Pokemon Just Missed The Chance To Revive The TCG With Tag Team Cards

Summary

• The 2024 Pokemon World Championships ended with exciting reveals for Unite and TCG Pocket, but no return of the popular Tag Team mechanic.
• The Pokemon TCG is struggling, with store owners reporting a decline in sales due to lackluster designs and less popular cards in Scarlet & Violet.
• Many are hoping for the return of Tag Team cards, known for their iconic duos and stunning artwork, to revitalize the TCG's popularity.

The 2024 Pokemon World Championships have just reached their thrilling climax, with fantastic matches taking place across the series’ many different formats in Honolulu, Hawaii, this past weekend.

Following the tournament, The Pokemon Company hosted a closing ceremony, which, as it always does, gave players a glimpse into the future.

The Pokemon TCG Is Teasing Team Rocket's Return

Could we be about to see The Glory of Team Rocket?

Three new Pokemon were teased for Unite, Pokemon TCG Pocket was given an October 30 release date, Anaheim and San Francisco were revealed as the next two World Championship locations, and, most excitingly for me, a returning type of card for the Pokemon TCG was shown off — “Trainer’s Pokemon”.

While a new mechanic is always exciting, I can’t help but feel that The Pokemon Company missed an opportunity to revitalize the TCG, which has begun to feel a bit stale in its second year of Scarlet & Violet, by not returning to Sun & Moon’s Tag Team formula, which proved so popular a few years back in sets like Team Up, Unbroken Bonds, and Unified Minds.

“Battle Partners” Doesn’t Mean Tag Team

Earlier this year, The Pokemon Company trademarked a new set name — Battle Partners. While nothing beyond the name was revealed, speculation ran wild with players hoping, no, expecting, that they would be seeing the Tag Team mechanic return. Instead, what we got was something more akin to the Gym Leader Pokemon from Gym Heroes.

Its hardly a game changer.

Special Arts aside, of which there is a stunning Reshiram, these cards don’t change a whole lot. They feature the trainer’s name next to the Pokemon’s and a small picture of the trainer on the side of the card—hardly a game changer.

The Pokemon TCG Is Struggling

Having spoken to more than 30 store owners from across the world about the current state of the Pokemon TCG, and they almost unanimously agreed that it was in a bad place.

Of the 31 stores I spoke to, 27 of them told me they were struggling to sell stock of the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet TCG sets, with some stores reporting sales had dropped by almost 70 percent, causing the need for what they called a “fire sale.”

Part of the reason for the decline is simply that the newly designed cards were called “bad”, “lazy”, “dull”, and “a lot less special and interesting” by store owners. Thanks to a combination of the ninth Pokemon generation’s lack of popularity and ex cards being seen as less interesting than their predecessors, Sword & Shields’ VMAX cards, players don’t like the Scarlet & Violet era, so they’re not buying the product. This is where The Pokemon Company had the opportunity to change things.

Bring Back Tag Teams

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to call Tag Team cards some of the most popular cards ever released.

They featured a duo of Pokemon jostling for position on the front of the card, with artwork that has rarely been matched. Gengar and Mimikyu teamed up for a beautiful but spooky card, Mewtwo and Mew paired in a card that affectionately got titled “Mewthree”, and Magikarp and Wailord became an instant classic. Not doing something similar feels criminal.

In all likelihood, this type of card will return in the future, given that they were only released five years ago, and cards are often designed years in advance At least the one special card that The Pokemon Company has shown, N’s Reshiram, is a banger.

But, with a name like Battle Partners, I really expected Tag Teams to be back, and now I’m sad they’re not. It’s clear the Pokemon TCG needs something special to come back from the shaky start of this current era, and bringing back one of the most popular ones in the last decade would definitely be the way to do that.

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Pokemon TCG

Collected by children and adults alike for more than two decades, the Pokemon TCG contains thousands of cards of your favorite Pokemon, trainers, and more.