Packed With Essential Charizards And More

For the first time since the switch to the new era of Pokémon TCG, it’s all about Charizards again. With next week’s release of Obsidian Flames, players and collectors will once again be making a very big fuss about the cuddly orange dragon, with three different ‘Zards to collect in the set. But that’s not all that’s interesting in this poor set that’s due to be immediately overshadowed by Pokémon 151 in September—there are some absolute classics in here that can’t breathe fire at all.

For reasons best known to themselves, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) has been oddly shy about the contents of the third set from Scarlet & Violet, Obsidian Flames. While the next set, Pokémon 151, already has a detailed gallery on the official site, Obsidian Flames has only just been acknowledged as existing at all, and then with just eight cards revealed. This is all the more peculiar given people have been able to open packs of it for over a week now, if they’ve taken part in pre-release Build & Battle events!

However, despite these odd efforts, players do know what all 191 cards from the set are actually are, and some are already creating quite the buzz. This is boosted by so many of the cards in Obsidian Flames appearing internationally at the same time as they’ve first shown up in Japan’s latest collection, Ruler of the Black Flame. That’s unusual, the rest-of-world market usually having to wait two to six months to see cards first released in Japanese.

This means that we get to pull the gold terastalised Dark-type Charizard at the same time, alongside beautiful Special Art Rares like the Geeta and Poppy. So in our most anticipated list, a lot of the pics will be the cards with the Japanese text, given the lack of official images. However, the art will be identical, not least now we’re all so used to sharing the silver borders.