I’m just a bit confused about the releases a little bit.
As far as I see it Black Bolt & White Flare are the last sets on the timeline with relation to the Scarlet & Violet games (they are SV11). So the next Japanese sets are MEGA Expansion Pack Mega Brave & MEGA Expansion Pack Mega Symphonia and they’ll presumably not have an SV Set numbering (they tie in with the new AZ game).
That puzzles me a bit. Does that mean BB & WF concluded the ptcg sets for scarlet & violet?
That means we are starting a new era?
What about a final end of year set for scarlet & violet?
Until future set trademark announcements prove otherwise, everything points to Black Bolt & White Flare being the final sets of the SV era
They are main expansions but only in name, everything else about it is much more elevated than a main expansion (it became a special set in English)
Terastal Festival ex was actually the last celebratory High Class set, it concluded everything about the SV games and DLC before TPC went experimental in the next 5 months
One could say it fills the void between ending SV era tcg and starting PLZA tcg
There were no remake games for the final year (SM → Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee, SWSH → BDSP), so TPC planned to end SV early
Mega Evolution also doesn’t exist in the SV games, so it makes no sense to call Mega sets part of SV
The 2024-2025 tcg season is divided with no overarching theme, a High Class set would end up very messy
SV7a Paradise Dragona & SV8 Super Electric Breaker → Stellar mechanic + gen 9 Dragon Pokémon
SV10 The Glory of Team Rocket → Team Rocket’s Pokémon
SV11B Black Bolt & SV11W White Flare → Unova 156
Each set since SV8a Terastal Festival ex has been receiving an unprecedented level of reprinting to meet demand and will continue to have more throughout the year
Why would they release a reprint set at the end of this year?
TCG is moving on to Mega sets this August, an SV era High Class will break continuity within the block
TPC did this once in 2017 with The Best of XY as an introduction to High Class sets in Sun & Moon
I have one speculation to make of all this,
Instead of giving Japan and the rest of the world another High Class set, all the artworks of what could have been a Best of SV set are being distributed exclusively to Simplified Chinese as they’re catching up
CSV3C → SAR Tera Arcanine ex
CSV4C → SAR Maushold ex, SAR Rika
CSV5C → ?
CSV6C → ?
CSV7C → ?
CSV Stellar Pikachu / Eeveelutions → ?
CSV Battle Partners / Heat Wave Arena → ?
CSV Glory of Team Rocket → ?
CSV Black Bolt & White Flare → ?
To be fair, Sword/Shield ran for around 3 years, and SV will be about 2.5 once the BW set comes out. Yeah, it’s a little less but not drastic. And I feel that the BW set will be one hell of a blowout with that crazy fact of every Pokemon getting an art rare of some kind. I do think the big finale blowout set should have focused on SV Pokemon though not Gen 5. That seems a bit random to be honest.
Tbh SV games are built off concepts from BW. So i am not surprised BB/WF are the final set. The Gen 5 games had so many mechanics and ideas used in SV games and even the one of the SV DLCs are in Unova.
End of era High Class sets were never really about the current generation of Pokémon, they reprint the final year of popular and playable cards
GX Tag All Stars had only 1 SR or better gen 7 Pokémon - Wishiwashi GX
VSTAR Universe only had 11 Pokémon / characters from the Galar region, the majority are popular Pokémon and Pokémon from gen 4 / Hisui region (thanks to BDSP & PLA)
I guess we’re just used to tradition that we expect something similar for SV era, which they have in Terastal Festival ex. I much prefer that they changed things up and not have to rely on High Class because this final year’s “regular sets” are too good to be regular sets
