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30th Celebration released on 16 September 2026 and holds a genuine place in Pokemon Trading Card Game history as the first expansion ever to launch simultaneously worldwide. Every previous set rolled out market by market, with Japanese collectors typically seeing cards months before English ones and Simplified Chinese releases arriving later still. For 30th Celebration, The Pokemon Company synchronised the launch across participating markets so that Simplified Chinese collectors opened packs on exactly the same day as everyone else. For anyone who has spent years watching import timelines and waiting for a Chinese printing to catch up, that alignment is a significant and long-overdue change.
The set commemorates thirty years of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, and the product design reflects that anniversary in every decision. The most striking of those decisions is that 30th Celebration is an all-foil expansion. There are no plain cards anywhere in the product. Every single card in every Simplified Chinese pack carries a foil treatment, which means the usual experience of sorting through commons to reach the one or two cards worth keeping simply does not apply here. Each Simplified Chinese pack contains six foil cards at a suggested retail price of 18 yuan, a configuration that differs from the five-card slim packs Chinese collectors have grown used to across the Scarlet and Violet era.
The centrepiece of the anniversary concept is the Pikachu sub-set. Thirty different Pikachu cards appear in 30th Celebration, each one illustrated by a different artist, and every single booster pack is guaranteed to contain one of them. That guarantee changes the character of opening the product entirely. Rather than hoping for a chase, every pack delivers a piece of the anniversary set, and the thirty illustrations between them showcase an extraordinary range of styles from artists working across the game's history. Completing all thirty designs requires at least thirty packs opened with perfect luck and realistically a good deal more, which makes the Pikachu run a long-term collecting project rather than something finished in an afternoon.
Alongside the Pikachu cards, 30th Celebration introduces an entirely new rarity to the Pokemon Trading Card Game: FUR, short for Futuristic Rare. The treatment uses a rainbow and metallic finish designed to look forward rather than back, an interesting counterpoint for a set otherwise steeped in nostalgia. The FUR cards were illustrated by the Japanese graphic artist YOSHIROTTEN, and the two confirmed at the top of the rarity are Mew ex and Mewtwo ex. Introducing a brand-new rarity is something the game does rarely, and reserving it for the thirtieth anniversary gives these cards a permanent significance beyond their immediate market value.
The set also revisits thirty cards that symbolise the game's three decades, reprinted in a special anniversary treatment. Charizard appears among them, as does Pikachu and Zekrom GX, and the selection spans eras from the earliest days of the game through to comparatively recent releases. For collectors who started in one particular era and drifted away before returning, this run of thirty reprints acts as a kind of guided tour through the game's history, with each card chosen to represent a moment that mattered. There are also Illustration Rare cards confirmed for the set including Lapras, Drifloon, Lycanroc and Hisuian Zorua.
The main set runs to 128 numbered cards, with additional secret rares and special treatments extending beyond that number. That places 30th Celebration in the mid-to-large range by modern standards, though the all-foil construction means the effective value density per pack is considerably higher than a comparably sized standard expansion. Every card pulled is a foil card, and one of every six is a Pikachu from the anniversary run.
Pokemon China built an unusually broad product line around the expansion, with the full Simplified Chinese range going on sale at 10:00 China Standard Time on 16 September 2026. The lineup splits cleanly into three purposes: products for play, products for display, and products for storage. On the play side sit two 99 yuan Deluxe Deck Sets, one built around Espeon ex and one around Umbreon ex, each sold separately with a ready-to-play deck and a full set of matching battle accessories including a metal deck box with an integrated damage counter case. Espeon ex's Sunshine Beat attack deals 30 damage for each Pokemon you have in play, while Umbreon ex's Lunatic Claw reaches 240 damage when the opponent's Active Pokemon already carries a damage counter, giving the two decks distinctly different game plans built around setup and finishing respectively.
It is worth noting for anyone comparing across regions that Pokemon Asia and Japanese coverage described a combined premium product containing both themed decks in a single box. The Simplified Chinese release does not work that way. Pokemon China sells the Espeon and Umbreon Deluxe Deck Sets as two separate 99 yuan products, and neither Chinese box contains both decks. Regional product names and contents diverge considerably across this launch despite the shared release date, so the language printed on the product matters when working out exactly what is inside.
The display side of the range is anchored by the 390 yuan Espeon ex and Umbreon ex Collector Display Gift Box, which pairs a full-art Espeon ex promo with a full-art Umbreon ex promo in a two-card acrylic display frame set against a split day-and-night background. The day and night theming runs throughout the product, with two layered magnets reusing the celebration scenes from the promo card artwork, and fifteen booster packs included alongside. Below that sit two 88 yuan Card Display Sleeve Sets, one for Greninja ex and one for Sylveon ex, each guaranteeing a newly illustrated promo, a matching protective display sleeve and three booster packs. These are display products rather than full decks, aimed at collectors who want a guaranteed named card without buying into a complete play product.
The storage and accessory side covers four standalone products, all using the campaign's dense Pokemon collage artwork and yellow anniversary branding: 64-count art sleeves at 40 yuan, a deck box with two dividers at 30 yuan, a damage counter storage box at 20 yuan, and a 30-slot coin album at 40 yuan. Separately, a 68 yuan Coin Set pairs two randomised Pikachu themed coins with three booster packs. The coin pool is deliberately deep, with thirty different Pikachu illustrations each available in four finishes, three regular and one hidden. Pokemon China publishes a production ratio of 99 to 1 between regular and hidden coins, and notes that the three regular finishes are produced in equal proportion. The coin album's thirty slots align with the thirty Pikachu coin designs, though coins are not included with the album itself.
Beyond that core range, the Simplified Chinese lineup extends into premium territory with a 1,099 yuan Futuristic commemorative gift box containing two collector-treatment Pikachu ex cards alongside a full accessory suite, and a 780 yuan Charizard collector figure box pairing a Charizard figure and a jumbo Charizard card with fifteen booster packs. A 200 yuan coin display frame, a 300 yuan two-player rubber playmat and a 180 yuan PU leather binder with 360 pockets round out the anniversary accessories.
For collectors who import Simplified Chinese product regularly, 30th Celebration represents an unusual moment. The synchronised worldwide launch removes the timing disadvantage that has historically shaped Chinese import collecting, the all-foil construction removes the filler that normally dilutes a booster pack, and the guaranteed Pikachu per pack means no pack is ever a complete write-off. Combined with a brand-new rarity tier and thirty carefully chosen reprints spanning the game's full history, this is a set built specifically to reward people who have followed the Pokemon Trading Card Game across decades rather than seasons.
