Scarlet & Violet Pokémon Cards Will Make It Easier To Get Rare Holos

It seems that inflation comes for everyone. Pokémon card collectors took a massive L when The Pokémon Company announced late last year that the price of its card packs would rise from $3.99 to $4.49. However, it seems like they’re trying to compensate by improving the pull rates for fans who still want to collect rare cards. Yesterday, PokeBeach reported that all of the upcoming Scarlet & Violet card packs will include at least two reverse holo cards and one holo card. This is the first time that English packs will guarantee buyers a full foil card.

Scarlet & Violet reverse holo and holo cards

Reverse holos are Pokémon cards that are foil-printed except for the actual card art. Full holo cards are entirely foil, and they’re significantly more valuable than the reverse holos. Two common cards will be cut from the Scarlet & Violet packs to accommodate for these guaranteed pulls, and any illustrated rares (where the card art encompasses the entire card rather than the tiny window) that you pull will replace one of the new reverse holos in the Scarlet & Violet packs. So you’re getting “better” card pulls overall, which hopefully feels like a fair compromise to the enthusiasts who are going to spend even more money on what is already a pricey hobby.

Read more

• The 15 Best Games For Sony's PlayStation 5

• The 18 Best Games For The Nintendo Switch

There are also some major changes to the new set compared to previous versions: All rare cards will now be foil-printed, and rainbow rares will not be available in this set. While these all-rainbow cards can be valuable, not all collectors like them—Pokémon have iconic color palettes, and some fans feel that the rainbow printing ruined these cards.

These new packs will also have rarer cards at the back. So if you’re pulling in front of friends or watching content creators open packs on stream, you won’t be seeing any early spoilers.

The recent English release of the Crown Zenith set saw our reviewer managing to pull better than holos in one out of three packs, which he thought was an improvement over the older Silver Tempest set that was released this fall.

Commenters on PokeBeach’s article think this new setup is a good deal for casual buyers and children who aren’t sinking hundreds of dollars to get their investment back. The Pokémon TCG should be an accessible hobby for kids, not a speculative currency that makes it harder for anyone to buy cards.

The Scarlet & Violet set will be released on March 31.

Update 03/08/2023 6:05 p.m. ET: This story was updated to better reflect the history of TCG pack order, pull rates, and card value.

More from Kotaku

• All The Big Pokémon Games, Ranked From Worst To Best

Sign up for Kotaku's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.