You might have seen me open this box on Youtube already, the way I work is I’ll do the filming – eventually live once they let me. Then I do all the photography, then I do these write-ups. So sometimes there is a bit of lag between them. I always try to include more and new information in these reviews that aren’t in the video. For this box that is especially true. When I recorded that I had no clue what this was, as I was opening I started to figure it out. Anyway it’s time to collect SCP Foundation trading cards again!
The Box
This review is likely going to be shorter than most simple because it is the fourth (1, 2, 3) SCP Foundation box I’ve reviewed. I also maintain the SCP tracker where I’m trying to find the original artist who made the works depicted on these cards. Yeah, so I talk and think a lot about these SCP trading cards and the more boxes we open the less there will be to say. I’ll try to keep things moving here.
This box is often referred to online as “The White Box“, because it’s white lol. But really this called something like “Abnormal Containment” and below that “Secret Adventure”. If you remember the first set is labeled in English as “Failure of Reception”. There “reception” is a mis-translation of what is conceptually more like “containment”. We see that same character here. The 2nd set I translated as “Forgotten Monsters”. That set tends to focus on the big bad SCPs, dragons and giant killer birds.
This was one of the very first things I ever ordered when starting this site. Back then I didn’t know what I was doing or what made a good vendor good and a bad vendor bad. This came from Shop5298002, and yes that is their id number as their shop name. This seller ships in boxes. Those don’t survive as well as the bubble wrap footballs I can from C1LUXURYACC, my favorite vendor. I paid $18.43, which is on the low-end for 2-yuan. Vendors like this and Anime Card Store are great for saving a few bucks, just understand the boxes will arrive with damage.
This box is almost exactly the same size as a standard 2-yuan or 1-yuan box from this market – but it stands up instead of laying flat. So instead of piles of packs in a box, you get 2 rows of packs more like a 5-yuan box might be arranged. The pack art facing forwards. There are 30 packs, so that matches all the other 2-yuan sets I’ve seen. But then the packs have… 7?! cards in them, that’s weird – but look, every single thing about this set and the company that makes them is weird. Sometimes I think these might be part of an SCP itself, but no, that’s crazy… that’s crazy right? right?
There is a light foil effect over the entire box. Otherwise the designs are primarily black and white. It all looks good, but you can tell they are holding back from like that super crazy pyramid of doom 10-yuan box. Putting this next to some of the things it might actually be next to on a retail shelf in a store. You can see how the design of this box stands out. The simplicity of the black and white design, combined with the tall stature of the box would certainly catch your eye.
Collect SCP Foundation Cards
I’ll go through the set quick and then show a few cards. The rest are in the database. First what is this set, look at that set number and try to figure it out. YCSR1 is the designation for the original “Failure of Reception” set, then the “02” part means 2-yuan. So far so good, what is that 01 at the end then? I have no idea. From what I can translate on the box, and the cards I pulled, I have a pretty good guess that this is a reprint of set 1.
It isn’t a straight up reprint though, all the other information on the box is talking about all the new inserts and new effects on the reprint cards. Let’s take a look at one of the base cards, I happened to get a “dupe” in the pack I opened, but as you’ll see it is not a true dupe at all. This is why I now have to Collect SCP Foundation cards again.
Both of those SCP-093, a favorite article of mine, I love the way it builds from such a simple concept – a red circle – to an entire world of horrors. Both of the cards up there for it have the same id: YCSR1-R-041, but these are not the same cards. The one on the left has a shattered glass foil effect on it. You can kind of see that in the monsters chest area – or watch the pack break to really see it on video. It’s a neat effect and all the base cards in this set have it!
This means I get to collect all those cards twice, one foil and one non-foil. The foil isn’t the only difference though, check out the back of those cards. Left is the new one, right is my older copy. See those logos on the bottom? And the body text is much lighter printing on these vs the old ones. Otherwise the text and layouts are identical. I think most people would consider these the same card, but I’m a completionist so I’ll be keeping both sets as a find them.
Before I show you the only other card I want to show from the pack I opened, that SCP-811 “Swamp Lady” is not to be missed. Let’s talk about the inserts in this set. By inserts I mean additions to the set, so new rarity cards that can appear in packs, but are not guaranteed. There are 4 GR rarity cards and then 6 SHC rarity cards. The GR’s are based on super popular SCP monsters, while the SHC cards are more about “wonders of the world” in the SCP mythos.
And there one is, that’s right – the very first pack I opened from this box had one of the GR cards in it. This one is SCP-682, an Keter level acidic alligator – a really well know SCP. If you search for this art online you will find so many depictions. I was never able to find the one used on this card, but it is covered in foil and the background is like a kind of “camouflage” foil. Even the water at the bottom is different types of foil. Note that this card doesn’t have the logos at the bottom of the back. Instead that line of text is explaining that the blacked-out things are too classified to show us.
Conclusions
Four boxes in and I’m still completely enamored with these cards. Just the idea that they exist, at this quantity and quality level is mind blowing. How did this happen? Who green-lit this? The fact that I keep pulling such awesome cards is probably helping with that. Look at the back of that box once more though. The GRs are all black and white there – while the SHC’s are in color. Why is that? Are there black and white versions of these GR cards in here – are they more rare or less rare?
For me this all just adds to the mystery of these sets, and the fun of exploring and discovering them.