I was in the Professor program, a sort of hybrid judge/certification older players could get. When WotC lost the license, they shipped me a box filled with material that they probably had just sitting around and needed to get rid of. As such, I got stacks of promos and rare cards as a cash out when it went to hell

The “age divisions being phased out” requires clarification-towards the end of the WotC era, they effectively turned the 15+ division into a pool of volunteers to run events and shifted their playtimes to small events late in the day. This was widely accused of being an attempt to steer older players towards their internally owned games.

great video great production and research

This totally needs a follow-up. The ex era that followed the transition from WOTC to TPCi saw a revival of the game. Looking forward to more videos!

From the research, music, visuals, and narration, fantastic video. I had no idea the japanese circuit had such success with taming how broken the early meta was. Thank you for all the time and effort you put in, you've made this fan's day!

Great dude! My brother I went to a game store called The Encounter. They hosted MtG and Pokemon. It was such a great time. My dad would drop both of us off and we would be there for hours playing and trading. All the kids would conspire to get more battles in that time to get more stamps in our books. The more stamps, the more promos we got. It was so cool. My brother and I won tournaments, I won 3 place and he won 1st during the gym Heros release. He got a booster box and I got 16 packs. These were the times you could almost complete a mater set with one booster box. Great times!

This is one of the best videos on Pokemon I have ever seen. Omg brings back SUCH nostalgia. I competed in a tournament in 1999 at age 11 and am just now picking up the game again 25 years later!

My uncle used to work for wizards of the coast in production line he used to bring me cards and many error and missedcut cards and not properly sealed packs I didn’t know that they would explode in prices I used to draw on them and lost many of them…I only have a few of them today

22:20 For those wondering what the cards limited to 1 are, here's the full list: - Electabuzz (Base) -Hitmonchan (Base) -Scyther (Jungle) -Wigglytuff (Jungle) -Muk (Fossil) -Aerodactyl (Fossil) -Magmar (Fossil) -Dark Vileplume (Rocket) -Mr. Mime (Vender) -Super Energy Removal (Base) -Imposter Oak's Revenge (Rocket) -Rocket Sneak Attack (Rocket) -The Rocket's Trap (Gym Heroes)

Great work. This is the first source of any kind I’ve seen that explains the business issues behind the loss of license rather than just chalking it up to money or control or change in pop culture preferences. I also didn’t know about the Japanese ban/restriction system, but it makes total sense why their tournaments continued to be vibrant and strategic while in the US it was just about who had the most money for booster packs to pull 4 copies of all the broken cards.

9:04 The Clefairy + Blaine's Charizard interaction would actually work exactly like intended under Magic's rules. Whenever a card mentions its own name, it is only referring to itself. When a card copies another card's ability, the self-reference is adjusted accordingly. They probably messed this up because whoever worked on PTCG at the time took the terminology from Magic but didn't fully understand its implications.

This video was so well researched and full of stuff I had never heard about. You make such great content, love to see it

Documentary style vid about the rich history of Pokémon TCG and it’s beginnings. Count me in!

"Imagine pulling Brock's Zubat as a kid" My brother. Been there.

My historic nerdy brain is enjoying this video like all of your other videos 😁 It would also be interesting if we could see a history on 3d card renders because I've always been interested on their designs because of how they always stuck out like a sore thumb compared to other pokemon cards

This is one of the videos on KZfaq that made me watch from start to finish without skipping a second. Great job, dude!

WOTC was also responsible for the international release in every other language I believe, including the Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese. Would be nice to see a follow up video about the other regions, if they got tournaments, promo cards, etc in those early days.

Banger video As an MTG fan watching Pokémon TCG videos is like peering into an alternate dimension

It's criminal that this video has only 150k views, it deserves 10x that amount, really good video though, can't wait to see more from you

I was 7 when I entered my first Pokemon League and to this day, I still dont know how to play it but your videos have been awesome and nostalgic. Thank you

With how poorly wizards has been doing with magic and dnd recently this video feels well timed.

