Behind the cardsAugust 10, 2026
Most trading card sets are built with up to five production treatments. Based Trading Cards and its printer RRD used as many as fifteen on Orange Pill In A Pack Series 4: The Simulation, and several of them do something unusual: they hide part of the card until you change its surroundings. Warm a card up, take it into sunlight, or turn the lights off, and the artwork is not the same one you were looking at. The work has since won a Gold Leaf Award from the Foil and Specialty Effects Association.
Three of the inks in Series 4 react to their environment rather than sitting still on the card. Thermo-chromatic ink responds to temperature, which is what makes the Epic Fire and Epic ICE cards shift as they warm or cool in your hand. UV photochromic ink responds to light, so some cards only reveal what they are hiding in direct sunlight. Others carry glow-in-the-dark elements that appear once the lights go down. RRD describes the effects as simulating melting icicles or making lava read as rock, and they are the reason this set rewards handling rather than sleeving straight away.
The Foil and Specialty Effects Association gave RRD and Based Trading Cards a Gold Leaf Award for Best Use of Film Casting, the category covering Cast and Cure. The citation named two Series 4 cards specifically: The Octopus, number 93, and Common Sense, number 27. Cast and Cure applies holographic film to a wet UV layer, which produces the holographic depth without a holographic film staying on the finished card, and it doubles as a security feature. It is a technique that usually shows up on high-end packaging rather than on trading cards.
Alongside the reactive inks, the release uses raised UV, holographic foil board, hot foil stamping, cold foil, and custom neon spot colours that sit outside the standard four-colour process. The chase cards are frameless, so the artwork runs to the edges, and BTCTC counts eighteen distinct refractor styles across the release rather than one design recoloured repeatedly. There is also counter-proof technology built into the cards themselves, aimed at making the set difficult to reproduce.
| Technique | What it does |
|---|---|
| Thermo-chromatic ink | Artwork shifts with temperature |
| UV photochromic ink | Elements appear in direct sunlight |
| Glow in the dark | Elements appear in darkness |
| Cast and Cure | Holographic depth, and a security feature |
| Raised UV | Tactile relief on the card face |
| Hot foil and cold foil | Foil detail applied two ways |
| Holographic foil board | Foil substrate under the artwork |
| Neon spot colours | Colours outside the four-colour process |
RRD is a print and packaging company that works with a large share of the Fortune 100, so a trading card release is not its usual showcase. Both sides framed this as a deliberate test of how far the format can be pushed. "Series 4 is our invitation to unplug and reclaim the tactile beauty of the physical world," said Alladan Flinn, Founder and CEO of Based Trading Cards. Stella Ye, President of RRD Asia, put it in production terms: "By combining sophisticated techniques with meticulous execution, we bring art to life in new ways that redefines the premium standard for the global trading card market."
None of this is a one-off. Based Trading Cards has built its name on two things running in parallel: pushing production further than the format usually goes, and being unusually open about exactly how much of everything exists. Series 4 is both at once. On the disclosure side: 21,000 packs, 875 serialised and number-stamped hobby boxes, 420 Experience Boxes, and a physical production ledger inside the Experience Box so the print run is auditable rather than asserted. On the boundary-pushing side, the fifteen techniques are only half of it. The Experience Box turns opening a pack into a game of red light green light, hides one pack inside a 3D-printed miniature muscle car, and puts a real one at the end of it: a single Golden Key Card redeems for a custom 2021 BASED Dodge Challenger valued at $69,000. As of writing nobody has reported pulling it.
Every treatment and every print run in Series 4 is catalogued on HoloHoard, so a chase can be planned against the real numbers rather than a guess. The collector's guide breaks the whole set down tier by tier, including the Experience Box checklist and the arithmetic behind the red light green light odds. Browse the full Series 4 checklist.
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Cast and Cure is a registered trademark of Breit Technologies. Production details and quotes per RRD's announcement of August 6, 2026 and Based Trading Cards' own coverage; checklist and print runs per HoloHoard's catalogue.
