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!

Greninja Phantom Forces Checklane Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with just a small adventure for the day.

This time round I have a single Checklane Blister Pack of Greninja to open. It was bought at Card Team for £3.45, which was the cheapest I found it at (at the time anyways, maybe it has dropped/increased in price now?)

This blister was released around the time Phantom Forces was the newest set being sold, so naturally the booster pack you get in the blister is from that set!

You also get a promotional Greninja card and a coin.

Click here to check the video opening of this product or simply scroll down if you just want to see the cards.

So here are the promotional items. You get this really cool Greninja, number XY24 for XY Black Star Promos collection. You also get this (reverse?) reflective Pikachu coin. It looks really cool, but at the same time offputing, and I can't quite put my finger on why I feel that away about this coin haha.

The one and only rare I got from the booster pack was this normal rare Honchkrow.

Meh.

So the pull I got from the booster pack was a double of a card I had already, but the promotional card more than makes up for it. That Greninja looks wonderful! I love that they chose to change its typing to Darkness, maybe this'll start a trend of seeing other starter mons make use of their dual types (I want a Colorless Charizard!). I also really like the ninja motif they went with for the artwork. Plus the style reminds me of the Ken Sugimori artwork you use to get all the way back in Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge. If you haven't seen those artwork I really recommend you go check them out, they're not your typical stock art Ken works!

Anyways, thanks for reading and watching! Stay tuned for more Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures pulls and blog rants!

Smell ya later!

Reshiram Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.
For this adventure I opened up a Reshiram [figure] Box! I got it from Infinity Games for the decent price of £17.09.
I very much have been looking forward to opening this box because I friggin love these figures that come with TCG merchandise. They're well sculpted, detailed and very often dynamically posed.

Here is the box! It comes with a Reshiram figure, a Reshiram promo card, a TCGO for that Reshiram promo and four booster packs, all of them Emerging Powers.

 As usual, before we proceed I must warn you that there will be spoilers of what cards I pulled from the booster packs. If you'd rather enjoy the suspense of the openings then check out the video on my youtube channel.
If you're not fussed eitherway, then scroll down to check out my pulls as well as the box's contents.

Lets start off with the promo card:

This is Reshiram BW23 for the BW Black Star Promos collection.

The artwork is different, but it basically a reprint (one of many) of the original Reshiram card that appeared in the Black & White base set.

Here is the figure! I love the mid-flight pose it has and how they use the tail as a base to hold that pose. It's very detailed too! (which is admittedly not very evident in this poor quality picture, sorry!)

I got three rares and one rare reverse-holo. I actually needed most of these cards so this is not necessarily a bad set of pulls.

I did manage to pull one holo though, and one that I needed still. The Beartic looks very ferocious, though I can't help but feel that they could have done more with the artwork. Oh well, early Black & White sets had fairly bland artwork, it can't be helped (though I don't think poor Beartic will ever be a holo again!)

So this wasn't a bad opening at all. I'm not missing many cards for my Emerging Powers collection, and these cards helped shrink my wants list a bit.

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!

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!

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! 

Trevenant - Furious Fists Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with an opening for my PTCGOpA series!

This time round I've opened up a Trevenant blister pack for the Furious Fists expansion. I bought this one along with the Slurpuff blister pack for altogether £17.31 from Chaos Cards.

Click here if you want to see the video opening of this blister pack or simply scroll down below if you want to see the pulls I got.

The pack itself

The promo card, Trevenant XY14. I like the dark imagery, it goes well with the Pokémon's design and typing.

And here are the pulls I obtained. A Jynx, Pangoro and Gothitelle - all rares.

So sadly nothing special but they are all cards I needed to further my collection (even the Gothitelle that I originally thought I had already).

I do like the artwork where you see the Pokémon battling, they are very dynamic and a great homage to the overall franchise, cause you know, that's pretty much the point of it; monsters beating each other up!

I look forward to opening up more packs from this set and checking out more of the dynamic artwork.

And that's it for today's opening. A fairly straightforward one. 

Tune in next time to see if I open up anything more exciting!

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!

Opening 4 Flashfire Booster Packs

Hi all!

Welcome back to another blog post, this one being a Pokemon booster pack opening!
I'm still in China, so as usual these are booster packs I found in Hong Kong at a good price of 30 HKD (i.e. £2.50).

This time round I found some XY Flashfire booster packs! It was my first time opening up any boosters from this set, so I was pretty excited.

Enough chit-chat, wanna see what I got? Check out my opening video on my youtube channel; here.

OR

Scroll bellow to see pictures of what I ended up pulling.

Out of four packets I got two rare cards, the dynamic Lopunny and the sour looking Qwilfish.

My holo is a Carbink. The holographic pattern is not very obvious on the card due to the picture's dark background as well as the sleeve. It looks good though.

And an Ultra Rare Full Art Kangaskhan-EX! So glad to have gotten this one!

I'm not going to rant on in this post, I'm just glad to have gotten these cool new cards. Out of 4 packs I got a really good ratio, a holo and an ultra rare? Thanks Hong Kong! You're booster packs have been giving me great pulls all these months!

