Pokémon TCG Scarlet & Violet: Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box brings the nostalgia as Black and White head towards 15 year anniversary

The Pokémon TCG is something I haven’t been keeping track of over the years. Most of my experience with the card game revolved around the first few sets, dropping off after moving onto other things. However, I stuck with the main games until the DS era, with Pokémon White being my favourite game in the franchise.

A few months back, I saw the Scarlet & Violet: Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box go up for sale. It seems weird to do a Gen 5 set under the Scarlet & Violet name, though I suppose the card game is always making new cards for existing Pokémon (gotta keep people buying after all.) With Zekrom being the main legendary for Pokémon White, I figured I’d pick this set up to indulge in some nostalgia for both the DS games and my early time with the TCG.

Scarlet & Violet: Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box Contents

9 Scarlet & Violet: Black Bolt booster packs
45 energy cards
6 damage counter dice
1 coin-flip die
2 condition markers
Player’s guide (includes list of cards in the set)
4 dividers
65 card sleeves
Thundurus Promo Card
Collector box

A Solid Entry Point For New Players

Despite my limited knowledge of the modern TCG, Elite Trainer Boxes seem to be a solid entry point for newer players. You get a bunch of boosters, energy cards, and sleeves to protect your rarer cards. The box itself also works well for storing everything, featuring solid cardboard and enough space for a few decks.

The whole set is themed around the boxart for Pokémon White — for whatever reason, Pokémon Black and White switched around which legendaries you’d expect to see in each. Zekrom’ is on the box’s key art is features prominently on the box, sleeves, and dividers, stylised with a black and blue theme. Regardless of how good Zekrom is on the gameplay side of things, its design is still cool nearly 15 years on.

Outside of the theming, everything else is essentially the same as other Elite Trainer Boxes. People already invested in the TCG likely don’t need the extras like energy cards or dice, but again these are more than welcome for players that are just starting out (or returning from a long break like me.) I would have liked to see things like the condition markers being themed themed too, though these are likely kept consistent across sets to avoid confusion.

So-so Pulls, Great Art Throughout

My pulls from the booster packs weren’t exactly the best, ending up mostly with simple hollows along with 2 ex cards (on top of the promo included in this box.) I did at least manage to net a Serperior, the final evolution of the Pokémon I chose during my initial run of White. Outside of the actual rarity, I loved getting to see all of the different art for Pokémon across Gen 5.

From what I could tell from the player’s guide book, this set covers a large chunk of the Pokémon Black and White roster, with the rest featured in the White Flare set. Many also come with full art variants, with Victini and Zekrom having “Black White” rares, something new to these sets (though they fulfil the same purpose as secret rares.

As you’d expect from a TCG, RNG is ever-present when trying to complete the set. I already ran into a number of duplicate cards even in 9 boosters, and the rate at getting anything rare is very low. It’s always been the aspect that held me back from playing TCGs more, something that also applies to gacha.

While I might try and pick up some White Flare boosters, I can’t really see myself continuing my time with the TCG. The Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box was a nice dose of nostalgia, but also a reminder that it’s not worth investing too much into the card game if you’re not going to stick with it over the long term.

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