“Astral Radiance” English Set and Products Officially Revealed!

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onMar 8, 2022 at 6:22 AM · 31 Comments

Astral Radiance, our tenth Sword & Shield set, has been officially revealed by TPCi! We first learned about the set back in January. Some of its French products leaked two weeks ago.

The set is inspired by the Legends: Arceus video game. It will feature various Hisuian Pokemon and card art that showcases the Hisui region.

Astral Radiance will feature over 180 cards, including…

  • 3 brand-new Radiant Pokemon (the English name for “Sparkling Pokemon“)
  • 7 awesome Pokemon VSTAR
  • 19 powerful Pokemon V
  • 2 enormous Pokemon VMAX
  • 30 cards with special art in the Trainer Gallery subset (like Brilliant Stars)
  • More than 20 Trainer cards

As posted before, the set will hit store shelves on May 27th. Prereleases will take place from May 14th through May 22nd.

Product Images

More product images may be revealed later today, so stay tuned!

Confirmed Cards

New cards mentioned for our English set include Hisuian Decidueye VSTAR, Hisuian Typhlosion VSTAR, and Hisuian Samurott VSTAR from Japan’s Battle Region as well as Origin Palkia VSTAR and Origin Dialga VSTAR from Japan’s Time Gazer & Space Juggler. We should also see Darkrai VSTAR since Darkrai is on the Elite Trainer Box.

The three Radiant Pokemon should be Radiant Greninja, Radiant Hawlucha, and Radiant Heatran from Japan’s Battle Region.

Card Cutting Shenanigans & Upcoming Sets

Astral Radiance will feature over 180 cards before secret rares. This means a huge chunk of cards will be cut from our English set. There are several sources that can (and will) be used for our English set:

  • February’s Battle Region feature 67 cards in the main set and 26 secret rares (of which up to nine full arts can become part of our main set). The V and VSTAR cards of the Hisuian Starter Evolutions come from this set.
  • Battle Region‘s associated Darkrai VSTAR and Lucario VSTAR decks contain 19 new cards
  • April’s Time Gazer and Space Juggler sets contain 134 cards before secret rares (and will probably feature up to 50 secret rares, of which nine to eighteen full arts will become part of our main set). The Dialga and Palkia VSTAR cards come from these two sets.
  • At some point we’ll need the prints of the new regulation mark cards from December’s Start Deck 100, such as Rare Candy, Switch, Crushing Hammer, Energy Retrieval, and Energy Search. There’s around 10 of these that still need to be printed here.
  • We also need a bunch of the secret rares from December’s VMAX Climax, though most of them should release in our Trainer Gallery subsets.

For the next few sets we’ll probably see between 50 to 70 cards delayed from one set to the next, such as when 55 cards that would have been in Chilling Reign were delayed to Evolving Skies, then over 90 cards that would have been in Evolving Skies were delayed to Fusion Strike. This “shuffling around” will help even out the size of the sets. This will make the next several sets more unpredictable.

In August we’ll get our SWSH11 Lost Origin set featuring Giratina. We expect the set to feature the return of the Lost Zone. It should be comprised of the cards from Japan’s Dark Phantasma, releasing in May, and Lost Abyss, releasing in June. (And of course any delayed cards.)

Our unnamed SWSH12 set in November will likely contain the cards from Japan’s Incandescent Arcana and Paradigm Trigger, both of which should release between August and October. This SWSH12 set will likely be our “catch up” set of the year like Fusion Strike last year. We could also get a potential holiday set in the fall to absorb some of the overflow.

We should then get our first Pokemon Scarlet & Violet set in February 2023. Wild guess, but I think that set will be named Scarlet & Violet! ;) It’ll also be the third base set in a row to start with an “S” following Sun & Moon and Sword & Shield.

View thread (31 replies)
Weird that Darkrai is the ETB design.

It will feature over 180 cards, including three new Radiant Pokemon (the English name for Sparkling Pokemon), seven Pokemon VSTAR, 19 Pokemon V, two Pokemon VMAX, and more than 20 Trainer cards.

Given what's already on the pack art:
VSTAR
1. Darkrai
2. Palkia
3. Dialga
4. Decidueye
5. Typhlosion
6. Samurott
Leaving 1 additional Pokemon. Lucario is a promo so basically the other 3 unrevealed VSTAR from TG/SJ have been cut.

What's interesting is 2 Pokemon VMAX. Will one be CoroCoro Pikachu? Otherwise you'd think that it's time for 2 of Melmetal/Hatterene/Machamp? (Appletun doesn't really count) Surely they won't do something dumb and make the 2 like Tyranitar and Absol VMAX or something...
 
