The Pokemon TCG will soon receive its Scarlet & Violet expansion with a slew of changes coming to the game, but one of them is probably not going to be welcomed by players. Thanks to global inflation, the price of Pokemon booster packs are going up by more than 10 percent in some markets.
"Due to global inflation impacting the cost of materials and production, Pokemon Trading Card Game products will see varying MSRP increases in select markets with the launch of the Scarlet & Violet series," reads today’s blog update. "For example, the price of a booster pack will increase from $3.99 to $4.49 USD."
Keep in mind that the price increase is just for the US, and other regions will see varying changes in price, but the overall increase seems to be around 12 percent in most markets. That’s similar to what Magic: The Gathering did in July, with premier set boosters, bundles, Jumpstart packs, and preconstructed Commander decks all going up in price.
However, it’s not all bad news. In order to soften the blow, The Pokemon TCG will now include three guaranteed foil cards per booster starting in Scarlet & Violet, and all rare cards will be foils moving forward. That sort of shows you how little it actually costs to make foil cards if they can just triple the number of foils per pack like it’s nothing, but hey, who’s going to argue with more foils?
And that’s not all. "In addition, certain products will come with additional items," the blog update adds. "For example, the Elite Trainer Box will include an additional booster pack and full-art promo card."
Here's hoping that the Scarlet & Violet TCG expansion will be better received than the actual game, which is currently the worst-rated mainline Pokemon games in history. Nintendo acknowledged the game's technical issues and promised that future updates will improve Scarlet & Violet's performance. In the meantime, Pokemon are spawning inside walls, which is driving shiny hunters to self-medicate.
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