Pokémon 30th Celebration is just over a month away, and while we have a good indication of what the expansion will offer, the lineup of original Illustration Rares hasn’t been confirmed yet. That’s not unusual this far out - usually, a Japanese version will spoil it for us - but it’s surprising how little we truly know. However, some new card reveals may be more important than you think.
As many of us hold our binders and sit by the window, waiting for our Pokémon 30th Celebration pre-orders to finally arrive, any - literally any - news is welcome right now. Fortunately, we’ve had two Meowth Illustration Rare cards to sustain us as the Pokémon TCG celebrates International Cat Day.
The two Meowth cards share a similar theme. Both are set in a building complex, with the standard Meowth sleeping on a railing - adorably, may I add - and the other is the Alolan Meowth, skulking around the same building at night time. They’re a sweet pair, but their implications matter more than the artwork - sorry Meowth.
If you happened to be looking for Pokémon news last month, chances are you saw the 30th Celebration leaks. As a small recap, a user on X (formerly Twitter) shared a few images of what is assumed to be the 30th Celebration set guide - the book included in the Elite Trainer Boxes.
These images spread like wildfire in the community, and the original source even vanished after sharing them. One of my biggest points towards them being real was the fact that having the three Meowth cards linked seemed like an overconfident guess, if the leaks were fake. So, the reveal of two of them seems a good indication.
Callum Self
That doesn’t point to every card from the leak being real - it could be a very well-constructed fake. That’s a big jump, and of course, it’s unlikely to be that, but I don’t want to confirm something that I truly can’t put a bet on. That being said, this is a good clue to the leak being real.
Over the next month, it will be interesting to see if more of the previous leaked cards will be shared by The Pokémon Company. Either way, we will know for sure in September whether the upcoming Pokémon set has what we’ve seen already. Thankfully, it’s not a long wait now.
