Pockets mostly just a digital collecting simulator and boring af after a few days
Pattern and Texture of Special Cards In addition to poor color reproduction and otherwise bad print jobs, fake cards also tend to do a very poor job of mimicking the special holo and texture of the chase cards from the various sets in the Pokmon Trading Card Game
All the various choices made from worldbuilding to names to flavor text to art to card mechanics blended seamlessly to make a truly amazing new world, one that both explored things Magic had never done, yet also felt at its core, like something the game could have done thirty years ago
This is because the mill also replaces the draw effect and the player is no longer drawing a card
A loophole so evil its brilliant
Pokemon EX are, indeed, stronger than Pokemon ex, though importantly, that's not what distinguishes them the most