Jamboree Set List | Pokémon Aaah! The Website

So if you haven’t heard, Jamboree was a never-released Pokémon TCG card set that Wizards of the Coast had planned for release that was going to have 100% their own card designs and utilize Western artists for. There’s a whole video about it by Matt Matoba that I think is worth watching if you want the full story (and you might hear your’s truly in it!)

Matt’s video brought up something that I didn’t realize at the time—but did greatly suspect: the EX Sandstorm set had cards that might have been from Jamboree! Specifically, EX Sandstorm was the International release of what was called “ADV 2” in Japan. However, as I noticed right away back during their original release, the International release had effectively 47 more cards in them relative to their Japanese counterparts (100 cards vs 53 cards)… yet those new cards had no prior Japanese equivilant ever. Did we get new cards before Japan?? Where did those cards come from? Well, apparently they had their ultimate origin from Wizards’ Jamboree set.

That said, the cards released in EX Sandstorm were not the same exactly the cards that were developed for Jamboree. For example, here’s a comparison of the Jolteon cards from both Jamboree and EX Sandstorm (well, the Jamboree card itself is a colab between Matt and myself, but the card text is legit confirmed):

So obviously some of it got reworked in its eventual release. But it looks like some hints of its history as a Jamboree card still persists? It’s also obvious tho that bare minimum there was Japanese artwork created for the set—maybe as a compromise?—so it might just be that the Japanese art-based card might have been what ended up being released in EX Sandstorm. In any case, knowing that those cards added to EX Sandstorm had a history with Jamboree does give us a small taste of what might have been.

And that’s what I want to do with this page: design a hypothetical Jamboree set. 47 cards doesn’t a set make, but consider that Jamboree was supposed to be more than just the cards that Wizards designed, it was also a way to release all the other cards that they had the rights to but ultimately never did (something they also planned for the unreleased “Crosstrainer” set). I guess some of that might have included cards from the Vending Machine set, but we already made a What If? set for that called Safari Zone HD Remaster. So for this thought experiment, let’s assume Vending Cards are not included. So what’s left?

EX Sandstorm Cardlist Breakdown

The first thing I want to cover are the 47 brand new cards that were added to EX Sandstorm which were first released in International sets before Japan. One surprise that I didn’t quite realize was how many Gen 3 Pokémon make up this batch (nearly half!). But as it turns out, since Nintendo/TPC reacquired the license and all Pokémon material from Wizards of the Coast (such as original card artwork files), this included all data and material regarding the project called Jamboree. But this also means that the new custodians of the Pokémon TCG were under any obligation to reuse Wizards Jamboree designs at face value… but at the same time, there’s also no reason to believe that they simply threw it all away. There is definitely a core value that TPC found with the old cards that could be used to help pad up their new set, especially if play testing proved that certain card ideas worked well together.

So below is the full list of 47 cards, split up into multiple groups. I’ll explain the grouping below:

No.	Card name	G3?	Card Link	EX?	NOTES
56/100	Aron	X	95	X	Adds prevos for Aggron ex 95/100
41/100	Lairon	X	95	X	Adds prevos for Aggron ex 95/100
40/100	Kirlia	X	96	X	Adds prevos for Gardevoir ex 96/100
74/100	Ralts	X	96	X	Adds prevos for Gardevoir ex 96/100
83/100	Wailmer	X	100	X	Adds prevos for Wailord ex 100/100
44/100	Linoone	X	85		Adds evo for sole Zigzagoon
49/100	Nuzleaf	X	22
77/100	Seedot	X	22
22/100	Shiftry	X	22
28/100	Anorith	X	28
43/100	Lileep	X	28
33/100	Breloom	X	33
78/100	Shroomish	X	33
34/100	Delcatty	X	34
79/100	Skitty	X	34
50/100	Pelipper	X	50
84/100	Wingull	X	50
58/100	Cacnea	X	2		Second Pair for Cacturne 2/100
62/100	Duskull	X	4		Second Pair for Dusclops 4/100
46/100	Lombre	X	7		Second Pair for Ludicolo 7/100
67/100	Lotad	X	7		Second Pair for Ludicolo 7/100
80/100	Slakoth	X			Nothing for it besides EXRS Slaking
52/100	Vigoroth	X			Nothing for it besides EXRS Slaking
15/100	Arcanine		15
65/100	Growlithe		15
23/100	Steelix		23
71/100	Onix		23
29/100	Arbok		29
64/100	Ekans		29
35/100	Electabuzz		35
36/100	Elekid		35
37/100	Fearow		37
81/100	Spearow		37
16/100	Espeon		63
24/100	Umbreon		63
25/100	Vaporeon		63
5/100	Flareon		63
6/100	Jolteon		63
63/100	Eevee		63
19/100	Omastar		91	X
70/100	Omanyte		91	X
94/100	Aerodactyl ex		91	X
97/100	Kabutops ex		91	X
39/100	Kabuto		91	X
91/100	Mysterious Fossil		91	X
47/100	Murkrow
60/100	Dunsparce

