Reading Time: 5 minutes
When my son started to become obsessed with Pokemon GO, I made myself a promise: we would not get into collecting Pokemon cards. They were a bottomless pit of money, storage, and time. So, naturally, we now own several hundred of them. The latest wave of cards to be released is Sun & Moon: Ultra Prism and we recently got to explore some of the sets available from this range.
If you’re confused by all the different Pokemon card sets available, check out my guide to buying Pokemon cards before you read any further. I also recommend Cathe’s two-part “Parent’s Guide to the Pokemon TCG,” which covers both Deck Building and Playing the Game; they’re both great for confused parents.
Read to the end to be in with a chance of winning some Pokemon Sun & Moon: Ultra Prism cards for yourself.
Ultra Prism Elite Trainer Boxes
There are two Elite Trainer Boxes in the Ultra Prism range, Dusk Mane Necrozma (yellow box) and Dawn Wings Necrozma (blue box), and both retail for around $30/£35. The boxes contain identical content but with some items themed to the box design, so you only need to buy one unless you want duplicate items.
This is what you’ll get in both Elite Trainer boxes:
- 8 Pokemon TCG Sun & Moon: Ultra Prism Booster Packs
- 65 Card Sleeves featuring either Dawn Wings Necrozma or Dusk Mane Necrozma
- 45 Pokemon TCG Energy Cards
- Player’s Guide to the Ultra Prism expansion
- 6 Damage Counter Dice
- 1 Competition Legal Coin Flip Die
- 2 Acrylic Condition Markers
- 1 Acrylic GX Marker
- Collector’s Box
The Elite Trainer Box is a great next step from the basic Trainer Kits you can buy for around $10/£12 and is designed to step up your game to the next level. The Player’s Guide is also a handy addition to the box, explaining the powers of the new Prism Star cards, the possible attacks from the new GX cards, and how to use the new Unit Energy cards. It also covers using Combos, the most useful Trainer cards, and includes a checklist of nearly all the Ultra Prism cards available so you can easily keep track of your collection.
The Elite Trainer Box is a set that caters more towards Pokemon game players than card collectors with items like card sleeves to protect your deck and a selection of dice and acrylic markers to use during games. While collectors are more likely to store their card collections in binders, the box itself offers easier access to your cards while also keeping them safe—there’s more than enough space in the box to store a complete deck in sleeves plus tokens and dice so you can transport a game-ready set together. The box is great quality, looks beautiful, and is made from very tough cardboard, so you don’t need to worry about damage to the content during transport.
The cards you receive from the booster packs in the Elite Trainer Box are entirely random, so there’s always a chance of not receiving any rare or powerful cards (check out the one-star reviews on Amazon for proof), but with eight booster packs of ten cards each, your odds of getting at least a few great cards are good. There’s a lot to be said for the thrill of sitting down and making your way through a big pile of sealed booster packs too! From our Elite Trainer Boxes, we pulled Lunala, Dawn Wings and Dusk Mane Necrozma, and several of the shiny Unit Energy cards. Obviously, we also ended up with a whole lot of duplicates, but these came in useful for trading at Scouts and school.
At around $30/£35, the Elite Trainer Box is one of the pricier Pokemon sets on the market, however, you do get a lot for your money. With a single booster pack often selling for $5/£4, you’re easily getting your money’s worth from the booster pack cards alone, before you add in the additional 45 energy cards, sleeves, and other bits included here, and having the storage box to keep everything together is a big bonus for exasperated parents sick of picking up cards from all horizontal surfaces. While not pocket money priced, this would make an ideal birthday/ another celebration gift for any Pokemon fan.
Ultra Prism Three-Booster Blister Packs
The other Pokemon sets we explored were the Three-Booster Blister Packs. As is obvious from the name, these packs contain three of the Ultra Prism ten-card booster packs, however, they also contain a bonus card and a flip coin. There are two of these sets available for the Ultra Prism wave, one containing Porygon Z as its bonus card, the other containing Alolan Vulpix.
As with all the booster sets, you are once again at the mercy of luck regarding what you pull from your packs, but 30 cards give you a good shot at getting one or two good cards. These Three-Booster Blister Packs sell for around $15/£15, which might be slightly more than the cost of just buying three booster packs by themselves. Of course, you do get the special bonus card and flip coin, so whether these packs represent a good deal for you depends on the cost of single booster packs in your local area, and how much value you place on those two extras. These packs also have some of the feelings of opening a larger Pokemon card set instead of just a single booster pack but at a lower price point, making them more quickly achievable via saving pocket money. They’re a perfect goal item for teaching youngsters to save up, and affordable if you’re wanting to reward an achievement with something that bit more than a single booster pack.
Ultra Prism Giveaway
If you’d like to win some Pokemon Ultra Prism cards of your own (and live in the UK or European Union), then enter our giveaway below. We have two prize sets for you to win, each containing an Elite Trainer Box and two Three-Booster Blister Packs.
This contest is only open to residents of the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Contest closes at 11.59PM GMT, Sunday, May 6th, 2018.
Click through to read all of “‘Pokemon Sun and Moon: Ultra Prism’ Cards + Giveaway” at GeekMom.If you value content from GeekMom, please support us via Patreon or use this link to shop at Amazon. Thanks!
