What Are Pokemon BREAK Cards

BREAK cards were a somewhat short lived phenomenon in the Pokemon TCG. These special cards were first released in English in 2015 in the XY BREAKthrough set and their last release was in XY Evolutions, the final set of the XY era. Despite this short run of printing, they were quite popular in the TCG and provided players with more opportunities for some powerful cards and devastating combos. There were only 35 different BREAK cards ever printed but despite this, they had a big impact on the game.

When opening packs, these cards were always found in the Reverse Holo slot and were categorised as rare cards (despite not being all that rare to pull).

These revolutionary cards allow your Pokemon access to another attack or ability on top of the ones they already know. As with all special cards, some were more popular and far more playable than others and we are going to take a look at why.

Their Characteristics and Importance in the TCG

Pokemon BREAK cards work differently to most others. They are always Pokemon, there are no Trainer BREAK cards. These cards are played on top of one of your Pokemon, the same as if you were evolving it, however BREAK cards are played horizontally across the top of your card, covering the art of the previous card. Another thing to note is that they are always classed as an evolution Pokemon, despite not being classified as ‘Stage 1’ or ‘Stage 2’. This is important when using deck search cards that allow you to search for an evolution Pokemon, as BREAK cards can be grabbed with them. They cannot be picked out by cards which specifically state to search for a Stage 2 card though, for example.

All of the BREAK cards were done in the same graphic style, with a gold coloured Pokemon surrounded by a unique, square like holofoil pattern. The Pokemon took up almost the entire card and they were all CGI artworks.

As we said earlier, playing a BREAK card onto one of your Pokemon opened up a whole new world of possibilities! Either a super strong attack, much more HP, a powerful ability or a combination of both were now available for you to play with.

How to use Pokemon BREAK Cards

Pokemon BREAK cards are evolution cards but without the specific Stage and are used to evolve your Pokemon in play. For example, you could play Lugia BREAK on top of the Basic Lugia, Raichu BREAK onto the Stage 1 Raichu or Greninja BREAK onto the Stage 2 Greninja.

The best thing about BREAK cards is that there isn’t really any drawback in playing them, there’s no reason not to include them in your deck if you are playing a Pokemon that has a BREAK evolution. They still give up just 1 prize card but give you more HP and access to new attacks and abilities, while still retaining its previous evolutions attacks as well.

Greninja BREAK is one of the most memorable ones for me with its incredible ability, Giant Water Shuriken. This extra ability was definitely not one to be missed as it allowed you to discard a Water energy from hand and place 6 damage counters on one of your opponents Pokemon. This was simply devastating at the time, particularly when we think that Pokemon then didn’t have the HP they do now. The most HP at that time would have been around 240 and so this could remove a quarter of that from one ability.

Another powerful attacker was Raichu BREAK. While it only had 130 HP, its attack dished out a whopping 170 damage! That’s a huge amount for now, let alone back in the BREAK era.

There’s also the Checklane Blisters, which are a fantastic

Community and Culture

As far as Pokemon BREAK go, they were not hugely popular. Sadly, it seemed that there were only a handful of playable cards which regularly saw play, including Greninja BREAK and Trevenant BREAK. The best success that a BREAK card saw was Yanmega BREAK, which helped Jesper Eriksen win the Senior World Championships in 2016. When paired with the Yanmega from Steam Siege, it is able to use its attacks for free, thanks to Yanmega’s Sonic Vision ability. This reads that if you have 4 cards in your hand, you can use the attacks for free. Yanmega BREAK’s attack does 100 damage and is not affected by weakness, resistance or any effects on your opponent's Pokemon. Pretty impressive stuff!

Some of these cards have seen a lot more play in expanded and were far more usable with the release of later sets. Mandibuzz BREAK has seen most play since the release of Rebel Clash during the Sword and Shield era. Powerful BREAK cards are only one part of the story, like most decks, you need a good supporting cast alongside it. For most decks at the time, the support was underwhelming and so the popularity of the cards suffered as a whole.

Value of BREAK Cards for Collectors

BREAK cards do not currently hold much value for TCG collectors either. They were viewed as quite ugly and annoying that they were sideways in people’s collections. You can still pick up most BREAK cards for only a few pounds, even though they have been around for 7 years at this point. Some people would class that as almost vintage!

Sadly for Pokemon, BREAK cards seem to have been a bit of a miss, perhaps that explains their short print run and amount of BREAK cards produced. They were not particularly popular with players and didn’t hit the mark with collectors. There is still time for the collecting aspect to take off, perhaps master sets of BREAK cards will skyrocket in the future. Who knows, but if you think they might, then get them now while they are still cheap!