For the past few months, finding Pokemon TCG cards in physical retail spaces has been basically impossible. A trip to the card section of your local GameStop, Target, or even Barnes & Noble brings nothing but bare shelves where the Pokemon cards should be. To have any shot of getting newly released sets or even any TCG stock at all, players basically have to get lucky with being at the right place at the right time. Today, players realized that a retailer put out new stock for the latest Scarlet & Violet – Prismatic Evolutions drop… in the middle of the night.
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Given the Eevee of it all, the Prismatic Evolutions set has been one of the quickest-selling (and most scalped) Pokemon TCG sets in recent years. With the initial release already vanished from shelves, players are carefully watching for restocks of newly released items in the set. Right now, arriving right when Prismatic Evolutions items go on sale is about the only way to get them… and even that is no guarantee. The Super-Premium Collection is the most recent special box that players are looking for, and though it’s not officially out until next month, preorders were rumored to start around March 10th. And according to some fan reports, the cards are indeed being put up for preorder, but not at times when most human customers are awake.
According to a recent post in the r/PokemonTCG subreddit, Target dropped preorders for the Scarlet & Violet – Prismatic Evolutions Super Premium Collection at 2 AM Central Time. There was no announcement about when the cards would go on sale, meaning that many Pokemon fans were likely asleep and not prepared for the listing to go live. As the original poster notes, putting up preorders in the middle of the night is a bit of a “pro bot” move. Since most people would be asleep or at least not shopping their Target website, bots set up to scan for and immediately buy up cards for resale would be the most likely ones ready to snag these items at drop.
Pokemon TCG Fans Miss Out on Prismatic Evolutions Preorders – Again
Even those who happened to be awake at the time report the cards selling out basically immediately. One fan notes they happened to be awake when the cards appeared on the Target website for preorder, but weren’t able to check out before the cards sold out. Others have alerts set up for when Pokemon TCG restocks go up for sale, but even they report they couldn’t manage to get ahold of the cards despite running right to Target’s website at 2 AM. This leads many to suspect that bot accounts are clogging up online checkout systems and buying up the cards before human beings can have a go at them.
Aside from the timing, the other issue with the Target preorder for Prismatic Evolutions was the lack of a limit. Many locations have instituted customer limits on Pokemon TCG items due to the shortages, with places like GameStop and even Costco limiting to two per customer. However, the online preorder portal had no such limits, making it easy for customers – bot or human – to very quickly claim all of the restock. With issues like this, it’s no wonder GameStop put a stop to preorders for Pokemon TCG altogether.
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Those hoping to get ahold of the Super Collection for Prismatic Evolutions should have another chance. Other locations may not have listed or sold out of preorder stock just yet. And the physical release will arrive later this year on May 16th, supposedly bringing the Super Collection items to store shelves. If The Pokemon Company has managed to increase production in time, hopefully there will be more items available for customers to buy this time around.
Did you manage to preorder the latest new items in the Prismatic Evolutions Pokemon card collection? Let us know in the comments below!
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Image courtesy of Walt Disney Animation
