Pokémon Journey Together Set Release – Full Card List & Spoilers

As many fans know, Pokémon is at his heart a story of friendship between trainers and their partners. Ash and Pikachu, Blaine and Charizard, Cynthia and Garchomp, and even Jessie and James with their Wobbuffet are just some of the most well known partnerships we enjoyed through their journey in the Anime and Manga. As we are fast approaching its 30th anniversary, the newer and recently released set of the Trading Card Game, Pokemon Journey Together, is here to remind us how important is the bond between a Trainer and their Pokémon in our beloved game.

In order to do so, the new set released on the 28th of March, brings back a mechanics we saw in the early 2000s by re-introducing the Trainer's Pokemon. Featured for the first time in the Gym Heroes expansion in 2004, Trainer’s Pokémons can be identified by the image of their trainer printed on the bottom right side of their artwork. These cards have abilities which interact with specific Item and Support card creating potential new synergies and providing the bases for new and diverse deck styles. As the release teaser from the Pokemon company said “With deep trust and steady guidance, Trainers help bring out the best in their Pokémon. The bond they share empowers them to act as one in battle as they push their strength to the limit, including as Pokémon ex!”.

Being the first set to kick-off a new chapter in the TGC, Journey Together focuses on the Pokémons of four trainers from different eras: Iono (Scarlet and Violet), N (Black and White), Lillie (Sun and Moon), and Hop (Sword and Shield). We already know that Giovanni is bound to come very soon in the upcoming Team Rocket set and there are high expectations that more fan favourite trainers will also come in the same set. I have my hopes up for Misty and Psyduck for example and with Mega Evolutions also planned to come back to the game in a few months, we can expect the Trainer's Pokemon gimmick to become a consistent part of the gameplay for this season.

Unfortunately, while Pokémon Journey Together set has just been released, most of the online retailers and physical shops have already ran out of stock. Pokémon Centre and several retailers in UK like Magic Madhouse are shipping their orders to all those players who took advantage of the pre-orders at discounted prices (and free shipping over £30) but it may take a while for new stock to come back to the shelves. If you missed out in this initial wave, I usually recommend keeping an eye on Magic Madhouse webpage and to setup a remind using their “notify me when available” option to get a chance to collect this very interesting set.  

In fact, I believe that Pokémon Journey Together is a great core set to collect. There are plenty of powerful cards featured in this expansion, and the artwork level of the overall is likely the highest we had so far in this TCG. Some of the Trainer cards in this set in particular have such great artwork that are bound to be chase cards for this set with some of them also expected to increase their value over time because of the Trainer they are connected to. Have you already guessed which ones are we talking about? Let's see together if you are right....

Right out of the Booster Pack - What to expect from Pokémon Journey Together?

Journey Together is the ninth expansion in the Scarlet & Violet Pokémon TCG series (excluding special sets). Released on March 28th, this set composed of 190 cards in total of which 159 form the core set. The set includes 4 Trainer's Pokémon ex, 16 regular Pokémon ex, 11 Illustration Rare, 6 Special Illustration Rare, and 3 Hyper Rare Gold etched cards. The four main Trainer's Pokemon cards (N's Darmanitan, Iono's Kilowattrel, Lillie's Ribombee, and Hop's Snorlax) are also available as promo cards featuring the “Journey together” set logo.

In addition to these,a special Illustration Rare card featuring N’s Reshiram with the Scarlet & Violet Journey Together logo can also be found in the “Enhanced Booster Display Box”. This type of Booster box is a new addition to the range of products normally available for a core set and it marks the return of the Box Toppers, a special card included inside sealed booster boxes as an incentive for buying an entire box of booster packs. Once quite common, Box Toppers were discontinued in Pokémon TCG after 2006 and I personally love see them back in this set.

