Today, during a special Pokémon Presents Event, we got surprised by the announcement of some new card reprints. The Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic is a new product intended to bring back the original TCG from 1999.
Let’s have a closer look and break down what we saw in the release trailer.
What Is The Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic?
This is a new premium Pokémon TCG set featuring old cards. From the trailer, we can see Base Set cards, but they also mentioned we will see new cards as well: “These decks also feature newly printed cards to go alongside the classics, letting you form new strategies with never-before-seen cards like Ho-Oh ex and Lugia ex.”
Also mentioned is that the cards in this set will not be tournament legal, except for the Energy cards.
This new set is scheduled for a late 2023 release.
You can find more information on the official page for the new Pokémon TCG Classic.
This is what comes with the new product:
- A foldable, portable two-player game board complete with card placement zones for your Active Pokémon, Benched Pokémon, deck, discard pile, and Prize cards.
- 3 preconstructed decks, each featuring either Venusaur (Grass), Charizard (Fire), or Blastoise (Water).
- 3 Deck boxes with Energy symbols to match each deck.
- Newly designed stackable damage counters.
- 3D poison and burn markers.
- Newly designed glass orbs to replace the coin toss mechanic.
How Much Will It Cost?
We don’t know for sure what the USD price will be, but the Japanese price is 35,000 Yen, which comes out to about $260 USD.
For reference, at $260 USD, this will be the most expensive Pokémon TCG product yet. Last year’s Charizard Ultra Premium Collection sold for an MSRP of $120 and 2021’s Celebrations UPC was also $120.
The announcement also mentioned that we would get more information in the form of a “sneak peak” during this year’s Pokémon TCG World Championship in Yokohama, Japan.
We will be receiving an English version, but some of the Japanese cards have been leaked:
Reveal Trailer Analysis
Upon announcing the new product, The Pokémon Presents also unveiled a new reveal trailer featuring the set. There is actually a lot we can deduce from the 1:23 video.
0:20– Our first look at the cards reveals both a Base Set Charmander and a Base Set Pikachu. What’s interesting here is that they are both holo cards. In the next shot, we see that each Pokémon card is in fact, a holo. Both Charmander and Pikachu are common cards, so it’s safe to assume that this will be a full holo set, much like Celebrations from 2021.
However, we do see multiple Energy cards, and they don’t appear to have any holo effect.
0:24– In this frame, we get the first look at the sleeves included with the set. They have a very formal black and white design and are hopefully marked ‘A’ ‘B’ and ‘C’.
0:32– Here’s a close-up shot of the new damage counters. They are cone-shaped and stackable, with the indicated amount of damage printed on the side.
0:35– A second look at the damage counters reveals a color-coded system. Yellow = 10 damage, Orange = 50 damage, and Red = 100 damage. We also get a peak at the ‘3D’ Burn and Poison markers.
0:37– Here we see the new design intended to replace the coin toss. A glass orb (or marble, as most people call them) is dropped into the bowl-shaped portion of the toolbox, and lands in either a white or black designated divot.
In this shot, we also get another look at the ongoing game being played by the trainers. We get an overhead shot of the board and we see something interesting on the male player’s side…
0:46– The female player’s Ivysaur defeats her opponent’s Pokémon, but as he places the card in the discard pile, we can see that it’s Rapidash. But not just any Rapidash, the Astral Radiance Rapidash. This is the first indication in the video that we will have non-Base Set cards.
0:49– Our first look at one of the big three, and it’s Venusaur. The card looks pretty much identical to the original, but now has a glitter holo pattern, the same one we saw on the common cards earlier. We can also see a symbol in the lower-left corner of the card, probably indicating which deck it belongs to.
0:58– It’s now revealed the male player was keeping a Charizard on his bench, with two Fire Energies attached to it. He slides it forward into play and pulls a Double Colorless Energy to secure the win.
Really though, we now get a prolonged close-up shot of the new Base Set Charizard reprint. It looks good, and the glitter holo pattern looks like a cool new addition to the card’s aesthetic.
1:08– The video ends with a final cinematic shot of the big three, reprinted and standing up against their respective deck boxes. Reminding both you and me that you need to buy this.