Anyways, that's the end of this post and of any future booster pack openings in China. Next time I do a Pokemon related update it is hopefully when I'm back in the U.K. Once there I'll start the next series of Pokemon TCG Opening Adventures. I'm excited and I hope y'all are too.

This doesn't mean I'll (completely) neglect this blog until then though. I have at the very least one more post to make. 

So hang around! Till next time.

Opening 4 XY Booster Packs

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here with the last batch of Pokémon booster packs I bought from Hong Kong to open up. These were slightly more expensive than the previous ones, at 30 HKD each (making them roughly £2.50). These are the first XY Base Set TCG merchandise I'll be opening up, months behind the rest of the world, but well, what can I do about that? I'm excited about this anyways. So, without further ado lets get to it!

As usual, if you want to see the video of these pack openings click here to go to my youtube channel.

Now, I've heard (and seen via other youtube videos) that the holo-to-rare ratio in this set is not great, so unsurprisingly I ended up with many rares:

A Rhydon, a Tauros and a Grumping. The Reverse-Holo is a Furfrou, usually a holo, I actually quite like it, it is one of my favourite mons from the 6th Gen.

No holographics after this lot sadly, buuuuuuuuuuut I did get this guy:

A beautiful Xerneas-EX. I'm glad this is the EX I got, as cool as Yveltal is, Xerneas is my favourite of the two.

I have to admit, I'm not too fond of the artwork of the XY Base Set. From what I can tell, compared to Flashfire and Furious Fists it looks somewhat underwhelming. And although I'm not usually one to poo-poo rare cards (especially if I haven't already got them) these ones don't look great and I know I'll be getting many of these as doubles in the future (yup, that's a hint to having some XY merchandise to open up for Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2). The Xerneas-EX is a fantastic pull though! I'm pleased with that.

Overall, good pulls for the price I got them at! Thanks for reading and look forward to my next update!

Till next time!

Opening 4 Plasma Storm Booster Packs

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, and first thing's first; sorry for the long absence!
This video/blog post was meant to go up a month ago, but both work life and computer problems made that very difficult to do. I have currently found a temporary solution to the computer problem allowing me, for now, to finally upload some stuff.

So here is the long overdue booster pack opening filmed some time ago; 4 Plasma Storm booster packs!
Check the video opening here if you want.

First off, the rares:

Two Team Plasma cards, a Garbodor and a Bouffalant. Thankfully I have these two already, because these cards are slightly damaged on the bottom right hand side. A fate most the old cards I purchased in Hong Kong have suffered (damaged due poor storage or delivery, I don't know, oh well!)

The Holo I got is a Team Plasma's Klinklang. Not the most visually stunning picture I must admit, not to mention a card I believe I own already. But still, a good pull.

And for my EX... *pause for dramatic effect*... a Team Plasma's Zapdos-EX!

Zapdos was never my favourite of the legendary birds, but this card is very handsome nonetheless, with a great lightning effect surrounding the borders of the card, very cool. The card is slightly damaged at the bottom like all the others, but a N/M card is still a good card. I'll gladly put it in my collection =)

And that's it for this week's update. Next week I'll attempt to upload the XY Booster Pack opening! I've already done the video and I can guarantee some good pulls, so come back to check it out ;)

(yes I know XY Base Set is a little old now, but I'm in China, I was surprised to have even found these out here in the first place! Hopefully you can join in the excitement with me anyways~)

M'bye bye for now!

Opening 4 Emerging Powers Booster Packs

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here and as my very boring but straightforward post title implies, I'm opening up four Pokémon Black & White Emerging Powers booster packs.

Just like my last Pokémon TCG related update, I purchased these booster packs, along with 8 others, in Kowloon - Hong Kong in a small shop at In's Point.
They cost me 25 HKD, which is roughly 1.90 GBP or 3 USD. Not bad at all! In fact, a very good price considering the pulls I got. Lets check them out, shall we? (scroll bellow to see pictures or click here for the video)

First off, here are the rares. 

I pulled a Darmanitan, a Leavanny and a reverse Gigalith.

I'm pretty sure I have this Darmanitan already, but I think I may still need the Leavanny.

A Holo Gothitelle. I'm sure I have at least two of these already. But glad to have pulled a holo nonetheless. 

And here is the gem of the bunch:

A Full Art Tornadus. This card may not be worth much at all, but I'm very happy to have gotten it, it is an Ultra Rare after all. It's interesting to see that it's not in this set that they started leaving "finger print" like patterns on Full Art cards.

Overall this was an okay bunch of booster packs. Emerging Powers is the smallest set from the BW era of Pokémon TCG with only 98 cards, only 2 of which are Full Arts and 10 holos- so I'm pretty glad that I managed to get a Full Art. 

Well, I'll leave you here. My next Pokémon TCG update will be soon. I'll be opening up four Plasma Storm booster packs. Looks forward to that! 

See ya next time!