The arrival of the new era of Scarlet & Violet Pokémon TCG cards is now only four weeks away. As worldwide players prepare themselves for the big shift from the V cards to the rebirth of “ex,” in Japan the base sets have already been out for over a month, and now the follow-up set, Triple Beat, is revealing some astonishingly gorgeous cards. So we’re focusing on what’s important: which ones are the most desirable.
For that, read: prettiest. With none of the cards out until March 31, and potentially some of them likely to not reach non-Japanese shores until at least June, we’re not worrying about value yet. (Although the more elaborate and beautifully designed the card, the costlier it tends to be, so they often go hand in hand.) We’re also not concerning ourselves with playability, since we’re a fair way off fathoming the forthcoming metas for the table-top game. Nope, today we’re worrying about which ones feature the loveliest art, and as such, which we’re most desperate to pull from a foil pack in the next few months.
With Scarlet & Violet’s base set, we’re not going to be seeing the same divided release that appeared in Japan. Over there, packs were released as either Scarlet or Violet, with cards unique to each split set. Thankfully, there’s none of that fuss for the international release, with everything together, although most of what’s to be included has yet to be revealed. Playing their collectible cards close to their chest, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) has shown us only those earliest promos, and just five more cards since.
We can anticipate that most of the cards will be those in Japan’s SV base set releases, however traditionally a fair few get held back for later international sets, with little discernible rhyme or reason. There’s also more confusion this time, with the SV base set release coming to us a full month later than it usually would, and rumors of a special re-release of the first 151 Kanto cards coming in the summer. That’d scupper a release to match Japan’s Triple Beat, unless it’s going to be a super-early special set situation, like last year’s release of Pokémon Go’s set overlapping Chilling Reign and Evolving Skies. Shrug!
All this speculation aside, let’s get into what really matters: Our favorite cards among the first two Scarlet & Violet Japanese sets (albeit with some of Triple Beat’s still to be revealed next week).