Staff Promos for Prereleases Officially Discontinued After ‘Vivid Voltage’

Stores in the United Kingdom and other European countries have received an e-mail from TPCi stating that staff promos for prereleases will be discontinued after Vivid Voltage. No explanation for the decision was given:

Please note that STAFF promo cards have been discontinued, and you will not receive any STAFF promo cards starting after the upcoming Pokemon TCG expansion.

There’s no reason staff promos would only be discontinued in Europe, so they will certainly be discontinued everywhere.

In recent years, staff promos have been hoarded, scalped, and sold for high prices on the secondary market. This move could have been to stop that, though this is speculation.

You might think Charizard from Vivid Voltage was the straw that broke the Numel’s back — it can run for thousands on eBay. But a decision like this was probably made a while ago. The next set of staff promos would have already been printed and stamped by now.

Stamped “staff” promos were first given out for Diamond & Pearl prereleases in May 2007.