Much like every other recent expansion, Pokémon White Flare (and Black Bolt, too) are hard to get your hands on. Sold out at every retailer or going for sky-high scalping prices, it’s about as hard to get as a real life pet Reshiram. But it appears the Pokégods have blessed us, because you can grab a Japanese booster box of White Flare at $52 off, and in all honesty, that’s a better deal than getting English products.
You can get a Japanese Pokémon White Flare booster box for just $77.99 from Walmart, while stocks last. This comes with 20 seven card packs, 140 cards total – more cards than you’d get in two English language booster bundles, and way cheaper.
I’ve long been a supporter of buying Japanese Pokémon cards over English, and the latest set is no different. It’s the same brilliant artwork, and the same cards (90% of the time), and I find the print quality is often much higher. It’s a better choice for collectors like myself – and you can still enjoy playing matches of the best trading card game, so long as you get the English translation for each card.
And that’s before we consider price and availability. White Flare and Black Bolt has some of the best Pokémon cards this year, but like every new Pokémon set, that’s a monkey’s paw situation. Great cards? Low or no retail-price stock, huge secondary market mark-ups.
There are some minor differences between the Japanese and English printings – there’s no Red Victini, as it was a promo in Japan. It may be the most expensive Pokémon card of the latest expansion, but I’ve already argued it’s White Flare and Black Bolt’s ugliest baby. It just looks cursed.
The main chase cards are present, the legendary Pokémon Reshiram ex #174 and Reshiram ex #168. And Hydreigon Ex #171 makes for an excellent secondary chase card.
If this deal isn’t for you, plenty of previous Pokémon sets also have Japanese versions that are easy enough to find, so there’s no shortage of brilliant booster boxes you can find from the TCG’s home turf. Alternatively, check out our guid to the best card games if Pokémon’s hype bubble has left you looking for other games to play.
If you do grab a booster box, make sure to send an image of your pulls into our Wargamer Discordc community, where we’ll get jealous and complain about the lack of chase cards. I’m still waiting to open a pack with Paldean Fates’ Mew ex #232. Sigh.
AloJapan.com