One of a Kind? ‘Chilling Reign’ Staff Promo Surfaces!

What?! A staff version of the Cinderace Chilling Reign promo has been discovered in a prerelease kit! Staff promos shouldn’t exist anymore!

Photos of the card were sent to us by Steve S., an official Pokemon TCG judge in the UK. It was pulled from a Chilling Reign Build & Battle Kit by one of his players at their prerelease. It was in the kit’s promo slot.

Steve told us, “Players were frantically trying to find a toploader for [the player]. It is unclear what his plans are for card but it was an excellent stroke of luck.”

Obviously the card was accidentally mixed in to the product at the factory. We’ve seen it happen many times before.

We haven’t received any other reports of Chilling Reign staff promos, so the mix-up doesn’t seem to be widespread. This will make the Cinderace a very valuable card — it may even be one of a kind. (I advised Steve to never reveal the player’s name.)

TPCi previously announced prerelease staff promos would be discontinued. A few days later, they said the distribution of all staff promos would be “temporarily paused.” However, it was still unclear at the time if this meant prerelease staff promos would be discontinued.

At the time fans theorized TPCi stopped producing the staff promos due to the scalping of Vivid Voltage‘s Charizard promo. However, this theory may not hold water now. The fact staff promos for Chilling Reign exist means TPCi printed them and probably just withheld them during the pandemic due to the suspension of in-person events. Perhaps we’ll see prerelease staff promos return once the world goes back to normal.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a cancelled product surface. Back in 2006, deck boxes were produced for EX Dragon Frontiers prereleases that were ultimately destroyed. At the time I posted this:

EX Dragon Frontiers Deck Box – Someone on eBay has placed up a very rare EX Dragon Frontiers deck box for auction. These deck boxes were originally set to be given out at EX Dragon Frontiers prereleases, but because they would have arrived late to America from the manufacturer (based in China), Pokemon Organized Play refused to receive them and the product was destroyed. A couple have been spotted in the past, and some people that I even know own one, so obviously, some did make it to America.

We now know this is because a few of Pokemon USA’s production samples leaked. We don’t know how many samples were created before the shipment was destroyed, but over the years a few have sold for well over $500.