New Pokémon Cards Might Complicate Things For Players And Collectors

After a trademark was spotted last December, the new V-Union Pokémon cards have been officially unveiled. The new cards are scheduled for release this August in Japan, and it’s unclear how their introduction will impact the game.

To use the V-Union cards, players must connect all four of the special cards like a puzzle to create the V-Union tableau that, so far, features Greninja, Zacian or Mewtwo. Serebii explains that it’s necessary to have all four cards in your hand to make these bigger V-Union Pokémon cards, allowing players to unleash a handful of abilities and attacks. PokéBeach reports that V-Union Pokémon are neither Basic or Evolution Pocket Monsters. Moreover, players can only play one of each type of V-Union Pokémon per game.

Joining cards like this isn’t new to card games, with Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Exodia being an obvious forerunner. Nor are they new to Pokémon. Previously, The Pokémon Trading Card Game introduced Legend, which was created by joining two cards.

While the V-Union cards do look great (the artwork is fantastic), there are already obvious concerns about they will impact the game as some of the moves seem overpowered.

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The first product to feature V-Union is sixty-card decks that will be priced at 1,650 yen ($15), with each deck coming with a four-card V-Union. However, there are also understandable worries for collectors.

Skyrocketing popularity has meant The Pokémon Company cannot print new cards fast enough. Add new, high-profile cards into the mix, and you can already imagine fans scrambling to get said cards—especially once there are inevitable special V-Union iterations—and gray market resellers scrambling to get them before the fans can, hoping to resell them at higher prices.

The V-Union cards will be released on August 20 in Japan. An English language release has yet to be announced.