It’s clear that there was definitely some kind of systemic plan for the cards produced, which is why splitting up the cards seem to produce some curious connections.

Gens 1/2 vs Gen 3
- Wizards only had the license to release cards covering Gens 1/2. Well, maybe that point wasn’t explicitly baked into their contract, but the Japanese cards they had available to them to produce just happened to cover those Generations.
- This means Gen 3 cards were TPC-specific updates. But that also doesn’t mean that their actual game text had been changed; there’s a good chance that evolution families within Gen 3 cards were originally intended to be used in a similar Gen 1/2 evolutionary family.
Of the Gen 1/2 cards; I simply split them up into their own evolution family for ease of study, reflected in the values of the “Card Link” column.
- We can almost be certain that those cards were intended to be released as-is, though perhaps with some or major changes (such as with the Jolteon card)
- Likewise with Jamboree Jolteon, that implies the existance of a Jamboree Eevee, which in turn implies the existance of the other Jamboree Eeveelutions.
- Considering that there were no Pokémon ex cards before the EX Ruby/Sapphire set, Aerodactyl ex and Kabutops ex were changes made to the original cards. Changes are that they were maybe the best designed cards and so TPC tweaked them to make them more appealing via the Pokémon ex format.
Of the Gen 3 cards, I noticed three (four?) specific groups:
- Cards that were added to provide evolutionary “scaffolding” for cards that already existed in the Japanese ADV2 set.
  - For example, there was a Wailord ex in ADV2 but no Wailmer, so these Pokémon filled the gaps.
  - Seeing as Draft tournaments were a thing back then, having cards you couldn’t use would’ve been annoying for players, so this was a no-brainer.
  - Chances are they were originally one-off Pokémon which TPC found had a synergistic connection to their one-off evolutionary cards
- Cards that exist as their own families, unrelated to anything from Japanese ADV2.
  - For example, the Seedot-Nuzleaf-Shiftree line.
  - Likely these were Gen 1/2 family lines which playtested well in-and-of-themselves, and were just too useful to let go. So they swaped them out for new Pokémon, got new artwork, and ta-dah!
- Cards which are duplicates for existing cards in the set.
  - Specifically, there is only one Cacturne ex but two Cacnea.
  - I don’t know why they would just make duplicates of cards already in the set, especially considering that their ADV2 versions have closer synergy with their evolutions. Cacnea is a good example: it’s an objectively worse version of ADV2 Cacnea. My only guess is that it was a card that was kind of a lynchpin during playtesting, despite it being technically worse than an existing card, so they kinda forced a spot for it somewhere just to add it in.
  - It’s worth pointing out that ALL of these duplicated Pokémon were placed after their ADV2 counterparts in card number ordering. Kinda underlines their added status!
- Cards which are Slakoth and Vigoroth
  - They technically count as duplicates, but there is no Slaking in the set. In fact, the only Slaking that exists is from the previous set EX Ruby/Sapphire and another wouldn’t appear for several more sets later.
  - I dunno, did these two cards come from a two-stage Colorless Gen 1/2 family and they were too good to pass up? I think EX Sandstorm Slakoth and Vigoroth are kinda better their EXRS counterparts too, kinda good in their own right. But then, why Slakoth and Vigoroth? Why not some other Gen 3 family? Or maybe they didn’t want to spoil cards that were intended for the next set (ADV3/EX Dragon) and thus were kinda handcuffed to the idea of only using Gen 3 Pokémon seen in either EXRS or EX Sandstorm?

