Sun and Moon Burning Shadows Collector’s Dossier

Burning Shadows, the latest booster expansion for the Pokemon TCG, is scheduled for release on August 4th, 2017. This past weekend, players and collectors had their first opportunity to acquire cards from this expansion during the first wave of pre-release tournaments (note that additional pre-release events may be available in your area next weekend (July 29-30), if you want to get early access to these cards). With the first pre-release tournaments out of the way, players and collectors have finally confirmed the set’s contents. What follows is a brief dossier of the information collectors will find important for tracking down and completing this set. In my collector’s guide to Guardians Rising, available here, I made several predictions about what to expect in Burning Shadows. While some of those predictions will need to be re-evaluated once we have a better sense of the pull rates from this set, many of my initial fears and prognostications were proven true with Burning Shadows. First, a look at the set’s contents:

Dossier:

 Observations:

            Like the previous two expansions in the Sun and Moon era, Burning Shadows features a historically enormous number of secret rare and ultra rare cards in a set that includes a massive number of cards in its roster. Both of these trends, the high number of secret rare and ultra rare cards and the massive set size, have continued through the release of both the Sun and Moon and Guardians Rising expansions.  

In the Guardians Rising Collector’s Guide, I noted that the high number of secret rare and ultra rare cards in the expansion was unprecedented, and unless either the number of these cards decreased, or the pull rates for these cards increased, it could lead to further “Secret Rare Inflation,” whereby casual collectors may forego trying to complete the set (and therefore buy less product) because the task is simply too daunting.

While pull rate data is largely unavailable at this time, we do know that the number of secret rares in Burning Shadows has decreased by a whopping two whole cards from Guardians Rising!!!

This is obviously not a meaningful reduction, and the increased number of ultra rare cards is not a reassuring sign from PCI. I’ll reserve full judgment on the impact of this continuing trend until we have more data on pull rates, but regardless of the doom and gloom presented by further Secret Rare Inflation, there are a number of reasons to get excited about Burning Shadows, including:

NEW CHARIZARD BABY

Since its debut as the OG badass of Base Set, few Pokemon have drawn collectors to sets like Charizard. Burning Shadows marks the English debut of Charizard’s new GX form with the inclusion of two Charizard GX cards, a standard GX rare (pictured above) and a secret rare variation. Interestingly, no ultra rare version of the card is available in the set, a sign that PCI intends to use the card in another product (likely the Charizard GX Premium Collection scheduled for release in early September). Notwithstanding the omission of the ultra rare variant, new Charizard cards (especially ones dropping a massive 300 damage) are a sure fire way to get collectors excited about a new set.

NEW LEGENDARY POKEMON

New legendary Pokemon cards are another great way to generate casual collector interest in a TCG release. Burning Shadows features the TCG debut of three new legendary Pokemon from the Sun and Moon video game era: Tapu Fini, Necrozma and Marshadow. Burning Shadows also features the first English releases of Darkrai and Ho-Oh in GX form, and includes ultra rare and secret rare versions of Tapu Bulu GX to accompany its earlier promotional print in the Island Guardians Tin. Darkai and Ho-Oh, and the GX debut of Darkrai and Ho-Oh as well as the GX debut of Ho-Oh.  

Results of Burning Shadows Predictions:

In the Guardians Rising Collectors Guide I made the following predictions:

“ Based on Guardians Rising and Sun and Moon, we should expect the following for Burning Shadows: (1) another large set; (2) a hefty number of Secret Rares including premium versions of basic energy cards, trainers, and standard GX rares; (3) similar or marginally improved pull rates depending on whether PCI decides to address the ongoing Secret Rare Inflation; and (4) Charizard GX has already been announced for the upcoming English set, so expect Burning Shadows to draw considerable interest from collectors, even if Secret Rare Inflation continues.”  

Based on the information we have so far, it looks like predictions 1 and 2 were correct. It’s still too early to tell on predictions 3 and 4, so be sure to check flipsidegaming’s website after the set’s official release for additional observations and data. 

Thecardpletionist has been collecting Pokemon TCG cards since the game’s English release in 1999. You can read more from the author at http://thecardpletionist.blogspot.com/ and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thecardpletionist/