By covering one specific and interesting topic, and using history to draw attention to Wizard's dumb management.. this has been so much better to watch than the several videos covering the TCG history by other creators in even less time. Congrats on a good piece of content!

That Gym Leader commercial with the clowns... I used to watch ABC cartoons (mostly the Buzz Lightyear and Tarzan shows) while I ate breakfast before school, and that clown commercial played SO frequently. Like every commercial break, sometimes twice. I can remember it so vividly and hear it in my dreams. It seems like it would have only aired for a few months, but for some reason it seems like it ran for years. It's crazy how it was so ordinary and banal at the time, and now it's a potent idol of nostalgia, a window into a world that will never exist again.

This was a really good video. The rise of the TCG history videos and them being more educational in format is super cool. I hope you do more like these and I think a combo of content creators like Ruby Retro and yourself would be great for TCG videos. There's like, 25+ years and it feels like it's only just now getting proper documentation in video format.

I learned to read with the help of Pokémon cards back when Jungle and Fossil had just released. I've been casually collecting ever since, and I remember being so perplexed at how differently the new EX Ruby & Sapphire cards were framed. I had no idea about how different the two regions were in tournaments, release, etc. Amazing video!

Oooh this was a gripping watch; I love these sort of histories on like, the "why" stuff happened as it did. And woah I did not realize there were that many errors in early Pokémon TCG...! Makes sense that it would result from having to rush and then also having Magic's wordings and rulings on the employees' minds on top of that. (Though less so for sticking to the whole thing with Slowking's Mind Games)

this was a fascinating video. thank you for making it.

This channel deserves way more views and subs. Love the content, and how you're exploring stuff about the card game very few ppl do! Would love an 2004-2006 era video

Interesting video, thank you. :) As a Finnish person who collected WotC era Pokémon cards it was nice to learn where several old Promo cards are originally from. Those were not available here. Here we used the English language version so the smaller kids did't play much with the cards because of the language barrier. They just traded and collected them. The eSeries cards were also not available here because eReader was not released in Europe. For long time I thought that Neo series were the last WotC card series so it felt really weird to find videos couple of years ago where KZfaqrs opened eReader card sets. :D

Your quick skimming of the errors in print runs made me look at some of my older cards. There was way more than I had encountered. One of my favorite misprints was my 'base set' Mr. Mime, that was missing the Jungle set logo on it. Based on the timeline, I entered the card game the first few seasons, since the pointing system lined up with what I remembered. Our local Toys R Us hosted the club for those initial years, though around 00 or 01, I distinctly remember the runners just giving out the Promos or several additional copies if asked since the league was winding down and they didn't want to keep the additionals. I traded for so much good stuff with the duplicates back then. Fun times, I'd say it was almost as fun as when Pokémon Go originally dropped and everyone went out to do that.

I was not expecting this documentary to be so good 😮. I really enjoy the section where you cover known errors in the WOTC cards.

Really well done video. I was surprised by how much I learned and was reminded about considering I lived through a lot of it as an Admin on WotC's Pokemon message board and judge. Great job!

While there are certain legitimate reasons why people adore the WotC era and consider it the "golden age" of the TCG (at least in card design), I think it's mostly nostalgia, and perhaps a bit of the format they used for their competitive circuit. Even that being said, a competitive scene isn't worth much when the game is an unbalanced mess, and while the modified format (introducing rotations) was a good change the fact they never rectified the mistranslated Slowking (until banning it 2 years after release) tells me they couldn't have cared too deeply about the game as a whole since it was a completely over centralizing, broken abomination that slowed games to a crawl and turned them into even more of a clunky mess.

Great video! It offers a lot of insight I wasn't familiar with and explains a lot from my perspective. I collected the cards from the beginning all the way through Skyridge but the only place I knew where to get Pokemon cards was the Wizards of the Coast store in my local mall. One day, they just didn't have Pokemon cards anymore. I figured they had finally discontinued making them because by then the craze had died down and I didn't know anyone else who did. It would be another 10+ years before I picked up collecting again and by then the cards were vastly different and I felt like a time traveler.