That’s some spot-on set forecasting. Weren’t there talks of a mid-year special set for the US as well? If the Trainer Gallery subsets are in all four of this year’s sets, what could that consist of? Unless it’s just the remaining two Trainer Galleries put into one set knocking out those VMAX Climax character cards mid-year. There’s also that Pokémon Go set that’s coming out.

I hope that this year’s potential end-of-the-year special set is another shiny collection like Shining Fates featuring the Gen 4 Pokémon. That’d be cool. I’m sure we’ll also see promos of the Gen 9 starters releasing this year as well.
 
montoya.c said:
That’s some spot-on set forecasting. Weren’t there talks of a mid-year special set for the US as well? If the Trainer Gallery subsets are in all four of this year’s sets, what could that consist of? Unless it’s just the remaining two Trainer Galleries put into one set knocking out those VMAX Climax character cards mid-year. There’s also that Pokémon Go set that’s coming out.

I hope that this year’s potential end-of-the-year special set is another shiny collection like Shining Legends featuring the Gen 4 Pokémon. That’d be cool. I’m sure we’ll also see promos of the Gen 9 starters releasing this year as well.
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Pokemon Go is the mid year special set. I don't think it's likely to have any of the cut cards shoved into it.

Given that nearly 80 cards have been cut, they kind of almost need to have an additional special set otherwise the final 2 sets will be worse than Fusion Strike. You can bet Japan will have even more sets and products than those already alluded to in the post.

Not to mention their closer set which I really hope we do get and not be another Tag Team All Stars.
 
beatbox2000 said:
Only Pikachu has a VMAX. Would hope that the 2 Vs come over because the artist is amazing and Japan cards have print lines galore but not holding out hope for those 2.
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I could've swore Eevee also had a Vmax. I was gonna say maybe we could be getting the alternate print for Duraludon and Rayquaza Vmax from Vmax Climax but it makes no sense to include those since this Trainer Gallery' leads are the Calyrex. So maybe they are new Vmaxes that will come in Time Gazer/Space Juggler? Other than Corocoro Pikachu I don't think we are missing any other.
 
beatbox2000 said:
Weird that Darkrai is the ETB design.

It will feature over 180 cards, including three new Radiant Pokemon (the English name for Sparkling Pokemon), seven Pokemon VSTAR, 19 Pokemon V, two Pokemon VMAX, and more than 20 Trainer cards.

Given what's already on the pack art:
VSTAR
1. Darkrai
2. Palkia
3. Dialga
4. Decidueye
5. Typhlosion
6. Samurott
Leaving 1 additional Pokemon. Lucario is a promo so basically the other 3 unrevealed VSTAR from TG/SJ have been cut.

What's interesting is 2 Pokemon VMAX. Will one be CoroCoro Pikachu? Otherwise you'd think that it's time for 2 of Melmetal/Hatterene/Machamp? (Appletun doesn't really count) Surely they won't do something dumb and make the 2 like Tyranitar and Absol VMAX or something...
Click to expand...
im pretty sure it might have something to do with that deoxys/zeraora thing, cuz those are supposed to have vmax's
 
On one hand... sucks we don't just get Darkrai through a deck like in Japan or as a promo box like Lucario... on the other hand, those Elite Trainer Box designs are incredible... on the other other hand (yes I'm Goro), I've had horrible luck pulling Vstars (only 3 total from 3 booster boxes and 4 ETBs), though I suppose without VMAXes the odds for pulling Vstars will be higher as I did pull 6 VMAXes from those. Finally, I'm really looking forward to finding out the trainer gallery cards included in the set!
 
dineinunes said:
I could've swore Eevee also had a Vmax. I was gonna say maybe we could be getting the alternate print for Duraludon and Rayquaza Vmax from Vmax Climax but it makes no sense to include those since this Trainer Gallery' leads are the Calyrex. So maybe they are new Vmaxes that will come in Time Gazer/Space Juggler? Other than Corocoro Pikachu I don't think we are missing any other.
Click to expand...
I think the Duraludon/Rayquaza could actually be the ones in. With 3 VSTARs cut, it's pretty safe to assume 3 Vs also have been cut, and there is that Duraludon V alt promo we never got in English too. And since Mimikyu got reprinted for that VMAX, I don't see why Ray also wouldn't get a reprint.

Regarding the TG, we got the Golden Birds in Brilliant Stars, even though they could've fit perfectly with the TG Birds that weren't there.
 
I think one thing we might now realize is that there doesn’t seem to be any real chase cards for the scalpers or Facebook pandemic collectors which is great news for the player base!
 
DMYSYS said:
It's so weird this is being marketed as part of the Sword and Shield block..
Click to expand...
so like did pokemon fans just forget about the last half of X and Y sets and Sun and Moon sets? jesus christ, first people magically forgot that there's a new gen every 3 years, and now I'm seeing waaaaaayyyy too many people forget that they've always done this since XY sets...
 
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