Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration is the anniversary set the whole hobby has been waiting on, and it hits our site and all three of our stores at 10 AM Central on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. This page is the plan: what the set is, which five products we'll have on day one, how the two-per-person limit works, and what's coming in the waves after.
Release day at Jay's is 10 AM Central, September 16, online and in store, no pre-orders, two items per person per day through September 22. The five day-one products are the Elite Trainer Box, the Pokémon ex Box, the Poster Collection, the Tech Sticker Collection and the Knock Out Collection.
What 30th Celebration actually is
Every 30 years or so a franchise gets to throw itself a party, and The Pokémon Company is doing it with a set built for collectors rather than for the tournament scene. Three things make it unlike any Pokémon expansion before it.
- Every card is foil. There are no non-holo commons and no reverse holos. Whatever you pull shines.
- Packs are five cards, not ten. Each 30th Celebration booster holds one of thirty different Pikachu cards, four other cards from the set, a foil Basic Energy illustrated by the Japanese artist YOSHIROTTEN, and a Pokémon TCG Live code card.
- It releases everywhere on the same day. Japan usually gets Pokémon sets months early. This time September 16 is the date worldwide, which is a first.
The theme is the whole thirty years at once. Expect the originals, Pikachu, Eevee, Meowth, Ditto, Lapras, the three legendary birds, Mew and Mewtwo, alongside a day-and-night thread that puts Espeon and Umbreon front and center. Greninja, Sylveon, Lucario and Jirachi round out the cast.
What people will be chasing
Four things, in roughly the order you'll hear about them at our counter.
- The thirty Pikachu. Thirty different artists, each card numbered out of thirty, one guaranteed in every pack. They're built to be collected as a set, and the two Special Illustration Rare Pikachu ex cards, each crammed with other Pokémon from the expansion, sit at the top of the whole thing.
- Futuristic Rares. A brand-new rarity, illustrated by YOSHIROTTEN. First time this rarity has ever been printed.
- The Classic Collection. Thirty reprints from across the game's history with an anniversary stamp. If the pull rate is anything like the 2021 Celebrations set, the stamped Base Set Charizard reprint is the single card most people will be hunting.
- Mew ex. The one card players will care about. Its ability copies attacks from your benched Pokémon, which is the kind of thing that quietly reshapes a few decks.
How to get yours on September 16
We're a three-store shop, not a warehouse, and our allocation is set by our distributor. We won't know final counts until the cases land. So the rules for the first week are built to get product into the most hands, and they are the same online and in store.
- Sign up for the launch alert. No pre-orders exist for this set, at Jay's or officially, so the email at 10 AM is the closest thing to a head start. The form is further down this page.
- Online at 10:00 AM Central. The 30th Celebration collection goes live with all five products. Two 30th Celebration items per person per day, any mix of the five, September 16 through 22.
- In store at 10:00 AM Central. All three stores put the set on the counter as the doors open: West Des Moines, Southside and Ankeny. Same two-per-person daily limit at every register.
- Shipping. In-stock orders placed before our noon Central cutoff leave the same business day, bubble-wrapped, braced and boxed. A 10 AM release-day order ships that afternoon.
Why two per day and not two total? Because restocks on a set like this are unpredictable and we'd rather not lock out the collector who missed the first morning. Two a day for a week lets the regulars keep coming back while still stopping any one cart from clearing a shelf.
Which product to grab first
The full contents of each are in the cards above; this is the short version, by what's inside.
Most packs The Elite Trainer Box, with nine. It's the only day-one product with the storage box, sleeves, dice and the sixteen foil YOSHIROTTEN energies. If you're buying one thing, this is the one.
Best promos The Poster Collection. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres as foil promos, three packs, and a double-sided poster that shows off more than 160 cards from the set.
Pick your Pokémon The ex Box, in Sylveon ex or Greninja ex, comes with four packs plus a foil promo and an oversize card of the same Pokémon. The Tech Sticker Collection does the same idea at three packs with Lucario or Alolan Exeggutor and a sticker sheet.
Just open the set The Knock Out Collection. Two packs, the foil Eevee promo and the coin. The smallest way in.
With a two-item daily limit, the pairing most people will land on is an Elite Trainer Box plus one of the smaller boxes for its promo. Two Tech Sticker Collections in different versions is a legitimate pair too, and gets you both promos.
What's coming after launch day
September 16 is wave one. The Pokémon Company has three more drops scheduled, and we'll add each to this page as our allocation is confirmed.
The Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box, with eleven packs and a second stamped Nidorina promo, is sold only through the Pokémon Center's own store. We won't have it and neither will any other retailer.
Questions before then? Call the store nearest you, or reply to any email from us. A collector answers it, not a queue.
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