This New Set Officially Releases on November 3rd 2023.
This set introduces Paradox Pokemon to the TCG along with new “Ancient” and “Future” mechanic labels. Certain Trainers and Energy support Pokemon with these labels.
The English set contains most of the cards from Japan’s Ancient Roar & Future Flash, September’s Raging Surf, and September’s Tera Mewtwo & Skeledirge ex Decks.
This timing also means the English set will reveal the secret rares from Ancient Roar and Future Flash before Japan! Usually we would see the secret rares when Japanese fans start to open their packs next week, but this time we’re going to see them earlier in English thanks to prereleases.
This same situation also occurred with Obsidian Flames, which raised a few eyebrows here. Now that it’s happening again with Paradox Rift, this may become the new trend for future releases. That is, Japan releases new sets during a three month interval, then the English TCG syncs up with a majority of those cards at the end of the three months. Japan gets most of the cards first, but then the English and Japanese TCG get the last new batch of cards around the same time.
This is probably the closest the Pokemon TCG will ever come to simultaneous releases, as Japan has a different release schedule than the international market. Note that it won’t be a perfect 1:1 release, as we already know some cards have been cut from Paradox Rift.
The reverse holos for the Paradox Pokemon and Trainers do not have their Energy types in the backgrounds. They are only reflective, like old reverse holos. This is because the Ancient cards have artwork of rock layers in the background and Future cards have digitized backgrounds.
About 30 cards have been cut from Paradox Rift: 10 cards from Ancient Roar & Future Flash and around 20 cards from Raging Surf and its two Tera decks. These 30 cards will be moved to our special SV4.5 set in January, which will feature shiny Pokemon.