{"id":162106,"date":"2025-09-26T19:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T19:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/162106\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T19:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T19:08:11","slug":"pokemon-tcgs-new-mega-evolution-era-is-much-more-generous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/162106\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon TCG’s New Mega Evolution Era Is Much More Generous"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the non-appearance of a new mainline Pok\u00e9mon game this year, the Pok\u00e9mon TCG was left with a bit of a predicament at the end of its three years of\u00a0Scarlet & Violet sets. So, rather than drag it on, the trading card game has opted to return to Mega Evolutions, perfectly in time with the giant monsters\u2019 resurgence in the forthcoming Pok\u00e9mon Legends: Z-A<\/a>. The first new set, out today in the U.S., is aptly and simply called Mega Evolution, and based on opening a few dozen packs, I\u2019m delighted to report that a newfound generosity seems to have arrived.<\/p>\n

Now, while The Pok\u00e9mon Company has chosen to save the really big guns for November\u2019s next set, Mega Evolution: Phantasmal Flames, and a Charizard card that is likely to cause riots in the streets<\/a>, that doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t some big hitters in this first outing for the new era. Sure to see high demand and higher prices are Special Illustration Rares for fan favorites Mega Venusaur ex, Mega Lucario ex and Mega Latias ex, as well as one very special card: the return of Mega Gardevoir ex. I can\u2019t hold it in any longer. I pulled it! I pulled the Gardevoir!<\/p>\n

OK, I\u2019m not going to let this color my assessment of the set, but I will say I when I opened it last night I ran upstairs and woke up my son to show him in quite the display of excellent parenting. Oh, and the centering on the reverse is awful, so there\u2019s no hope of a nice PSA rating. Right, moving on.<\/p>\n

\"Mega\u00a9 The Pok\u00e9mon Company \/ Kotaku Another New Beginning <\/p>\n

While the ex cards continue to appear, although only in Mega Evolved form here, Mega Evolution does represent something of a resetting of recent trends in the TCG. For instance, the completely out-of-control reverse holos with either Pok\u00e9 Balls or Master Balls on them are all gone, and in fact the reverse holo has no pattern\u00a0at all. There are no holo Energy cards, no Ace Spec-likes\u2014just a very basic set of a very normal size (188 cards). As such, in this sense, it feels like an appropriate wiping clean of the slate for a new era. In another sense, other than the Mega Evolved Pok\u00e9mon, it\u2019s an incredibly\u00a0ordinary set, too. The art on a large number of the Basic cards is weirdly generic, images that look so plain that you\u2019d swear you\u2019ve seen them before.<\/p>\n

This makes for an odd set in some ways. With no new Pok\u00e9mon arriving, and the indistinct art, most of the cards feel like they could come from any era in any of the last ten years. However, when you pull something more special, they feel\u00a0very special, and I\u2019m delighted to report that in our smallish sample, that happened a lot more often than I was expecting.<\/p>\n

\"Bulbasaur,\u00a9 The Pok\u00e9mon Company \/ Kotaku <\/p>\n

So Pok\u00e9mon TCG sets in recent years have been built of your regular cards with the small window of art, Double Rares that are either the older basic Vs or the more recent basic ex cards, Ultra Rares which tend to be more elaborate V\/ex arts or full-art Trainer cards, then the desirable Illustration Rares (IR) which are full-art cards depicting Pok\u00e9mon in their environment, followed by Special Illustration Rares (SIR) which also full-art, but mostly far more elaborately detailed. Then you get your gold cards which used to be the most prized, but more recently lost all their allure\u2014this time out there are just two of them, with a lot more detail etched into the gold foil, and the hilarious new classification of Mega Hyper Rare. Mega Evolution sticks to this formula but with a boost, giving those Illustration Rares a big upgrade: the artworks in this set are astonishing.<\/p>\n

