TCG Fans Say That ‘Thousands’ of Pokémon 30th Celebration Orders are Being Canceled to Fight Scalpers

Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration hasn’t even been released yet but that hasn’t stopped the preorder process from being a bit chaotic. 

Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration, the highly anticipated Pokémon Trading Card Game expansion, is scheduled to release next week on Sept. 16. Fans who are attempting to place orders for the set are already running into setbacks with some reporting the Pokémon Center has canceled their online orders. 

The Pokémon Trading Card game is celebrating 30 years of Pikachu and friends. To commemorate the milestone, the TCG is getting a special expansion called Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration. While there are plenty of new cards to collect — like a full-art Nidorina and futuristic altered-color Pikachu — this set also brings back prints of retro cards like the base set Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise. 

For a set with the average interest, it can be difficult for fans to get retail products like the Elite Trainer Box at retail price. Scalpers, limited stock, and high demand have all made the hobby difficult for regular fans to buy new sets of cards at retail prices. However, the return of nostalgic cards has made 30th Celebration an especially sought-after expansion by fans and now the supposed cancellations have added confusion to the preorder process. 

Those wanting to preorder and purchase products like the Elite Trainer Box at retail value must do so through the official Pokémon Center website. Users on Reddit and X first reported their orders for the expansion had been canceled on Monday. One user on Reddit said they waited in the online queue for hours, only to have their purchase canceled later. One user on X shared a screenshot of an email inbox containing cancellations for preordered products and asked for further reports of cancellations. 

Neither the Pokémon Company International nor the Pokémon Center have released an official statement saying why the retailer canceled the orders. Some online speculated that the orders were canceled as part of an effort to reduce bot orders and minimize the amount of orders secured by scalpers. “THOUSANDS of bot orders in a gigantic wave have just been cancelled of 30th Celebration preorders,” user PokeSignals wrote on X. 

However, others speculated that it was due to some sort of technical error on the Pokémon Center’s part, saying it was possible the online storefront simply sold too much product by accident and had to correct the error. Regardless of the reason, it’s still been difficult to snag a preorder for the 30th Celebration ETB and resellers are already selling the product for more than double the retail rate.

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