Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet-151 Elite Trainer Box review

Written on: October 1st, 2023

Here’s our review of the Scarlet & Violet-151 Elite Trainer Box (the ordinary one, not the Pokémon Center version).

The reviews don’t lie. Pulling good Scarlet & Violet-151 cards is difficult. What we did pull, the coordination, the art, the overall packaging is very good. This does seem like a set that will hold value. We attempted to start a full set for Scarlet & Violet base set and Paldea Evolved. We’ll abandon those efforts and focus on S&V:151 instead. It’s very cool that the same illustrator created an Evolution chain and this is true for many Pokémon.

…This expansion offers a twist by showing many Pokémon in the same Evolution chain depicted by a single illustrator.

S&V 151 Player’s Guide

ETB artwork

The ETB box, card dividers and sleeves have some of the best designs we have seen in an ETB.

Good cards

The two best cards we pulled were Mew EX holo and Ivysaur full art. They are valued at $13.29 and $11.78 respectively on pricecharting.com. The Ivysaur may be the card to grade, as it valued at $60 with a 9.5 rating. The Mew EX is only $29 for a 9.5. If we grade these two cards, and they come back as a 9.5, it pays for the entire ETB. I expect the values to go down as more graded cards arrive. How much is the question. The Snorlax promo has fantastic art.

Rare cards

We got some nice rares. The Gengar and Gyardos are the favorites here. Flareon and Moltres were a dupe from the Collection Box. Dodrio we have three. The Ditto artwork is underrated. We were surprised some rares are worth more than $1 as we have seen in other sets. From pricecharting.com:

• Raichu reverse holo $1.81
• Nidoking $1.74
• Dodrio reverse holo $1.85
• Gengar $2.55
• Gyardos $1.25
• Ditto $2
• Flareon $2.74
• Moltres $1.41

The cards will decline as more people sell cards. If the relative rarities hold, this would be an unexpected benefit buying an ETB.

Beautiful cards

I’m a sucker for vibrant art. S&V: 151 has it in spades. Look at the art on some of these commons and uncommons. It makes the entire set a joy to see.

These holo printed energies were a pleasant surprise. I can never look at an another energy the same way again. They are better than the hyper rare, gold energies. I have no idea how we pulled 3 in our 9 packs. They seem common and show up in the energy slot.

Overall verdict

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ + .5 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Given the overall pattern work, beautiful art, some decent pulls, rare cards having more value than expected, and coordinated evolutions, 151 probably the set of the year. It’s a nice bonus that the card number matches the pokedex. For ocd folks like us, it’s a nice detail.

The number of cards we have means we need to start a business to slim down what we own for inventory management purposes. We’ll set it up on Shopify and write a post on it here.

We’ll be looking to collect them all in 151!

Sincerely yours,

smilingdad

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