 
Raichu
in the TCG: Pokemon Daisuki Club Card・PCG
Action Point Present <Hyper Rank>・Great
Raichu (Raichu Prime)
PCGのライチュウ: ポケモンだいすきクラブカード・ＰＣＧ
アクションポイントプレゼント ＜ハイ
パーランク＞ グレートライチュウ
    
Great Raichu (044/L-P)
was first announced on 11/9/2009, the first ever Hyper Rank prize from
the Daisuki Club PCG Action Points system. This made it the hardest to
get PCG AP card at the time of its release - with a rarity equivilent
to the extremely difficult to obtain Shining Espeon/Umbreon cards, and
officially the most expensive and rare Raichu card...ever (because the
first pre-release Raichu is a fluke and doesn't count)! This card
will be owned by a scarce amount of people, so I will share mine with
you on this page, along with some history! Enjoy!
  About PCG Action Points!>
PCG
Action Point
Rankings・PCGアクションポイントのランク
 Normal (ノーマル) / 0 AP
Bronze (ブロンズ) / 200 AP
Silver (シルバー) / 400 AP
Gold (ゴールド) / 1200 AP
Super (スーパー) / 3200 AP
Hyper (ハイパー) / 5200 AP
Special (スペシャル) / 7200 AP
Master (マスター) / 9000 AP
These
points are extremely hard to accumulate. The Leafeon vs.
Metagross + Online deck (around 50$ shelf value) allowed you to sign up
for the online game with 2000 AP already in your account (one account
per person, and no ability to trade points to another account, means
you couldn't just buy three of these and have enough to earn a Great
Raichu... yes, I did consider this before I knew it wasn't
possible...haha). The accumulation takes a lot of time and skill -
although you
could get 10 points a week by logging onto your Daisuki Club account,
otherwise the points can only be earned by participating in events and
winning battles. To get an idea of how hard the higher-rank prizes are
to get, you only get about 50 points for participating and doing well
in events (which
are not held often).
A History of Point-Prize Cards in the
TCG!>
2000-2001> Pokemon Players Club GET
Point System
The
Daisuki Club is a mostly-online club for Japan-based Pokemon fans to
play games, earn rare prizes (not just TCG) and get access to special
events. However, it was originally known as the Pokemon Players Club in
the
early days of the Pokemon franchise. The first point-prize card system
was implemented in 2000
through to 2001, with just three very elusive and beautiful cards as
the prizes. Eevee
was worth 500
Points and carries market value of $150-$200, Shining
Magikarp was
worth 600
Points and carries market value of $200-$500, and Porygon was the top
prize at 700 points and carries market value of $300-$500. To
acquire 700 points in the old Point Get program was equivalent to
trying to get enough points together for Great Raichu in the Action
Point system of today.
2003-2006>
Players Club EXP Point System
From 2003 to 2006
they did another Point-prize TCG promotion much more similar to the
Action Points system. The entire set includes 32 different cards. They
were given out across four seasons, or, four years. 32 is the full
number of cards given out during these seasons.
As seen in the scan on the right, the cards each season got a "Level"
(as opposed to a ranking) and as the levels went up, the difficulty in
obtaining them - as well as rarity - increased by a great amount. Lv. 9
(Shining/Espeon☆) now carries a
market value of about $500, and the Lv. 10 (Shining/Umbreon☆) is sold for over
$1000. Like Great Raichu, these cards were never
in booster packs or decks, etc. - you could only get them through
these points! Even the English versions of those cards (which stripped
them of their special status by placing them as rares in booster packs)
are worth over $50.
While most of these are very rare,
especially the Espeon and Umbreon who's only holo versions are the
original prize cards (while the American POP release of them are
non-holo), the
reprints of Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon from the PCG World
Championship Pack in Japan are rarer and harder to get than both the
Players Club version (due to the fact the World Championship Pack was
sold online only for a very limited time before Worlds in 2007) and the
English Versions (which are rather easy to get in comparison).
"PLAY Celebi ex", also in this set of 32, was originally a 10,000 EXP
Point Prize during the 1st Season, and was bumped down to 5000 EXP
Points from the 2nd Season.
2007>
Daisuki Club EXP System
The 2007 EXP System
only lasted for one season, and was a fairly easy system to get the
promos in. Points could be racked up quickly and due to the low-point
cost of the cards it was easy to obtain a full set. Due to the tie in
with both the release of the 9th movie in July 2006, Diamond and Pearl
in late 2006 and the 10th Movie in July 2007 the cards use the feature
Pokemon of the generation at the time.
Originally, the cards were quite
expensive to obtain to the standard collector, but the re-release of
these cards in the English Majestic Dawn set, combined with the
ease of obtainability in Japan, caused their worth
to drop signifigantly. These are the
only Daisuki promos which have suffered from an English release, which
usually has no effect on Japanese cards' worth. It's possible to pick
up all 7 cards for around $30. As of now this makes them the most easily obtained Players Club Prize
cards.
 2009-2010>
Daisuki Action Point System
The beginning of the new Action Point
system was known as early as November 2008 when news of the 2nd DPt-era
set 'The Limit to the Bonds of Time' was officially being put up on Pokemon-Card.com.
