Legendary Pokemon Distributions, TCG Products Announced for 2018: Explains Some Things!
TPCi has just announced a “Legendary Year of Pokemon” campaign!
From February to November, Legendary Pokemon will be featured across the franchise, including monthly video game distributions, new TCG products, and mobile game, retail, and animation promotions. The TCG-themed products have not been announced yet.
The Legendary Pokemon will be distributed to Pokemon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon. Some Pokemon will be distributed through the Internet while others will be given out at stores like Gamestop. Specific details will be announced as each month approaches.
February: Dialga or Palkia- March: Regigigas or Heatran
- April: Raikou or Entei
- May: Xerneas or Yveltal
- June: Shiny Zygarde
- July: Tornadus or Thundurus
- August: Groudon or Kyogre
- September: Latios or Latias
- October: Reshiram or Zekrom
- November: Ho-Oh or Lugia
This campaign finally gives an explanation as to why the TCG is featuring regions in each set!
February is the release of SM5 Ultra Prism, which heavily features Sinnoh Pokemon. This matches up with the Sinnoh Legendary distributions in February and March (Dialga, Palkia, Regigigas, and Heatran).
Then we know SM6 Forbidden Light is a Kalos set, releasing in May. This matches up with the Kalos Legendary distributions in May and June (Xerneas, Yveltal, shiny Zygarde).
The next TCG set would be released in September, and judging by the distributions of Groudon, Kyogre, Latios, and Latias in that two-month span, it’ll probably be — you guessed it — a Hoenn set!
The next TCG set would then hit store shelves in November, but October and November feature Reshiram, Zekrom, Ho-Oh, and Lugia, which of course are Legendary duos from two different generations. Raikou and Entei from Johto are releasing in April while Tornadus and Thundurus from Unova are releasing in July. So November could either be a Unova set or a Johto set. My bet would be on Unova.
This would leave out Kanto and Johto sets. Depending on when Gen VIII comes out, they will either tackle those two sets in February and May 2019 or just forget about them and start their Gen VIII sets instead (the first two gens have been featured a lot in the past anyway).
Honestly this campaign sounds like Pokemon’s way of biding time until Gen VIII is ready.