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!

Garchomp-EX Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, opening up a Garchomp-EX Collection Box as part of my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures series!

I ordered this box from Chaos Cards a while back while it was on pre-order special offer (it cost £14.45 and came with a free pack of sleeves!). The price for this box has since jumped up by about £4 from what I can tell.

This box had some fantastic pulls. If you can tolerate my rambling, I'd suggest checking out the box opening on my youtube channel!

If you don't fancy that however, just scroll down and check out the swag I got.

First off, the promotional cards! You get the Black Star Promo Garchomp-EX, number XY09 in the set.

The rares: A reverse-holo Rhyperior, a beautiful card despite featuring a Pokémon I'm not overly fond. I also got a rare Starmie and a holographic Gogoat (my second one in this adventure).

And here are my stars! TWO EXs!  A Venusaur-EX to compliment the M Venusaur-EX I got in the previous opening, and a Full Art Latios-EX! (actually my second one)

This was a great box! What can I say? I may have gotten some doubles, but they are great ones.

CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT OPENING!

See you guys round!

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 - 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!

Keldeo Box - Smile on my Face

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here and today I've opened this fantastic Keldeo Box set.

(stock picture I got online, forgot to take pic of my own!)

If you don't want any spoilers and want to see the video of this box being opened click here.

I bought this box in store at Forbidden Planet for £12.99, which was a slightly cheaper alternative to some online stores. This box is pretty awesome; in it you get a promo card, a jumbo card, 3 booster packs (2 Dragons Exalted, 1 Noble Victories) and a figurine! Not bad at all.

And so here's the content of this box all laid out for you to see:

These are the promotional cards you get in the box, the small one on the left is a Keldeo BW60 and the one on the right is a jumbo print of Keldeo-EX from Boundaries Crossed. Notice how Keldeo looks slightly different in box pictures, that's because Keldeo-EX here is in its Resolute Form. The Black Star Promo card looks fine, but I find it rather boring for a promotional card.

This here is the Keldeo figure on its base. It is a fantastic figure and one of the main reasons I got this box. Although I don't care much for Keldeo as a Pokémon, this figure is so well detailed and in a great dynamic pose that I had to get it. This Keldeo is also in its Resolute Form.

And last but not least, my pulls from the booster packs:

From the Dragons Exalted packs I got an Ambipom and Gyarados, two rares cards that I unfortunatly already have, but to make up for that I also got a reverse-holo Garchomp and reverse-holo Gyarados. The holographic card at the top is a Bisharp from Noble Victories.

Overall verdict: As usual I've got bad luck with Dragons Exalted booster packs, but the reverse-holos made up for that a little, and I'm very pleased with the holo Bisharp. Five rare cards for three boosters isn't bad at all. I'm very much in love with the figurine and hope that Nintendo continue this trend of making high quality collectable figurines to go with some of their TCG merchandise. There's loads that I need to get now and it'll probably be hard (and expensive) to track them down and obtain, in packaging or not. But hopefully I'll be able to. I know I've at least got my eyes on those new ones for X&Y.

So yeah, thanks for reading and until next time. Hopefully I get more good stuff!

Team Plasma Box - Lovely Box of Villainy

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here and today I'v opened this wonderful little piece of Pokémon TCG merchandise; the Team Plasma Box.
I won it in a bid at £7.50 from a seller on ebay, plus £2.30 for postage. Altogether that makes £9.80, not at all bad when you consider it goes for £17.99 at retail (at least from what I can tell from the GAME store price label still stuck on to it, which is where I assume the seller originally got the box from.)
For that cheap price I got 3 booster packs, two promotional cards, a Team Plasma coin and a jumbo card. My first jumbo card ever, in fact!
Click here to watch the video of me opening this box up.

And here's the contents, promotional items first then booster pack contents:

First off, the two promotional cards: both Plasma Pokémon, both full arts. There's the fierce BW74 Giratina and the sinister BW73 Darkrai. Both these cards are beautiful with the lightning effect in the back and the "finger print" pattern covering them like full art cards from regular sets do. The box also came with a nice coin for the game with the Team Plasma logo on it.

And here we have the jumbo card. It's a reprint of the same Darkrai card that already comes with the box, which I put next to it to show the size difference. It's fully glossed which is nice, but doesn't have the 'finger print' pattern it's smaller counterpart does.

Here's the contents of the booster packs: a rare Staraptor from Plasma Freeze, a rare Team Plasma's Giratina from Plasma Storm, a rare Escavalier from Noble Victories, a reverse-holo Team Plasma's Druddigon from Plasma Storm and a reverse-holo Kyrurem from Noble Victories.

So as you can see, although I got no holos I did get a large number of rares, all of which I still needed. My favourite out of the lot will have to be the Team Plasma's Giratina, I found it very fitting I should get one in the Team Plasma Box. I'm also happy with all the promotional cards this box provided, especially the jumbo card even though it got rather warped in the box (nothing that can't be fixed by sticking it in-between some heavy books.)

So with a smile on my face I end the update here.

Thanks for reading/watching and see you in the next adventure log!

Bye!

Forces of Nature Collection! Box Opening - Braving the Elements

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here and for today's adventure I've opened up this promotional box for the Pokémon TCG called Forces of Nature Collection!
If you don't want any spoilers, stop reading now and go check out the box opening on youtube.

In this box you get not one, not two, but three Black Star Promo cards! All of them are part of the titular Forces of Nature trio, also nicknamed the Genie trio. You also get 3 booster packs in this box. I have no idea if the selection of these booster packs are random, but for this box I got one booster pack from the HGSS series (Call of Legends) and 2 from Emerging Powers. This box was bought from Chaos Cards for £22.95 (that's roughly $36 USD), which is quite expensive but it is hard to find. Plus Chaos Cards was the only place I had found selling it at a reasonable price (seriously, Amazon.co.uk has them going at £80+ !!)

Anyways, now on to he more interesting stuff; the pulls I got.

First are the 3 promotional cards: Thundurus BW41, Tornadus BW42 and Landorus BW43. All three of these mons are in their Incarnate Forms- forms I have to admit I'm really not a fan of. However, these cards themselves are fantastic. Making two of them reverse-holos was a good idea, it really sets them apart from all the other promo cards in my folder. And Landorus as a full art... brilliant! He may look ugly, but he looks damn imposing too. 

The three cards we have here are the ones I got from the booster packs. The first one is a rare Typhlosion from Call of Legends. The two others are from Emerging Powers; holographic Virizion and a rare Simipour. I like the styilised bold art on Simipour, but sadly am not fond of the Pokémon itself. Not pictured: I also got a reverse-holo Ferrothorn.

Well, even though I got three promos and 1 holographic I can't say I'm too happy with the pulls in this box. They aren't bad per se, but for £22.95 I'd have liked at least one ultra-rare or even just a Pokémon I like more...

Oh listen to me, I'm acting like a spoilt brat haha. I had none of these cards to begin with so I'm happy to add them to my growing collection none the less!

I'll end here. Thanks for reading, hope you weren't too bored by my ranting. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts down bellow or to check out my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures so far on youtube.

Till next time, sayonara!