Retrospective: Base Set 2

Today’s retrospective article examines the black sheep of the Wizards of the Coast era of the Pokemon TCG: Base Set 2.  Released in February 2000, barely a year after the launch of the Pokemon TCG, Base Set 2 was the first Pokemon TCG reprint set, featuring a mix of 130 cards from Base Set and Jungle. Base Set 2 was the first English exclusive TCG expansion, but at the time of its release, it was met with a great deal of negative reception from collectors, and a more mixed reception from players.  Even today, 18 years later, it is still poorly remembered by many who lived through its release. But why does Base Set 2 get so much hate from older collectors and is it deserved?

In order to understand Base Set 2’s negative reception among collectors, it is important to keep the context of its release in perspective. Back in early 2000, the world was deep in the throes of Pokemon fever. Pokemon was so popular that Wizards of the Coast couldn’t keep up with the demand for new cards. Fossil, released in October 1999, had been out for several months, and the population was desperate to get their hands on any sort of new pokemon card. Scrye magazine, one of the most popular TCG magazines at the time, even started running translations of Japanese Pokemon cards in its pages to capitalize on the hype.

Cover from Scrye 34 – the January 2000 issue. Note there is no reference to Base Set 2 on this cover page despite being published less than a month before the expansion’s release – image courtesy of https://scryenotes.wordpress.com/scrye-34-7-1/

With full translations of existing Japanese sets readily available in the west, desperate fans couldn’t wait to get their hands on brand new Pokemon cards. Players and collectors alike were excited for the release of Team Rocket, the Gym expansions, and especially the brand new Neo sets. Base Set 2, however, brought almost nothing new to the table. For myself and many of my 10 - 12 year old peers at the time, this was very disappointing. Fortunately for us, Team Rocket would release two months later in April 2000, but at a time when anticipation was red hot for new Pokemon cards, receiving a reprint set containing more of the same was met with apathy from many collectors.

So why did Wizards do this? It’s hard to say for sure, but part of the reason was likely to fill the 6 month release gap between Fossil and Team Rocket. In addition, the release model in Magic the Gathering at the time likely had some influence on Base Set 2. Magic’s release schedule featured a core reprint set every year, followed by 3 expansions containing entirely new cards. Magic’s core sets were designed to refresh the pool of playable cards in the TCG and were targeted primarily towards players, rather than collectors. While this has historically worked well for Magic, for Pokemon, a franchise where the objective is to “catch them all”, this approach merely served to alienate the larger pool of “collector-only” consumers found in Pokemon. The negative reception to Base Set 2 likely played a critical role in convincing Wizards to at least temporarily abandon this model for the Pokemon TCG.

Base Set 2 Charizard, the most popular card from the expansion

Today, Base Set 2 still suffers from a negative stigma, but I think it has more to offer collectors now than it did at the time of its release. At a time when secondary market prices for Base Set cards has reached near ridiculous levels of inflation, Base Set 2 offers a cheaper alternative for collectors looking to own early Wizards era Pokemon TCG cards. What are your thoughts on Base Set 2? Let me know in the comments below.