EP 3: Set Critic: Base Set

 In this episode Theo, Judah and a special guest embark on a journey through Base Set.Check out our subscription - We would really appreciate the support!POLL! Leave your answer in the comments. Question: Do you think base set is overrated?Option 1: Its a great set!Option 2: Its okayOption 3: Mechanically, playing Base Set felt less like a strategic card game and more like a chaotic playground scam. The rules were so wildly unbalanced that a single Professor Oak card let you discard your hand and draw seven new cards just because you felt like it. Matches were regularly decided by a literal coin flip on turn one. Worse, the game hated logic; it was mathematically smarter to beat your opponent to death with a basic Hitmonchan than to waste six turns evolving a majestic Blastoise.Artistically, the set had the visual diversity of a DMV waiting room. Genius artist Ken Sugimori drew almost every single card using the exact same generic stock art we saw on lunchboxes and folders. Most backgrounds were just lazy, abstract color smears that looked like MS Paint mistakes. Yes, Mitsuhiro Arita’s holographic art was beautiful, but the other 90% of the set looked like a collection of clip art. Modern cards feature jaw-dropping, hand-painted masterpieces, making Base Set look ancient and empty.Then there is the modern secondary market, which turned a harmless childhood hobby into a toxic playground for crypto bros and wealthy influencers. Logan Paul wore a Charizard around his neck like a millennial flavor flav, and suddenly everyone thought the bent Machamp in their attic was worth a mansion. The artificial scarcity is hilarious because Nintendo printed literally millions of these things. You are not buying a rare piece of history; you are paying a scalper for a piece of cardboard that smelled like old Scholastic Book Fairs.Ultimately, Base Set deserves credit for starting a phenomenon, but it belongs in a museum, not on a pedestal. It gave us broken gameplay, repetitive art, and a modern financial bubble fueled entirely by mid-life crises. Every subsequent generation improved the formula, proving that the original blueprint was deeply flawed. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but it is time to admit that Base Set was just a shiny gateway drug to a much better game. Aka. Yes it is.Feel free to send us fan mail, and new ideas!Support the show