Did These Cards Actually Suck?

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]The year was 2024 and Pokémon was feeling the heat. Retailers reported massive drops in sales, complaining that new sets with unwanted chase cards was sat gathering dust on the shelves.

[00:00:14]Meanwhile, attacks were coming from all sides. Disney's Lana was emerging as a major force. One Piece was exploding in popularity and Magic the Gathering was coming off the biggest year in its entire history. Creatures Inc. The company responsible for Pokémon card design and gameplay needed a response.

[00:00:35]Understanding the incredible power the evolutions had over fans, they announced a set filled with them.

[00:00:43]>> And the set of course is Prismatic Evolutions. And with no end in sight for all this hype in 2025 with Pokémon cards, the madness continues. The madness continues.

[00:00:53]>> Pre-orders sold out instantly. Prices skyrocketed and the entire hobby began orbiting around these nine evolutions.

[00:01:04]But now that new sets have arrived to replace the frenzy, it's time to step back and ask, why did so many people go so crazy for these cards? Is it because they're genuine masterpieces that lived up to the extreme hype? Or were they doomed from the very start? Welcome to the good, the bad, and the ugly of the prismatic evolution.

[00:01:41]In November 2024, images leaked online giving the world their first look at the new Evolution SIR cards. And even in these low res scans, it was obvious these artworks were something special.

[00:01:54]They felt unlike anything Pokémon had released before. And that's because, as we'd later find out, most of them were drawn by a completely new generation of artists.

[00:02:05]Suie, who had 17 years of experience, and 2020 Grand Prix illustration winner Jiro Sumo, who was actually painting his second Leafeon full art card, were the only established Pokémon artists present. Everyone else was a relative newcomer with some having barely illustrated one or two cards before.

[00:02:23]This focus on newer artists was a bold move by Creatures Inc. as was the surprise inclusion of Kamom Shiramama.

[00:02:31]The artist behind Glacion was also the manga car behind the breakout phenomenon Witch Hat Atilier.

[00:02:42]But Creatures Inc's Gamble is only part of the story. What truly made these evolution cards stand out was the artwork itself. A collection of wildly different styles unified into a single visual identity. Some resemble stained glass cathedral windows. Some are filled with energetic buzzing lines. Others feel like fantasy illustrations trapped beneath crystal surfaces. And all of them are framed with rainbow borders and decorated with intricate levels of detail.

[00:03:14]And of course, one card completely consumed the conversation. Yashiro Nanako's Umbreon EX.

[00:03:32]Yashiro works primarily in a medium called gouache, a painting style known for its layered pigments and soft velvety finish. It's often associated with vintage fairy tale books and classic animation backgrounds. And that same texture gives Umbreon an oddly dreamike quality. It's warm, nostalgic, but also strangely distant.

[00:03:53]This combination of unique finish and high value caused Umbreon to become not just the biggest chase card of prismatic evolutions, but one of the biggest cards of the entire Scarlet and Violet era.

[00:04:04]But the truth is all of these artworks are absolutely stunning.

[00:04:13]Despite the beauty of the evolution cards, not everyone connected with them.

[00:04:17]For some collectors, the problem started with the terastilization mechanic from Scarlet and Violet. Whether it was frustration with glitchy gameplay or simply the design itself, a lot of fans just never fully embraced it. Then there's the Sri nickname. Umbreon, >> which suggested the majority of people had no idea about Umbreon's moon ccentric mythology.

[00:04:42]The true criticism of these cards, however, came from comparisons to the Sword and Shield sets that immediately preceded them. The shadow of Eevee Heroes and Evolving Skies looms enormously large over the Pokémon TCG.

[00:04:53]As soon as Prismatic was announced, it was already being compared to those older sets and the dollar values associated with them. But looking specifically at the artwork, there was a clear pattern that formed. Whether it's Leafeon V-Max batting around a hay bale like a giant cat with a toy, Sylveon V-Max becoming a massive jungle gym for other Pokémon to play on, or Umbreon V-Max reaching for the moon in a dreamlike scene reminiscent of Van Go's Starry Night. Sword and Shield Alt Hearts felt like windows into hidden worlds. By comparison, critics pointed out that the new wave of EX cards felt more like luxury objects, presenting the evolutions as lifeless Sarovski crystals that look beautiful on the shelf, but don't feel like real Pokémon inside a living story. And maybe that was the intention all along. PSA alone grades millions of cards every year. Perfect 10 are the holy grail for a great many people. Perhaps Creatures Inc. We're just making the perfect expensive ornaments to go inside those perfect plastic slabs. Whether or not these criticisms are valid is up to you as a viewer to decide. One thing that is beyond debate, though, is the way things got ugly.

[00:06:07]>> And there has never been a worse time to be a Pokémon collector than right now.

[00:06:12]>> The fallout from Prismatic Evolutions caused fans to rename the set Traumatic Evolutions. And beneath all the madness, there was some truly gruesome mathematics.

[00:06:25]At launch, individual prismatic booster packs regularly sold for around $16 on the secondary market. That was roughly double the price of the last main expansion and nearly triple the cost of the last half set. According to TCG Player, you would need to open an average of 1,440 packs to pull a specific Eevee sir.

[00:06:46]That's a total cost of over $20,000 United States dollars, which you may think is impossible for anyone to spend on Pokémon cards until you actually see people doing it.

[00:07:00]Even buying singles became a mammoth expense. Just after release, the cost for all these cards combined was around $4,000.

[00:07:08]And currently, at the time of filming, it still sits just above 3,300. And remember, that's just these nine evolutions. There's a total of 32 SIR cards in this set, plus promo cards, plus Masterball Hollows. Putting together an entire master set just after release, would have set you back over $7,000.

[00:07:30]The average workingclass person, let alone the average kid, just couldn't keep up.

[00:07:35]And while there are all kinds of narratives around who to blame, from distributors to content creators to scalpers to the Pokémon Company itself, it was clear that a new normal was forming. Be careful what you wish for had a new meaning altogether.

[00:07:51]Suddenly, the same people who were complaining about cheap products and shelves full of unwanted sets were now staring at the exact opposite problem. A brutal lesson in supply and demand and a reminder that some people just want to watch the world burn.

[00:08:15]Did these cards live up to the hype or were they doomed from the very start? I say no. They didn't live up to the hype because honestly no cards ever could have. They had to wear all that FOMO, all that hype, all that collector rage like a curse. And that, in my eyes, was impossible to break. I will say my kids absolutely adore them, especially Sylveon and Glacion. And maybe beneath everything good, bad, and ugly, that's the part worth holding on to.