reprints of Dark Explorers cards, except for... well you know already.

Everyone has a favourite Eeveelotuion, but they decided to focus on one in particular to be the titular star of the box.

The Sylveon box was coming out just before the new series (and Gen) of cards were going to be released. This is why the box had a Fairy Energy (a new type introduced in both the video games and TCG) and a Sylveon promo even though this particular promo was not originally part of the other Eeveevolution set of promotional cards.

This card is in fact an XY promotional card, whereas all the others in the box are BW cards.

Whereas the others have the Nintendo Art Team as illustrators for them, this one has 5ban Graphics, continuing the boring trend of having 5ban Graphics do all the Gen VI artwork (this is something I've ranted about many times already).

It is none the less a nice card, but does stick out (in a bad way IMO) to the others a bit too much and really does not look as nice as them.

Something Sylveon related that I really did look forward to in this box however was this fantastic figure!

The E.U has banned the import of TCG merchandise with figures in them due to hazardous parts, so sadly many new boxes have Jumbo cards as replacement. But for some reason or another this one did get the A-OK (and boy am I glad it did!). It looks so cute, beautifully sculpted and well painted. Unlike the Black & White TCG figures it does not come with a bottle-cap base sadly, but does have a cool looking tree stump instead.

And look! It goes well with the cherry blossom deco that's in my sister's room.

Now on to my booster pack pulls, FINALLY (haha):

Dragons Exalted continued the trend of giving me bad pulls with Roserade.

The Reuniclus was not welcomed either, it was also a repeat!

Thankfully Legendary Treasures can come with both a rare and a holo, so I still managed to get some good pulls. One in the form of this Landorus holographic rare and the other in the form of an...

... Ultra rare Mewtwo-EX!!

What a great pull. This is a reprint of a previous card, however it still goes for about £10-15 on ebay it seems, being easily one of the more expensive ultra rare cards you can pull from Legendary Treasures. Plus it looks cool.

Wow, what a long post and opening! I thoroughly enjoyed this unboxing, despite the terrible video quality (again, sorry!).

I'd have to say the figure, the BW Eeveelution promos and Mewtwo-EX were my favourite parts (so many favourites!). The Sylveon promo did not get me as excited, but it's still great to get for my collection.

Thanks a lot for reading guys! Or watching if you happened to check out the video (seriously you must have had some patience to do that!).

Check in again on Wednesday for another Pokémon TCG Opening Adventure!

Bye!

Kyurem-EX 2012 Tin

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with another good opening for my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures!
This time round, we open up a Kyurem-EX Spring 2012 Tin that I purchased at the fantastic price of £9 on ebay! This was a very lucky purchase because I saw this tin going for £20+ on other websites.

Here is the tin itself. A very beautiful light blue mixed in with some dark greys, complementing Kyurem's colouring very well.

Inside, you get the titular promo card, a TCGO card for the promo and four booster packs (2 Next Destinies, one Emerging Powers and one Noble Victories)

I'll be now moving on to the contents, if you'd like to watch the video of the tin opening click here.
If you'd rather just see pictures, keep scrolling down!

Of course we start off with the promo. This Kyurem-EX is part of the BW Black Star Promos and is number BW37

I got a bunch rares that I still needed.

And I got two holographic cards, both legendary mons that I still needed.

I'm loving the sparkilliness (that a word?) of Moltres.

So I may not have gotten any ultra rares, I did get many cards that I still needed. And two holographic cards out of four boosters is above average! 

Stay tuned for the next adventure folks, thanks as always for reading/watching!
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!

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!

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!