Mega Metagross-EX Premium Collection

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with a fantastically luxurious Mega Metagross-EX Premium Collection box opening for my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures (S02)!
I got this box at the fantastic discounted price of £24.75 from Chaos Cards, instead of the usual £35+ it can cost. This is because I not only bought it as a pre-order, but also made use of my membership discount.

Shall we see if this box was worth the purchase?
As usual, check out my video on youtube or scroll down to see the pulls I got.

Here is the MASSIVE box. It was so big that barely 1/3 managed to fit on screen when I was filming the opening.

This "Premium" box is the first of its kind. It must have been popular because Nintendo have started releasing others (Mega Diancie-EX Premium Box is currently out)

This is the back of the box, which lists everything you can get within it.

The battle matt is a cool addition for those who enjoy playing the game competitively. 

These are the promotional goodies you get in the box (minus the matt).

Here is a close up of the two promotional cards; my main aim for getting this box in the first place (that and all the booster packs).

As expected from the XY series of sets I got mostly rare cards sadly.

I did manage to get a reverse-holo rare in the form of Spiritomb though. A very lovely card that works well as a reverse.

I got two holographic cards. The Heliolisk from Phantom Forces and a Carbink from Flashfire.

Both very nice cards, though unfortunately I do own the Carbink already.

I do think the idea for this premium box is a cool one. It's nice to see Nintendo aiming for the player demographic of Pokémon TCG with this merchandise that provides a matt and a play set of promo cards (not sure just how playable these cards are though)

I am saddened that I got no ultra rares from this box. There is not guarantee in these kind of products to get anything of the sorts though even with all those booster packs, unlike in a booster box. Still, it's a shame. At least the box wasn't as ridiculously expensive as it could have been!

Hopefully next time I can pull something more exciting! Stay tuned for the next adventure, bye folks! Thanks for watching/reading!

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!

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! 

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.