Amazing video with top quality production value! I really liked how you had the background of each error card as a blurred large version of the card art

It’s great to have all of this Informantion presented concisely in a single video. Previously you would have to jump around to many other sources.

One of the things I loved back when Wizard of the Coast were in charge of the game's publication internationally, they were allowing players to use cards of any languages as long as they were released in their respective region, including Japanese cards. It was quite common back then to order Japanese boxes online due to their holo and rare distribution in comparison to the WotC products like it was mentioned in this video. The Japanese booster boxes were a bit more pricier, but they had more packs. So getting a guaranteed holo and rare in Base Set, Gym 1 and 2, and Neo 1, and a holo in all other sets was way more interesting and easier to complete playsets of cards for deck construction.

New peak Pokémon KZfaq video just dropped thank god

The Age restriction tournament scene to move older players into MTG is the main reason WotC lost the license ... And they deserved it.

Literally never knew this had been posted, let alone that it got resurrected

I find this history of their pokeon license on wizards of the coast really fascinating. For every weird thing that wizards of the coast did, they had amazing ideas and concepts for the USA market, introducing new players, releasing cards that were exclusive in japan, and even the idea to release their own original cards. They definitely made some misteps along the way which eventually led to their license being taken away, but for every good they did, im thankful for their services.

There's a rumor that Jamboree cards were printed, at least a few of them, even though the set never released. I wonder if there's any truth to it.

Man Jamboree would've been such a cool set. The combination of Japanese exclusive cards and new western exclusive cards would've made something really special. It's a shame Wizards wasn't able to have their final Pokémon set be that, and instead they had to end on e-Card. I'm really nostalgic for the WoTC era, despite it's faults, though considering what's going on with them these days, I'm glad they were dropped. Fantastic video as usual.

For what it’s worth, even in Magic, the clefairy would have to discard the energy. That’s just a baffling wrong ruling from both sides. In Magic, it’s understood that a card’s name in the text box refers to that instance of it. While this has been a rule for as long as I have played (just over 10 years), it got more attention recently with mutate. Maybe things were different in Magic back in the day, but I doubt it. Probably just a poor ruling. As for muk and the stack, did Magic have the stack then? Maybe by then it did, but I know Magic used batches or something before the stack was finally introduced in the Urza’s block. I don’t know the timelines of the 2 games. Also, my interpretation of it (via modern Magic rulings) is that muk would stop those “when played” powers. Magic has cards that shut off those style of effects too, so the rules allow it. (Cards like the new Elesh Norn just prevent those abilities from entering the stack at all.) Magic had an early period where cards interacted weirdly before they cleared things up, and it sounds like they let that mess spill into Pokémon.

Happy you’re still active on your channel! I subscribed a few hours ago, and I was surprised to already find a new video! ❤ Thank you!

This was super interesting, might be the best video you've made yet! :D Great work.

The two companies partnered with each other to get where they were. Wizards saw money (and led to being bought by Hasbro, which was always something of interest to the employees - a buyout!), and Pokemon saw a path to international distribution and organized play (partnering with the biggest name in TCGs). As far as the end of the relationship - it was bound to happen. Wizards wanted to produce their own cards (and take a larger cut, having done all of the game design and artwork, getting a cut of Japanese cards assuming they were printed in Japan!). Wizards also wanted to migrate older tournament players to Magic, while Pokemon wanted to integrate the brand more closely under their umbrella. The fact that Pokemon USA released EX Ruby & Sapphire in June means that both of the companies knew it was over months beforehand. Wizards didn't get a contract renewal - that kind of thing is ALWAYS a risk. Especially if the relationship isn't 100%.