Each time I pulled an IR I was convinced it had to be an SIR, so gorgeous and elaborate was the art. Cards like the Clawitzer, Bulbasaur, and Ivysaur IRs would previously have easily been given an SIR rating. And yes, that means the 10 SIR cards have stepped up too, all of them (but for the Mega Absol ex, I would argue) looking like they could have been the ultimate chase card in any set on their own. Mega Latias ex is just extraordinary, while the Mega Lucario ex seems to be deliberately evoking the classic Mewtwo vs Charizard cards of the Sword & Shield era, as the Lucario soars over a city, wheeling back to punch an attacking Venusaur. And talking of it, the Mega Venusaur ex card completes a triptych set with Bulbasaur and Ivysaur in gobsmacking artwork by very new Pok\u00e9mon artist mashu. And then, yes, there\u2019s that Mega Gardevoir ex, with a degree of intricacy not seen since Akira Egawa\u2019s Giratina VSTAR in Crown Zenith<\/a>. (Egawa designed the Mega Latias in this set.) What\u2019s more extraordinary is that the Gardevoir card was designed by an artist brand new to the TCG, Raita Kazama, who has previously designed incredible packaging and sleeves for the franchise, but never a card.<\/p>\n

Pull Rates <\/p>\n

Pull rates over\u00a0Scarlet & Violet felt like they were crawling by the end, settling on a pretty desultory 1 in 5 chance of a pack having something you\u2019d care about, even including a basic ex. Mega Evolution (and again, I stress my sample size is non-scientific) blew this out of the water for me. Of the first 40 packs, I pulled 12 cards Ultra Rare or higher! If you include the basic ex cards (which look great, by the way) that goes up to 21 pulls from 40 packs. 1 in 2?! And better than 1 in 4 for real pulls. That\u2019s so much more appealing, and a far better use of someone\u2019s allowance.<\/p>\n

\"Mega\u00a9 The Pok\u00e9mon Company \/ Kotaku What\u2019s The Meta? <\/p>\n

As for how all this will affect the game itself, I\u2019d say it\u2019ll be pretty big stuff. The Mega cards are as powerful as you\u2019d hope, and are going to absolutely flip the meta. Mega Gardevoir ex, for instance, has a one-Energy ability called Overflowing Wishes that lets you add an Energy card to every benched Psychic Pok\u00e9mon you have at once, and a second called Mega Symphonia that\u2019ll deliver 50 damage for every Psychic Energy attached. It\u2019s a Stage 2, so you\u2019re not going to be playing it out your deck, but at the same time that gives you a lot of time to build up its Energy stock while you evolve it. Meanwhile, Mega Abomasnow ex could possibly deliver the highest damage I\u2019ve ever heard of. Hammer-lanche has you discard the top six cards from your deck, doing 100 damage for every Energy card that\u2019s there. Load your deck with Energy and you could hit for 600! Albeit at a hefty cost for your reserves of cards, of course.<\/p>\n

Mega Camerupt ex can deliver a ludicrous 240 damage for\u00a0one Energy if the opponent is Burned, while my favorite, Mega Mawile, can take a Huge Bite of 260 damage if an opponent is unharmed (and only 30 if it isn\u2019t!), but also Gobble Down for 80 per prize card you\u2019ve taken. What a finisher that would be, your opponent finally playing their stacked Mega Gardevoir with five prize cards gone, and you clobber it in one turn for 380.<\/p>\n

There are also nice twists like Wally\u2019s Companion, a Trainer card featuring good ol\u2019 Wally that will heal\u00a0all damage from an ex Pok\u00e9mon at the cost of returning Energy attached to it back to your hand. Yup, it\u2019s not discarded!<\/p>\n

\"Mega\u00a9 The Pok\u00e9mon Company \/ Kotaku <\/p>\n

This is to be a very brief set, given the arrival of Phantasmal Flames as soon as November 14. It\u2019s an even shorter time if you live outside the U.S., where Mega Evolution has been delayed by a full two weeks due to manufacturing issues\u2014barely a month long. But it\u2019s a lovely way to begin the new era, unless I was just ridiculously lucky!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the non-appearance of a new mainline Pok\u00e9mon game this year, the Pok\u00e9mon TCG was left with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,73689,73690,38900,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-162106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-mega-evolution","tag-mega-pokemon","tag-pokemon-tcg","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}