>>25260477No.
They were introduced in the second pack of Gen 5. See, in the beginning of Gen 4, we were in a golden era. Gen 3 was amazing, and early Gen 4 was arguably the best format the card game's ever had.
Then suddenly they printed Pokemon SP halfway through Gen 4. They were like EX Pokemon, but without the two-prize rule. We went from a mechanically diverse meta, to Big Basics being the ONLY deck you could run. Luxray/Garchomp had like a 70% winrate (for comparison, Toad had a ~35% winrate last format).
Then the first BW pack came out, and Reshiram/Zekrom cemented the fact that Big Basics were here to stay.
Suddenly, the second Gen 5 pack, Next Destinies, printed Mewtwo EX, our first EX Pokemon. It was so powerful, that people still use it TODAY in Expanded over four years later. For about a year straight, Mewtwo EX was the only deck you could run.
So no, EX was NOT well-received. SP Pokemon had ruined the best format we've ever had, and just as they were about to get rotated out, EX Pokemon showed up as a much better alternative, making sure only Big Basics were competitive.
Stormfront was the last good pack.