This is the best video I’ve seen that breaks down this subject and explains it so well. Thank you and I hope you make more

Love this. Seeing the errors in video format was very helpful. Keep up the great work!

Nice to see this video is back up

Thank you for making this video. You brought back so much nostalgia

WotC must be kicking themselves for letting this golden goose get away. While the TCG may only be a small fraction of the Pokemon franchise, Pokemon is still the most successful media franchise of all time, which was enough to make Pokemon TCG the most successful TCG game of all time. I think Yugioh has more cards sold but Pokemon TCG has the highest revenue.

Please do not ever do a Chaos Gym jump scare. Seriously gave me a heart attack.

Love that this one's popping off. It's an awesome video! I'm gonna steal the idea of using drop shadows, looks great.

About an hour before this video released, a much older one reminded me Wizards once produced Pokémon cards. My first questions was whether they still do, and here came yours to explain no and why! While a little long for so specific an interest, the whole video is well designed and well researched!

Being pedantic here but 1st edition lasted in Japan for 15 years not 25, ending with XY CP6 aka the 20th anniversary set. Great video and great concise history of WOTC's Pokemon.

I love your video! It was very intriguing and informational. It defintely cleared up some of the questions I had about the relationship between Pokémon TCG and Wizards. I will say, though, that I thought that the ending was a little abrupt. I expected a summary of what you had already discussed, maybe a brief explanation about how the two companies are fairing today. Something. Anyway, regardless, I loved your video and I hit the like button so that hopefully it gets more views and more likes. Oh yeah, don’t forget to remind people to like and subscribe. I’ve heard it works, Lol. Keep up the great work!

A quick note. I went to the mall tours and I was in middle school so I have a good memory of it. There were no pokemon TCG ones at least in St. Louis which had the end of the first tour and the beginning of the second tour. It was video game tourneys only.

Really interesting topic! I only collected the cards during that period, so didn't understand the transition of distributors until many years later. I would've loved to see the planned artwork for the Jamboree set

wow. this was the most insightful PTCG related video ive watched as of late! Great stuff mate!

I wish 1st Edition would come back, it’s such a neat idea and was one of the coolest things Wizards ever brought to the PTCG

keep up the great work! you're videos are beyond fantastic and extremely insightful.

Wouldn't have mattered in the long run. It seems WotC losing Pokemon opened the door for YuGiOh to get its time in American children's spotlights, and if WotC would have continued with Pokemon, just look at what they turned MTG into.

as someone who just recently got into the card game, this is interesting to learn about

Very cool and well done video...i had the misty gym badge from back in the toys r us days. I remember wanting the rest so bad.

I totally played in Pokemon League and went to the Super Trainer Showdowns when I was a kid. My local Pokemon scene dried up as soon as Wizards closed their stores and lost the Pokemon TCG to Nintendo.

Really surprised you didn't talk at all about the massive and prevalent issue of holo foil leak in Japanese cards, where the entire border of your card can be covered in ugly dark circles. It happens on nearly every Japanese vintage card, but almost never in WOTC cards.

Thanks for letting me reminisce on the days of being ranked #7 in the world and going to east coast super trainer showdowns in the Meadowlands. WotC Era was great!

Your videos are great to watch, listen to and provide a ton of insight on the topics discussed. Honestly, I can't wait for you to pop off because homie you're doing seriously good work and I appreciate each piece you make.

Damn.. the start of the video.. tune from PMD.. damn it man childhood hits hard i must replay the games now..

This is the type of content small channels blow up for you are starting something big keep going

17:20 I know using crude or adult humor was kinda the name of the game for gaming magazines in the 90s, but seeing "JUNGLE FEVER!" on a Pokémon ad of all things nearly made me do a spit-take, lmao

Great video, I had always been more curious about the wotc era of cards that I grew up with. Keep up the great content man!

hey thanks alot for making this video cause its hard to find very many that would. it definitely took me back in time. though in my opinion that 1 holo per every 3 packs helped the game because it compromises the fun of pack opening when everyone gets a holo in each pack. the reason we open packs is for the thrill and rush so were given a reason to chase holos and when you finally get it its the best thing ever. Even though as a kid I wasnt a fan of the trainer cards continuously popping up in every pack. I would care nowadays. But anyway, where did you find the pokemon card commercials because I cant find any for the life of me. Never knew the Neo Destiny commercial existed.

