Next month, the Pokemon Trading Card Game’s next set will release in Japan, titled “Battle Partners.” The hook of Battle Partners is that it will feature the return of Trainer’s Pokemon, a mechanic first introduced all the way back in the Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge sets. Both of those sets were made up exclusively of Pokemon associated (or sometimes loosely associated) with Gym Leaders from the Kanto region. Battle Partners is bringing that back as the central hook, but in a major change from Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge, there will be cards that are not connected to a specific Pokemon Trainer.
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Battle Partners will include cards of Pokemon associated with Iono, N, Hop, and Lillie. However, the Pokemon TCG’s official website in Japan has revealed a handful of new cards, including some that are not associated with any of those Trainers, or any other Trainers from the franchise. In addition to cards like Hop’s Zacian and Iono’s Voltorb, we’re also going to see new cards based on the whole Sprigatito evolution line and Swinub evolution line. Since the full set has not been revealed yet, it’s difficult to say what kind of split we can expect between “regular” Pokemon and Trainer’s Pokemon. Regardless of how many the set will include, this could prove disappointing for fans that were hoping for something closer to the original Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge sets.
Interestingly enough, one of the other new cards revealed by The Pokemon Company centers around Brock. A new Supporter card, Brock’s Scouting allows players to either search their deck for up to 2 Basic Pokemon, or one Evolution card. This is a curious inclusion, simply because no other cards based on Brock have been revealed for Battle Partners just yet. It will be interesting to see if this means we’ll see other Pokemon Trainers from the series appearing as Supporter cards. There’s no shortage of options available, and it would be nice to see more characters appear, even if they don’t have any Trainer’s Pokemon in the new set.
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At this time, Battle Partners does not have a release date in North America. There’s usually a delay between the time Japan gets sets and other regions do, so this isn’t too surprising. In fact, next month will see Prismatic Evolutions released locally while Japan gets Battle Partners. According to a previous report, Battle Partners will be released in North America in March, under the name “Journey Together.” None of that information has been confirmed by The Pokemon Company, as of this writing. Hopefully we’ll have a lot more information about the localized version of Battle Partners in the coming weeks!
Are you looking forward to this new set from the Pokemon TCG? Would you have preferred it if the whole set featured Trainer’s Pokemon? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
[H/T: PokeBeach]
