I just read a recent rant here that bashed Wizards' huge mistakes and ways to
rip people off. I totally agree with the author. Wizards has made many
mistakes that almost all card players resent. I'll start with the whole holo
and non holo deal.  (NOTE: This is a very long article. Please have patience.)
    Isn't it annoying when you have to buy at least three times as many
boosters to collect an English set than a Japanese set because of the
worthless non-holos? Making originally-valuable cards like Articuno and Dark
Charizard so easy to get now with the non-holo versions of them totally kills
the value of the cards.  Wouldn't you expect a rare mystical Pokémon like
Articuno or a difficult to find Pokémon from Base like Charizard to be a rare
holographic card? Now we've got loads of near-worthless non-holo Dark
Charizards, while buying more and more boosters hoping to get a shinier
version of the exact same card just to complete the set. I'm sure that
Japanese kids are laughing at our pathetic non-holo versions of Here Comes
Team Rocket (an originally Super Rare card in Japan which is worth next to
nothing anywhere else that gets boosters made by Wizards). Now, something
related to this is Wizards' new plan for Gym 1. Before I say it, I must say,
I HATE  this plan. They plan to change the card ratios of the American Gym
boosters so there's only one rare, and still a 1 in 3 chance to get a holo.
Sure, there's no non holos that are identical to the holos, but they made it
VERY, VERY unfair to American players. Japanese people get 2 rares per Gym
pack, one's always a rare holo, and one's always a non holo. That's great!
But now, Wizards, the kings of ripping off American card players, give us a
very unfair ratio for our cards. Idiots!!!! Okay, enough with the holo/non
holo bashing. Now, I'll talk about the awful promo series Wizards devised for
America.
    Have you noticed how many promos there are in Japan? There are so many,
it's impossible to name them all. There's no real set to collect with promos
(vending and Southern Islands excluded), so you won't have a hole in your
collection if you're missing one. But Wizards just had to come and totally
screw up these once interesting, hard-to find cards, and once again, kill the
values. We have very few promos, and they're all from a numbered series!!
Now, there's a set involved, and any promo you don't have, you'll need to get
because the numbers encourage you to collect a set. These promos, which are
almost all the same as the Japanese ones, demonstrate the two
extremes--either simple to get or impossible. Let's look at Promo Mew. Fossil
Mew was once a highly prized collector's item, and was valued at around $60
by many collectors. Then, Wizards has a moronic plan to try out with Fossil.
They remove Mew from the set completely, and to piss off collectors, release
it as a promo card with the League. This looked bad for players who didn't
have access to the League, but pretty much anyone who could get to the
Pokémon League when Mew was available came home from the League with eleven
promo Mews. That certainly sucked. Then, we get holo Mew, where you have to
earn one. The whole "earn points from battling to get the promo which sucks
anyway" concept was a big mistake, as they had to add the awful Computer
Error to the mix. Then, there are the impossible to get promos, namely NP
Mewtwo, Soundtrack Jigglypuff, and Cool Porygon. NP Mewtwo (and Dark Persian)
were terrible mistakes that Wizards should have changed immediately. Since
they're for subscribers only, how are the other players who don't want to get
Nintendo Power supposed to get the promo? Most players who have it refuse to
trade it because it's so hard to get now. Promo Jigglypuff is also a huge
rip-off. You have to buy the awful soundtrack for $15+, send the thing in,
wait a few months, and when you finally get the card (if you even get it), it
might be damaged. I didn't bother to try for the Jiggly, it's a weak card and
I don't have the patience to wait for something that probably won't come.
It's too late anyway. Cool Porygon is yet another card that requires a lot of
time/money to get. The only way to get this card, which sucks in decks, is to
buy the $150 N64 bundle pack. Most Pokémon fans already have an N64 (I don't,
but that's a different story), because it's from Nintendo and Nintendo is
usually associated with Pokémon. And the only way to get this useless card is
to buy the bundle pack! A bratty little kid I know (and hate) actually
convinced his parents to buy him ANOTHER N64, JUST so he could get the stupid
Cool Porygon card! Can you believe that? Wizards and Nintendo were idiotic to
put Cool Porygon in a $150 N64 set, but people actually buy another N64 for
the card.
    There's still more I'd like to add, but this is long enough. Questions?
Comments? E-mail me at Raiden9984@aol.com.

-Will