Awesome video. Really detailed info and I learned a lot! Subbed, keen to see more of your work mate!

Pretty good video! A couple of small errors (Mysterious Treasures Pikachu listed as a WotC card and Organized Play was originall called 'POP', Pokémon Organized Play, not Play! Pokémon.) But, overall, excellent research!

you're honestly one of the best pokemon youtubers i've watched.

17:11 Neo Genesis Pokémon The End of Wizards License sorry, my lizard brain made the connection immediately

Incredible video! Well researched! Loved the history lesson man thank you!

AMAZING video, well put together, presentation was great, information was delivered in a fluid manner. I have not watched many half hour KZfaq Videos that have left me wanting more. Thanks for sharing!!

Wonderful video that showed off those sick stamp booklets you got at the pokemon league back in the day.

It was great to learn about early competitive play, thanks for doing the research

The most entertaining TCG creator, keep up the good work!

Honestly ngl, a Legendary Collection 2 would have been crazy. Can you imagine the LC reverse holos for shiny pokemon? That'd be insane.

Absolutely incredible video! as a long time Pokemon fan and collector, this video was such a pleasure to watch.

Fantastic video. I wish more people would dive into the production side of pokemon tcg history. Can't see wait to see what you make next!

here to appreciate the quality editing

Now I understand how all these pokemon attack stats and weaknesses made no sense on many cards. They were all errors!

I wish we had more regulations for cards nowadays. Tired of the meta only allowing a few types of decks to be viable.

It’s interesting how the errors in the printing hold a much different opinion to people collecting and not playing the tcg. Us who collect appreciate the errors and the corrections depending on which is more rare.

those errors are what collectors like are are looking for.. this brings MEMORIES 🤗

Nitpicky cause I’m a magic player! the “toxic gas” mistake wizards made was confusing it with is with timestamps, not the stack. The stack wasn’t part of magic at this point!

This vid gave me old school Avgn feeling

This the type of video to blow a channel up. Good work

Was there any official reason why WotC wanted to stop Master division events? I've heard it was beacuse they wanted older players to jump to Magic instead.

Still have a sealed Charizard pack from wizards I bought for a $1 at a flea market 4 years ago. It even has the little cardboard with it. Wonder if I should sell it.

Player A: I do 100 damage to your Dark Persian, how much HP does it have left? Player B: Don't know.

Also fun fact: the Metronome removing energy from Blaine's Charizard is also an instance of WOTC following their own rules incorrectly. In Magic, if a creature gains the ability of another creature that refers to itself, the copied ability refers to the creature that is copying, so that would work like Metronome was meant to

For several years on the TCG ONE Website. A website that uses its own Pokemon TCG simulator, played Blaines Charizard as doing 1 fire energy for 40 damage, and discarding that energy after the attack, and then did an additional 20 damage for every extra energy. so 2 fire would do 60. 3 would do 80. Doing 40 damage for a single energy every turn was game breaking for the site, and loads of players, played Blaines Charizard with stuff like Pokemon Center! However, a few years ago Jason Klazinski reached out to the forums, and we all agreed to return Blaines Charizard to how the Japanese players played the card. It always seemed odd, to have a "20+" written in the attack cost, until then. Also the forums had some ruling issues with "BUZZAP" Electrode's interaction with Blaines Charizard. Now the card only does 20 damage for 1 fire energy, and then does the additional 20 damage for subsequent energy. so 2 fire would do 40. 3 would do 60. A huge nerf!

This video was really enjoayble! Thank you for making it I'm waiting always for your next video, they are all so good :)