At this point I feel like the safest, baseline considerations for what these cards might have originally been in Jamboree is:

Gens 1/2: same Pokémon, different gameplay
Gen 3: same gameplay, different Pokémon

Of course there’s a chance that Gen 1/2 EX Sandstorm cards are also exactly the same as their Jamboree counterparts, but seeing as Jolteon got changed up, there’s no reason to think any of them are exactly the same. Conversely, we could also just argue that NONE of the cards are the same as their original Jamboree versions… but at that point, why even add them to the set? They could’ve just added the Gen 3 “scaffolding” Pokémon, or kept ADV2 as-is with NO extra cards. But that’s no fun. And if it’s not fun: why bother? So seeing as they were added to the set, despite being under ZERO obligation to do so, I think it’s safe to believe that they are largely close to their original card designs… with the only guess work being WHICH cards were changed for synergistic reasons, or maybe to make them “less aggressive”.

Other Cards in Jamboree

The 47 cards added EX Sandstorm were not the only ones that were designed and planned for Jamboree. As mentioned, it would’ve included all the Japanese Promo cards that Wizards had the license to release, but for one reason or another the opporunity never came up. This also included all the Vending Machine set cards, which ultimately only had a small few see release as Black Star promo cards. As mentioned above, I won’t be covering them in detail within this hypothetic set let, only because we covered it in full on the Safari Zone HD Remaster page.

But even then, there would’ve been other unique creations made by Wizards that would’ve been part of the set. I asked Matt if he had some ideas—especially since he’s been staying on top of the Jamboree story ever since the release of his video. Here’s what he thinks would have also been added:

Vending aside, I think they wanted to include many of the missed Imakuni? related cards
Same goes for the majority of missed promos with any game relevance and other missed illustrated promos. Especially, especially, I think it would’ve contained Unown R (promo) from then, and

the film Slowking.
Probably had “Mike’s Weedle” (specifically “Master Trainer Mike” Mike Gills)
Probably had some other “Mike’s” monsters, especially since there were about 3+ Mike’s on the team (at least MTM, “Dark Master Trainer Mike” Mike Boozer and Mike Elliott)
May have had Seattle / WotC references
Probably had “pointless” cards, or cards where the effect gains nothing. “Flip a coin until heads. Nothing happens either way.”
- NICK15’s NOTE: Magic the Gathering‘s Unglued had been released, with Unhinged releasing a year after losing the Pokémon license in 2004, so I’m sure some of that energy was involved here

Mike’s Weedle? I wonder if maybe, just maybe… that card ended up as Cacnea? I mean, the added Cacnea card is a really basic card, so there was no reason to add it if an objectively better (and more synergistic) Cacnea card existed. But maybe some of the Wizards staff that TPC hired on during the license transition might have wanted to throw Mike Gills a bone and add it into EX Sandstorm, so that it at least still exists in spirit? This is just complete conjecture, of course! But that would be a nice story, wouldn’t it?

I can’t say/tell how many Seattle/WotC-related cards might have been made for the set, but maybe something at least referencing the “Space Weedle” (a Space Needle made of Weedle cards), maybe even the “Leaning Tower of Pika” (a Leaning Tower of Pisa made of Pikachu cards). You can see them over on the right, which came from this Pojo tournament report by David Friedlander where they made an appearance at the 2001 ECSTS. Probably other references might have been simply adding different Seattle landmarks in the background of artwork that we would’ve done for them had it gotten that far. Other references might have included as many Oingo Boingo lyrics that they could sneak in. Maybe something just slightly generic enough, like a Pokémon Power called “All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go“, an Attack called “Weird Science“, etc.

So if I were to build up a Jamboree set list, I would have to see which cards were the most significant promo cards that were never released in English. Maybe the numbers were low enough that ALL could be added? I guess I’ll have to do the research to find out!

Anyways, that’s all I got for the moment. As more info comes, I’ll be sure to add them to this page. Keep an eye out for more updates!