The First 30th Celebration Chase Cards Just Landed

Thursday is new-release day around here: what just dropped, what's about to, and what it'll cost you.

The first 30th Celebration products broke cover at the Japan Championships last weekend, and they brought four cards worth a long look.

Two Pikachu ex promos in the brand new Futuristic Rare treatment, one for the day and one for the night. Plus Special Illustration Rares (SIRs) of Espeon ex and Umbreon ex fronting their own deck set.

Pikachu ex (day) · Futuristic Rare promo	Espeon ex · SIR promo
Pikachu ex (night) · Futuristic Rare promo	Umbreon ex · SIR promo

The first products

The Futuristic Box lands in Japan on September 16, the same day as the set, carrying both Pikachu ex promos and a stack of premium accessories. It's priced at 27,500 yen, about $171.

The Espeon ex & Umbreon ex Premium Deck Set brings two 60-card decks, each led by the SIR of its namesake, with still-unrevealed Illustration Rares of Zeraora and Victini riding along. That one runs 6,200 yen, about $39.

The English versions are confirmed: regular prints sit in the main set, and the special artwork promos arrive in boxed products nobody has seen yet.

The promo numbering pairs the day Pikachu with Espeon and the night Pikachu with Umbreon, which reads to us like separate day and night boxes. If that's right, picking a side is about to become a personality test.

Futuristic Box · ~$171

Premium Deck Set · ~$39

Catching up

If the reveal slipped past you last week, the short version: 30th Celebration releases worldwide on September 16, runs around 150 cards, and every single one of them is foil. We covered the full reveal here.

Thirty classic reprints span the game's three decades, from the Base Set Charizard and Pikachu through Shining Celebi, the Darkrai & Cresselia LEGEND halves, Pikachu & Zekrom GX, Mew VMAX, and Arceus VSTAR. Each carries a small "30" Pikachu stamp.

And yes, there's a Magikarp.

Charizard · Base Set

Pikachu & Zekrom GX · Team Up

The main set's Futuristic Rares are led by Mewtwo ex and Mew ex, drawn by Japanese artist YOSHIROTTEN. Add a Pikachu in every pack, one of 30 gallery cards each by a different artist, and there's no dead cardboard anywhere in this product.

Mewtwo ex · Futuristic Rare

Mew ex · Futuristic Rare

Why we're watching

The 25 Year Celebrations comp is the one to hold onto, and it's lopsided. The 2021 packs got printed into the ground: Classic Collection Charizard leads the full singles board around $200, Umbreon Star follows near $100, and gold Mew tops the 25-card main set around $65. The Pikachu VMAXes sit under $10. Sealed went the other way, with the Elite Trainer Box trading around $386 and the Pokemon Center exclusive version around $555.

If 30th Celebration follows that shape, pack singles are where the supply lands and gated product is where it doesn't: exclusive-promo boxes like these day and night pairings, store exclusives, and whatever Japan keeps home. That's the lens we're putting on every product reveal between now and September.

The print run is what could break the comp, and we won't know it until allocations show up. Celebrations-level supply crushed the singles and never touched the premium boxes.

We're tracking every card and product on the 30th Celebration set page as reveals land, so the full picture lives in one place.

Before September

The anniversary isn't even the next set on the calendar. Pitch Black hits shelves July 17, and the first English cards just landed this week.

The set is tracking as a near 1:1 copy of Japan's Abyss Eye, with Mega Darkrai ex as the headline act. Prereleases run July 4 through July 12, so the rip videos start in about three weeks.

The Japanese print is giving us a live preview, and it's moving. When we ran the Abyss Eye numbers a week ago, the Mega Darkrai ex Special Art Rare was trading around $587 raw. It's near $523 today, the rest of the chase board is down harder, and booster boxes sit around $128. That slide is typical a few weeks after a Japanese launch.

The number we care about is where that SAR settles before July 17, because that's the anchor English pricing will negotiate against on launch day. Track it live on the Abyss Eye set page.

The localization is already a talking point. What Japan called "Ghost Veil" came over as "Hide 'n' Sneak," and the comment sections have not recovered.

Mega Darkrai ex · Pitch Black

Mega Excadrill ex · Pitch Black

So, day or night?

Pikachu ex with Espeon in the sunlight, or Pikachu ex with Umbreon after dark. There's a right answer here, and we both know what it is.