Today The Pokémon Company releases the TCG’s latest special set, Shrouded Fable. It introduces Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s strangest monster, Area Zero’s Pecharunt, who works in tandem with Teal Mask’s Loyal Three, Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti. Which must be a whole lot of nonsense if you didn’t play the most recent game’s splendid DLC. So also let it be known, they’re very pretty too.
New TCG sets, since the advent of Scarlet & Violet, have had the odd effect of putting in so much astonishingly beautiful art that it’s slightly disempowered their collectability. Which is good! It means the cards are cheaper to buy for those looking to complete decks, collections, or binders, and offer less motivation to grubby scalpers who try to rip the former off. Shrouded Fable—a so-called “special set” (which mainly means you can’t buy them in single packs)—is yet again jam-packed with gorgeous cards, but with the rather peculiar detail that they make up a third of the set.
With only 99 cards total, this is the smallest set TPCi has released since 2022’s Pokémon GO crossover. Compare it to the last special set, January’s Paldean Fates, and there’s a whopping 146 fewer cards to collect.
However, based on my admittedly very small sample size (The Pokémon Company International sent us a total of 20 packs in various collection boxes and an Elite Trainer Box), the pull rates are not good at all. Out of all the packs, I pulled a total of three special art cards. Added to that are a further three basic ex cards (two of them the same), one Ace Spec, and three holo Energy cards, reminiscent of those found in Crown Zenith. But given how common we know those to be, if my sample is representative, that means those chasing any of the excellent 35 special art cards are going to have a rough time.
This has an odd effect, because if a third of all possible cards are rare as elephant wings, and ten of the remaining 64 are rarer types too, then you’re going to see half of the very small number of cards over, and over, and over, and over again. After opening just 20 packs, we had an average of four of every regular card, with three cards appearing a ridiculous seven times. Which led to the packs incredibly quickly feeling almost identical.
However, there is an upside to this for those who are building decks. For instance, Shrouded Fable sees the resurgence of the mighty Kingdra, since the splendid Astral Radiance full-art Kingdra went out of rotation in April this year. That ruined one of my favorite decks, but the new Kingdra ex brings an improved version of its ludicrously powerful stacking attack, and the six Seadra and three Horsea I pulled mean I can start building a new version immediately.
From today, you can buy Shrouded Fable in a lovely four-pack Kingambit box (the Kingambit art is wonderful), a three-pack blister with a Pecharunt card, one of five different two-pack tins, or a two-pack blister with a wholly unwanted Espathra card. (They are trying to push that hated monster so hard!) There is then some confusion about the availability of the five-pack Kingra and Greninja boxes, and indeed the Elite Trainer Box, which is officially listed as releasing on August 23, but with some sites and stores listing it as available now. We’ve asked TPCi for more details.
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