Thanks to a set of hard-to-get Pokémon cards, The Pokémon Card company has admitted that the collectibles are currently totally sold out in Japan.
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The Pokémon Company dropped a new expansion pack for the trading card game on April 14. Centered around Scarlet and Violet’s four Treasures of Ruin within the game’s Paldea region, the new packs, Clay Burst and Snow Hazard, offer some cool EX cards. According to Dexerto, this expansion also merges the Japanese Triple Beat set into one set known as Paldea Evolved.
Still, while they’re designed as a double-set much like the mainline Pokémon games, Clay Burst and Snow Hazard are distinctly different because of the cards available in each pack. For example, the Pokéfluencer Iono can only be acquired in Clay Burst. And it’s that fact that has collectors going wild in Japan as Iono now has a Special Illustration Rare card which, as YouTuber Ptcgradio put it in an April 16 video, is “the most expensive card we’ve basically seen” to date.
Pokémon fans line up for an expensive card
According to Ptcgradio, a YouTuber who covers the Pokémon trading card scene, Clay Burst and Snow Hazard are “two of the most hyped sets we’ve ever seen” so far. And he ain’t wrong. A player in the scene named Ethan Hegyi tweeted on April 13 that the line for the sets’ midnight release in the Akihabara district of Tokyo was “insane.”
The Pokémon Deals Community Twitter account alleges that initial quotes for cases of Clay Burst and Snow Hazard are going for $3600, with Iono in particular running some $1255 (down from its initial $2000 price tag) in Japan. Meanwhile, folks are posting about managing to snatch packs up but getting “no crazy hits.” Things are clearly getting out of hand—it’s so bad, in fact, that The Pokémon Company issued a statement on the matter.
The Pokémon Company says all cards are sold out
The Pokémon Company took to the official trading card game’s Japanese website to drop some unfortunate news about the situation, admitting that it’s currently out of stock of all Pokémon card game products at the moment. The blog post, which was translated via Google, had an apology for the inconvenience to customers and a promise to bolster the production systems to promote the reproduction and shipment of its products going forward.
“We will continue to do our best so that everyone can enjoy the Pokémon card game,” The Pokémon Company said. “Thank you for your understanding.”
The site referenced in Ptcgradio’s video seems to be the official source of Pokémon card sales information for Japan’s The Pokémon Company website. Kotaku has reached out to The Pokémon Company for comment.
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It’s unclear when things will return to normal for the Pokémon trading card game scene, especially since the Snow Hazard pack comes with a Special Illustrate Rare of Grusha. I’ve no doubt folks are trying to collect them all. So, if you’re in Japan hunting for Pokémon cards right now, I wish you good luck.