SW Alpha⁹⁷ (Set)

OK, I think I’ve officially worked out the official set list for Alpha⁹⁷! It took me a while to work out what should be included in the set, as well as how to assign collector numbers to the cards, due to two competing methods that have been used over the years:

• The Wizards-era sorted the set by Rarity then Alphabetically.
  • This had the effect of making the types and Pokémon appear randomly in number order, although all the rare cards had lower collector numbers.
  • This was actually used by Nintendo for some time after they took it over… I think they didn’t switch over until the release of Black/White in 2011!
• The post-BW Nintendo-era sorted the set by Type then by PokéDex number.
  • This was something technically used in Japan since Base Set, and officially since Pokémon-VS (which also switched over to the “new”/current backs).
  • This keeps Pokémon together with similar collector numbers, as long as they shared the same type.
• All sets order Pokémon cards first, then Trainers, then Energy.

While I’ve talked about making the Space World sets as 100% compatible to modern Pokémon TCG conventions as possible, I ultimately decided use a mix between the Wizards and Nintendo-era set sorting. Initially this meant any number of sorting combinations:

• By Type then Rarity, then Alphabetically
• By Type then Rarity, then by PokéDex number
• By Type then Alphabetically
• By Rarity then Type, then either Alphabetically or by PokéDex number
• By Rarity then PokéDex number

In the end I decided to use the first style, as it maintains the core Nintendo-era focus of keeping the types together, then focuses on the Wizards’ style of Rarity then Alphabetically.

Anyways, the initial overall plan was to make each Space World set 125 cards large—for a total of 375 cards across the entire Space World Block—but at 125 cards for this set, there isn’t much room for many more Trainers, to say nothing about Special Energy Cards in this set! So maybe I’ll up it to 133/134 cards and a total of 400? At least it won’t require me to significantly renumber every other card, simply to change “125” to “133” or something.

Finally, one other thing I’ll be doing is inventing new English names for the never-released Pokémon, as all of which have only “official” Japanese names—like “ジャランラ Jaranra” or “プラックス Purakkusu“—if they have any names at all. But in order to avoid any potential confusion, I will be including either whatever Japanese name they had or at least any other identifying numbers in their flavor text box. So for example, the “Chelicerae” card will include in its flavor text “Originally discovered as ‘プラックス Purakkusu‘.”, such that any slightly-in-the-know Pokémon fan can at least make the connection between the name I made up with the only official name it was ever given. That said, this is also why I created the set of Regulation Marks of U, V, W, X, Y and Z in order to signify to the audience what degree of officialness this card actually is.

But whoo-wee! I’ve got my work cut out for me… and then I have to do this two more times on top of this! Well, “have to” is a bit of a misnomer… I want to do this. But let’s see if I have the same energy for this now than I did back in the day…! Good times…?