Highlights
- Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic is set to release on November 17 and has already sold out, adding to the list of expensive Pokemon TCG cards.
- The set will not include tournament-legal cards, leading some fans to view it as a pricey collector's item.
- The collection includes three themed decks but has a significant amount of overlap, offering around half the number of cards compared to the original set.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic is scheduled to release on November 17, as revealed by a newly emerged retail listing. The set was also treated to a short-lived wave of pre-orders, which confirmed that the upcoming bundle will add to the ever-growing list of expensive Pokemon TCG cards.
The Pokemon Company originally announced Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic in late February. Not much has been revealed about the set ever since, with that prolonged radio silence making some fans doubtful whether the collection would even hit the market before the end of the year.
A newly surfaced Pokemon Center listing now confirmed that to be the case, revealing that Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic will release in mid-November. The same page also confirms its official price, which is set at a hefty $399.99. That steep figure did not prevent Pokemon TCG Classic from selling out within hours of its pre-orders going live on the site. The set is thus already listed as unavailable in the US, Canada, and the UK. While Japan is also slated to receive Pokemon TCG Classic, the game has yet to make an appearance on the Japanese version of the Pokemon Center storefront.
The freshly sold out listing also reiterates a number of previously surfaced details about Pokemon TCG Classic that left some fans concerned. Most notably, it states that none of the decks included in the bundle can be used at official tournaments, save for their Basic Energy cards. Many enthusiasts have previously taken online to label that detail as problematic, positing how the lack of tournament-legal cards makes Pokemon TCG Classic nothing more than a pricey collector's item.
Granted, given how fast the product sold out, it would appear that many are perfectly fine with that state of affairs, even if they didn't actually get to buy the entire original set. Namely, although Pokemon TCG Classic comes with three 60-card decks themed around Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise, there's quite a bit of overlap between them. So, while the original set had 102 cards, this rerelease will ostensibly offer around half of that figure, not accounting for duplicates. The Pokemon Company has yet to share the complete list of the included cards, although it did state that the collection includes a few "vintage favorites" from Generation 2.
It's a given that Pokemon TCG Classic will only get more expensive once this limited run is sold out, forcing fans to turn to resellers. Its arrival might also feed the evergreen phenomenon of fake Pokemon TCG cards that continue to cause problems among collectors.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic releases November 17, 2023.
Source: Pokemon Center