Ready to spend potentially a lot of money on a nostalgia-fueled trip down Pokémon Trading Card Game memory lane? A new “Classic” boxset was just announced on Monday that includes pre-made decks featuring Charizard and the rest of the gang in a sleek new table top package. Why? Because I, and probably tons of other old fans, will buy it.
Revealed during 2023’s annual Pokémon Day livestream, Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic is billed by the Pokémon Company as a “premium Pokémon TCG set that is designed to last a lifetime,” with preconstructed decks and accessories “uniquely designed to be both beautiful and functional to deliver a polished battling experience.” Here’s what it contains:
- Three preconstructed decks – Base Set Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur head up 60-card decks alongside more complex cards like Ho-Oh ex, Lugia ex and Suicune ex
- Game board – foldable fabric board that has space for two players and each of their card placement zones
- Toolbox – carries all game accessories, including metal orbs that replace coin flips
- Tokens – stackable damage counters and ring-shaped status markers
- Deck boxes – one for each deck theme: fire, water, and grass
- Card sleeves – Poké Ball motif and simple black/white color scheme
Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic is currently scheduled to arrive in stores before the end of 2023, but there’s no specific date when sales or pre-orders will go live. In addition, the price is currently still listed as “TBD.” Will it be $80? $150? Does it matter?
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This is essentially the equivalent of Nintendo releasing the NES and SNES Classic consoles a few years back. It’s a pure nostalgia play aimed at tapping into the brains of people who first got into the Pokémon trading card game as kids when it started, have probably since fallen off, and now have nieces, nephews, or kids of their own, and enough disposable income to be willing to spend money to relive their childhood glory days, or at least get back that beloved foil card they lost, traded away, or had stolen back in the ‘90s.
This classic set appears to not be happening in a vacuum, however. A full re-issue of the original 150 Base Set cards leaked earlier this year. Thanks to illusionist Uri Geller finally dropping his legal claim against the card Kadabra for allegedly stealing his likeness, the Pokémon Company can finally start printing that card again, allowing the entire set to be re-issued intact for the first time in almost two decades.
It’s not clear if or when booster packs of those cards will also become available to buy, or if they will be tournament legal in competitive play. The classic set will not be, but it will give you the warm fuzzies of holding your favorite old cards again.
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