Daisuki Club updated with a new Pikachu promo card exclusive to the
club through the new system. Close to the end of the DPt-era, two more
action point cards surfaced, the elusive Cresselia and Darkrai pair
worth up to $300 for the two at the time of writing this. The DPt-P
issues of these cards are rare, and haven't been seen for sale thus far
(or if they have, they've been snatched up so fast that no one can keep
track).
Later into 2009, and the
LEGEND-era had begun, promos were being published under the new L-P
suffix and the three action point prize cards followed suite.
Technically reprints, the new Pikachu, Cresselia and Darkrai were
updated to feature the new card design and cost just as many points to
get as they did earlier in the year. Great Raichu was a big surprise to
the system at a whopping 5200 points, and the first original L-P action
point card in the series.
On March 26, 2010, two new Daisuki Club AP
Cards were announced - the first ever Special Rank cards, Great Espeon
and Umbreon! They will be even harder and more expensive to get than
Great Raichu, yet there is still one more rank to climb with
an unknown amount of points attributed to it, so we’ll
likely see higher ranked, rarer cards than Great Raichu, Espeon and
Umbreon, whom at the
moment hold the crown along with Porygon, Espeon☆, and Umbreon☆ for
being some of the most expensive, rare and elusive Players Club cards.
 (Click
here to expand full lists of cards from these point prize sets!)
2000-2001
Pokemon Players
Club GET Point System
Eevee (500 Points)
Shining Magikarp (600 Points)
Porygon (700 Points)
2003-2006 Players Club EXP Point System
001/PLAY Regice ex (1st
Season Subscription)
002/PLAY Regirock ex (1st Season
Subscription)
003/PLAY Registeel ex (1st Season
Subscription)
004/PLAY Plusle (2000 EXP Points)
005/PLAY Minun (3000 EXP Points)
006/PLAY Celebi ex (5000 EXP Points)*
007/PLAY Mew ex (7000 EXP Points)
008/PLAY Pokemon Card Fan (Battle
Road Summer 2003)
009/PLAY Moltres ex (2nd Season
Subscription; New)
010/PLAY Articuno ex (2nd Season
Subscription; New)
011/PLAY Zapdos ex (2nd Season
Subscription; New)
012/PLAY ___’s Celebi (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
013/PLAY ___’s Mew (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
014/PLAY ___’s Jirachi (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
015/PLAY Cyclone Energy (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
016/PLAY Boost Energy (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
017/PLAY Warp Energy (2nd Season
Subscription; Continuing)
018/PLAY Master Ball (Battle Road
Spring 2004)
019/PLAY ___’s Kyogre (3rd Season
Subscription)
020/PLAY ___’s Groudon (3rd Season
Subscription)
021/PLAY ___’s Rayquaza (3rd Season
Subscription)
022/PLAY Vaporeon☆ (10,000 EXP
Points)
023/PLAY Jolteon☆ (20,000 EXP Points)
024/PLAY Flareon☆ (30,000 EXP Points)
025/PLAY Espeon☆ (50,000 EXP Points)
026/PLAY Umbreon☆ (70,000 EXP Points)
027/PLAY Kyogre ex (Starter Kit)
028/PLAY Groudon ex (Starter Kit)
029/PLAY Rayquaza ex (Starter Kit)
030/PLAY Ho-Oh ex (4th Season
Subscription)
031/PLAY Lugia ex (4th Season
Subscription)
032/PLAY Jirachi ex (4th Season
Subscription)
*Was originally a 10,000 EXP Point
Prize during the 1st Season, and was
bumped down to 5000 EXP Points from the 2nd Season.
2007 Daisuki Club EXP System
001/PPP Turtwig (2000 EXP
Points)
002/PPP Chimchar (2000 EXP Points)
003/PPP Piplup (2000 EXP Points)
004/PPP Manaphy (3000 EXP Points)
005/PPP Dialga (5000 EXP Points)
006/PPP Palkia (7000 EXP Points)
007/PPP Darkrai (10,000 EXP Points)
2009 Daisuki Action Point System
019/DPt-P Pikachu (1200AP
Gold Rank Prize)
045/DPt-P Cresselia (3200AP Super
Rank Prize)
046/DPt-P Darkrai (3200AP Super Rank
Prize)
019/L-P Pikachu (1200AP Gold Rank
Prize)
020/L-P Cresselia (3200AP Super Rank
Prize)
021/L-P Darkrai (3200AP Super Rank
Prize)
044/L-P Great Raichu (5200AP Hyper
Rank Prize)
053/L-P Great Espeon (7200AP Special
Rank Prize)
054/L-P Great Umbreon (7200AP Special
Rank Prize)
055/L-P Master's Document (8600AP Master Rank Prize)
 Raichu
- Lightning - HP100
Stage 1 -
Evolves from Pikachu
Poke-Power:
Voltage Up
You can use this
power any number of times during your turn. Move 1
Lightning Energy attached to one of your Pokemon to this Pokemon. This
Power can't be used if this Pokemon is affected by a Special Condition.
[L][L][C] Mega Thunderbolt: 120 damage.
Discard all Energy attached to Raichu.
Weakness:
Fighting (x2)
Resistance:
Steel (-20)
Retreat: 1
Much
thanks to collectorviper for
some of the info and card images used in this article!
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