A new Pokemon card game expansion is on the way to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary, though I'll be damned if I know what it is.
Revealed during the Pokemon Presents stream, fans of the TCG were promised a brand-new expansion in 2026 that will… well, nobody seems to know right now. Indeed, the only hard evidence I've got is that it'll feature the first "simultaneously co-ordinated global launch." In other words, certain markets won't be lagging behind everyone else as per most sets for one of the best card games.
This teaser may have us scratching our heads as if we've been hit by Confuse Ray, but at least there is a 30th Celebration tie-in currently available. You can grab the Pokemon Day 2026 Collection via Amazon and at Walmart, though the price is inflated. As for UK fans, they can grab it from Amazon UK thanks to the invite-by-request system.
Beyond that, I have no idea what it's about. I mean, I can understand this being a bit of a nothing-burger; it's likely that the expansion itself is a ways down the road, and the stream was jam-packed as it is. Most of the oxygen in the room was sucked out by the Pokemon Winds and Waves announcement, after all (good lord, just look at that water). But I can't help feeling bemused and befuddled.
It seems like fans agree. On an r/PokemonTCG reddit thread discussing the tease, users like Solo_Kingxx are chiming in with "Im confused. Is that a new era of tcg?" while others are speculating that the glossy Mew and Mewtwo images from the teaser suggest that it "could be a new thing like TERA, new style of doing holos maybe?"
As for everything else from the trailer, your guess is as good as mine. We saw plenty of older cards like OG Pikachu and Charizard, and while that could suggest reprints, these aren't impossible to get as is so why would that be a focus for this new set? In addition, there were tag team or dual Pokemon cards shown off too – could that be a feature? Again, I've got no idea, and The Pokemon Company itself isn't telling.
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'll start working out which of those adorable Winds and Waves starters I want to choose…
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