Shake-Up the Metagame – Powerful cards to look for in the set

Pokémon Journey Together includes an incredible good amount of highly playable cards with some of them expected to have a great impact on the current meta-game. The first and likely the most impactful of these cards is Lillie's Clefairy ex  due to a passive ability that adds a Psychic-type weakness to all Dragon-type Pokémon. This ability is of particular interest considering how Dragon type Pokémon like Dragapult ex and Raging Bolt ex are expected to dominate the competitive scene after the rotation. As such, we can expect Lillie's Clefairy ex to be a solid addition to the Tera Box Deck contributing in making this type of deck a solid contender for this season.

Together with being a very useful card, we should also consider that Lillie is one of the most favourite Trainers of all times due to the kindness and determination she showed in the Sun and Moon video games. Knowing this it does not surprise that the Illustration Rare version of this card is currently the most expensive card from the set trading for over £160 on the secondary market.

While Lillie's Pokemon can be used as an alternative to Dragon based Deck, the new Salamance ex will actually provide even further support to these decks. In fact, while Dragapult ex terrorizes the meta by hitting Benched Pokémon for a total of 60 damage every time it attacks, Salamence ex can bully them even more by dealing 50 damage to every opposing Benched Pokémon. This wide range attack may be quite interesting to hit Support and Evolution Pokémons hiding in the back or to counteract any Active Pokémon stalling strategy. Competitive potential aside, Salamence ex card also has an amazing artwork that deserves to be showcased in any Pokémon fan collection.

While Lillie's Pokemon sits on the first place of everyone hearts and deck, N’s Zoroark ex deserves possibly the slot for the most interesting card of the set. Its main attack “Night Joker”, in fact, lets Zoroark use any attack of other Benched N's Pokémon for just 2 energies. This means that once Zoroark is on the Active spot, it can use N's Reshiram's Virtuous Flame attack for half the normal amount of Energy, and then steal a win at the last minute with N's Sigilyph's Victory Symbol.

Hidden treasures - Gorgeous Chase Cards to look for

Together with the new mechanics and its interesting new cards, Journey Together includes a stunning selection of chase cards. The artwork on all six Special Illustration Rare and the one on most of the Illustration Rare cards are absolute stunning and a must have for any Pokémon collector. The addition of the Trainers in the Full Art cards also provides a new dimension to the Pokémons showcased on them making these cards not only amazing work of art but also greatly collectible.

We have already spoiled a few of the most valuable cards of this set in the previous session, but we should also mention Articuno, Volcanion ex and Iono's Bellibolt ex Special Illustration Rare cards as some of the best cards you can pull from Journey Together. I am for sure not the only one considering these cards among their personal favourite favourite of the set, and they seem to trend quite high in the secondary market too together with Hop's Zacian ex.

N's Reshiram also deserves a special place in my heart (and in any collection) considering the amazing artwork and the possibility to get the Box Topper version of this card.  

Where to purchase and how to best collect this set

Journey Together is looking to become one of the best Pokémon TCG expansions among the Scarlet & Violet series. The return of the nostalgic Trainer’s Pokémons and the stunning artwork of the set are surely among the factors contributing to its success together with the expectations the player have that this set will kick-off a new phase in the TCG.

Unfortunately, this set has been in such high demand that it proved difficult for casual players to get their hands on these packs even after queueing outside the shops on the day of the release. This is not the first time we have seen some challenges with the availability of stock including the recently issues with Prismatic Evolutions to name one. In most cases, these issues are linked to an increased demand from new players and, unfortunately, from those buying the products to resell them for a profit.

While now it is a bit late to consider pre-ordering the set, I would like to recommend to keep an eye on the inventory of trusted vendors like Magic Madhouse. Not only the prices on the website are usually quite competitive but they are also guaranteed to not be inflated to exploit the highest demand on Pokémon products. Most important, players and collectors can buy both sealed products and single cards on Magic Madhouse knowing all products are original and of high quality.

Last but not least, I would also like to recommend to keep an eye on the upcoming new sets as pre-ordering them ahead of time will definitely be a safer approach considering for example how anticipated is the new Team Rocket set releasing soon this year!