Retrospective: Aquapolis

With the release of Shining Legends still a few weeks away (the set officially releases October 6th), I wanted to take a look back at some of the older cards in the TCG’s history and highlight a few collecting nuances with which new and returning collectors may not otherwise be familiar. My last retrospective article was on the Jungle expansion (and you can read it here), but today I’m fast-forwarding to the end of Wizards of the Coast’s stewardship of the game to discuss the Aquapolis expansion.

Released in the United States in January 2003, Aquapolis was the amalgamation of two Japanese booster expansions: The Town with No Map and Wind from the Sea. Looking back on its release, Aquapolis was unleashed during a transition period in the history of the game.  Pokemon Fever from the late 1990s had started to cool down, and the new design layout of the e-Series cards, first introduced to US players and collectors in the preceding Expedition expansion, had been met with mixed reviews. Perhaps the relatively cool initial reception this expansion received is one of the many reasons that cards from this set command such high prices on the secondary market today.

If you are thinking about collecting Aquapolis cards, the most important thing to know is that the set is deceptively MASSIVE. I say “deceptively”, because if you look at the bottom right corner of an Aquapolis card, you will note that the set is only numbered out of 147 cards. That might not seem like a lot, especially when you consider that the two newest sets, Guardians Rising and Burning Shadows, each feature over 160 cards. But in reality, the 147 denominator is a bit of a sham. Aquapolis was, and to this day remains, the largest expansion in the history of the English TCG, featuring a massive 186 standard cards (340 once you add in reverse holos). The omitted 39 cards can be accounted for in three ways:

1) Secret Rares - Aquapolis was the first English expansion to feature secret rare crystal pokemon. Three were included in the set: Nidoking, Kingdra, and Lugia.

[Secret Rare Crystal Lugia. The “Crystal” moniker comes from the Crystal Type Poke-Body found on this and other Crystal cards]

Unlike the Skyridge expansion, the three crystal pokemon from Aquapolis were not available as reverse holos, but all three crystal pokemon continue to command high prices on the secondary market to this day.

2) Holos - Like Jungle, Fossil and other sets from the Wizards of the Coast era, Aquapolis artificially inflated its set size by taking the holos from the Japanese e-Series releases and printing them as both holos and non-holo rare cards in the English release. Unlike earlier expansions, there was a practical reason for doing this. The e-Reader, a Game Boy Advance peripheral that could read the dot codes featured on e-Series cards, could not read foil dot codes. In order to add e-Reader compatible dot codes on the most popular cards of the expansion (which would have otherwise been holographic), Wizards included both a non-holo (and therefore e-Reader compatible) version of each foil card in this and the other two English e-Series sets. In Aquapolis, Wizards elected to completely remove the holographic cards from the standard card numbering system used for other cards in the set, giving them their own unique numbering system. So, for example, while the non-holo rare Ampharos is card number 1/147 in the Aquapolis expansion, the holo rare Ampharos is card number H1/H32. This alternate numbering system would also be used in the Skyridge expansion.

3) Dot Code Variants. The final four cards making up the 186 set count are very easy to overlook.

These Golduck cards appear to be identical. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that the Golduck on the left is card number 50a/147 while the Golduck on the right is card number 50b/147. The final number in the ID under the picture also denotes these cards as the “a” version and “b” version, respectively. The “a” and “b” variants signify that these Golducks have different dot codes. When the dot code on the left side of Golduck A is scanned by an e-Reader, it unlocks a new map in an e-Reader exclusive mini-game called “Construction: Action”. When the left side of Golduck B is scanned by an e-Reader, it unlocks a hidden move for Golduck to use in the TCG called “Spiral Attack” which does X damage (determined randomly by the e-Reader) to the opponent’s active pokemon. The bottom dot code on both versions unlocks pokedex information about Golduck. Hidden attacks were featured on a number of e-Series TCG cards, but all of these attacks were illegal in competitive play, greatly limiting their usefulness. In addition to Golduck, Porygon, Mr. Mime, and Drowzee all had “a” and “b” dot code variants.

Between its secret rares, dot code variants, and holographic cards, Aquapolis offers a terrific challenge for completists. A lot of the functionality of these cards is lost if you don’t have an e-Reader, but Aquapolis nevertheless deserves your attention, especially if you can find cards from this expansion at a decent price.

[The Game Boy Advance e-Reader]

Thecardpletionist has been collecting Pokemon TCG cards since the game’s English release in 1999. You can read more from the author at http://thecardpletionist.blogspot.com/ and can follow him on Instagram at www.instagram.com/thecardpletionist.