After a year of Pokémon 151 causing hordes of people to raid their local card shops, a new special set could well cause similar fanfare and problematic stock issues in the near future. Black Bolt and White Flare, a celebration of 5th generation ‘mons, is reportedly releasing in July 2025, and there’s a good chance it’ll take Pokémon TCG world by storm.
Collecting Pokémon cards right now is a bit of a difficult task. We’re in an unprecedented hype period, causing rare Pokémon cards to spike in value and, and making the best Pokemon cards in the game ever harder to get your hands on – at least, at reasonable prices. Like most fans, I’m hoping to see Pokémon products more easily available in the future, but it’s looking like the hype isn’t stopping anytime soon.
The newest Pokémon set, Prismatic Evolutions, is a special set that’s fairly tough to buy right now. In fact, the situation is so bad that The Pokémon Company announced reprints of Prismatic before the set even launched. To make matters worse, the next release Journey Together is already selling out ridiculously fast, despite being a ‘Standard’ set we’d usually expect to generate much less buzz than biggies like Prismatic and Pokémon 151.
If Prismatic and Journey are anything to go by, getting those Special sets is only going to get more difficult as the year goes on. And, according to a report by PokéBeach, Black Bolt and White Flare – a new special set full of Generation V Pokémon, celebrating some of the best Pokemon games in the series – is launching in July 2025. It’ll reportedly see the release of not one, but two Elite Trainer Boxes and Booster Bundles when it arrives in the Summer – a highly tempting offer that sets my hype alarm bells ringing.
The Black Bolt and White Flare set is releasing on Friday, July 18, 2025, according to PokéBeach. While the ETBs and Booster Bundles will reportedly drop on that day, additional products are set to be launched soon after, including awesome-sounding Illustrated Rare Boxes. Given the reported products in this Special set, first rumored back in November – and the ‘nostalgia factor’ of Pokémon from the 2010 Black and White era – we can confidently expect a lot of demand.
While the date or set hasn’t yet been confirmed by the company, PokéBeach has reliably called many such release windows in the past. I’ll certainly be preparing for a busy few weeks ahead of launch – and, as always, I recommend bookmarking these storefronts below for the best chance at getting the upcoming set:
Right now, no retailers have the new set listed, with many focusing on the next Pokémon set, Journey Together. There’s also another set after Journey Together, so we have a few months to prepare for the release of Black Bolt and White Flare.
While we wait and see, though – we can recommend you the best Pokemon packs to buy across multiple sets, as well as explaining crucial Pokélore questions like the all-time cutest Pokémon and the answer to that great question: how many Pokemon are there right now?
Source: Wargamer
