Pokémon Ascended Heroes cards won’t be tournament legal for European Championship following fan concerns
Special sets now won’t be tournament legal until two weeks after their Elite Trainer Box is released
The Pokémon Company International has changed a rule regarding trading card legality, which will see its next only becoming legal after the next major tournament, following fan concerns about access.
Prior to this week’s rule change, it was expected that the next set of Pokémon trading cards, Ascended Heroes, would be made tournament legal for the Pokémon European International Championships (EUIC), the second biggest tournament of the year, taking place on February 13.
However, due to Ascended Heroes receiving a staggered release across 2026, this would mean that only one product featuring the cards – the Tech Sticker collection, which includes 2 packs – would be on sale before the EUIC.
When the release plans for Ascended Heroes were announced, fans raised their concerns regarding EUIC, arguing that it would have been unreasonable for players to acquire enough packs prior to the tournament to build decks.
As such, should some of the new cards have provided a competitive edge, this could had led to a potential imbalance where only players willing to spend thousands on the limited item could have the new cards.
Now, a change has been made to the tournament rule set, which means that Ascended Heroes won’t become legal until two weeks after the set’s Elite Trainer Box is released, which is planned for March.
This rule change will affect all special sets going forward. Traditional expansions of the Pokémon trading card game are released in booster boxes, individual booster packs, Elite Trainer boxes and several other product lines.
However, special sets like Ascended Heroes aren’t released in booster boxes and typically aren’t sold in mainstream toy stores and supermarkets, making them even harder to find, notwithstanding the small amount of product originally planned to be available by EUIC.
The Pokémon European International Championships takes place at London’s Excel Center from February 13 to February 15.
Last week, VGC visited PokePark Kanto, the new Pokémon amusement park in Tokyo, Japan.
