Hey all, my good buddy "cattdreams" told me of a local Target store here in California that had blister packs of the new TCG-EX Ruby & Sapphire on sale last Saturday, June 14. Well, I went down and grabbed a few packs for myself and scanned a boatload of stuff to share with the world.
Initial Observations:
1.> Out of the six packs I bought, three of them
contained "EX" pokemon (one Mewtwo-EX, two Hitmonchan-EX) as the plain old
Rare, not as the Holo-Rare. Either I'm really lucky, or perhaps these "EX"
pokemon won't be as difficult to find as I thought they were gonna be.
2.> The "EX" Pokemon have holo speckles around the outside edges of the card. At least now we know why the advertisements for them had a silver border rather than the classic yellow border.
3.> Non-"EX" holos replace one of the commons in the packs containing them (4 Commons + 1 Holo, instead of 5 Commons), just like in other recent releases. They are not designated with H1 numbers like Skyridge, Aquapolis, etc. which leads me to believe there will not be any non-Holo versions of the same cards in this set.
4.> The wording on Metal & Darkness Energies basically say "Ignore this effect if the Pokemon is not {xxx}". This brings it in line with the new TCG-Ex rulings that Metal & Darkness now only provide the extra benefits for Pokemon of that type (i.e. no more "Metal Chansey"). Team Compendium's website will have a page devoted to the new TCG-EX rulings in the near future.
5.> I pulled three separate unique versions of Electrike (2 common, 1 uncommon), and two different Poochyenas. Looks like Mudkip, Torchic, and Treecko aren't the only ones with multiple versions in this set.
6.> I did not think that basic Energy would be included in boosters, but one of my packs actually contained a basic Psychic Energy as one of the commons. I wonder how that's going to affect booster drafting and sealed play <sigh>.
Here are some scans that Chrisbo did of the packs he got:
Enjoy,
- CHRISBO
