New Japanese ‘Battle Starter Decks’

Update (7:00 PM): Updated the second paragraph to include another obvious scenario.

Four new decks called “Battle Starter Decks” will be released on November 20th in Japan for 2,000 yen each, the same day the Leafeon vs. Metagross gift box comes out. Each deck will feature either Torterra, Magmortar, Blastoise, or Raichu as the main holo. There will be 30 cards in each deck; all of the Pokemon will be brand new. Like usual, we’ll bring you translations and scans of the cards before or when the product is released.

Depending on how many Pokemon are in each deck, two possibility could occur. If there are only 8-10 unique Pokemon in each deck, the new cards may be thrown into one of our future HeartGold and SoulSilver sets, perhaps the second one in May. If the majority of the decks are Pokemon cards, the new cards could be combined with cards from the Leafeon vs. Metagross gift box to make an entirely new English set. Assuming there are 20 Pokemon in each of the four decks, we’d be getting 80 new cards. Combined with who knows how many cards from the Leafeon vs. Metagross gift box, unreleased Japanese promos, and Basic Energy, there would definitely be enough cards to create an English set in this scenario. Since we’ll only be one set behind Japan when Platinum: Arceus is released in a few weeks, it would make sense that Pokemon Card Laboratory would want to push us back a little. If these cards do make a new set, it is unknown if the set will be released this February, thus delaying LEGEND: HeartGold and SoulSilver to May, or if itself will be the May set. Still, all these new cards could just be thrown into future sets if there aren’t too many of them. So many questions, no answers as of yet…