Journey Together has been officially revealed! The set features the return of Owner’s Pokémon, now officially named “Trainer’s Pokémon.”
will release on March 28th as our SV9 set.
The Journey Together set description reads as follows:
With deep trust and steady guidance, Trainers help bring out the best in their Pokémon. The bond they share empowers them to act as one in battle as they push their strength to the limit, including as Pokémon ex! Team up with N’s Zoroark ex, lono’s Bellibolt ex, Lillie’s Clefairy ex, Hop’s Zacian ex, and more Trainer’s Pokémon, and discover the unstoppable power of friendship in the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet – Journey Together expansion!
The set will include:
- Over 180 cards (159 cards before secret rares)
- 4 Trainer’s Pokémon ex
- More than 40 Trainer’s Pokémon
- 16 Pokémon ex
- 11 illustration rare Pokémon
- 6 special illustration rare Pokémon
- 3 hyper rare gold etched cards
- More than 30 Pokémon and Trainer cards with special illustrations
Journey Together set will be based on two Japanese sources:
- SV9 Battle Partners, releasing in Japan on January 24th. The set will contain 100 cards before secret rares (we know there’s at least 28 secret rares). It’ll feature Trainer’s Pokémon for Iono, Lillie, N, and Hop.
- The remaining ~50 new cards from November’s ex Starter Deck Generations, such as Amoonguss ex, Blaziken ex, and Mimikyu ex. (The other 40 new cards have already been included in our Prismatic Evolutions set, such as Pikachu ex, Tyranitar ex, and Lugia ex.)
Our set will feature a mix of regular Pokémon and Trainer’s Pokémon (as does Battle Partners, its main Japanese source). Here are just some of the cards we’ll get in our English set. A few of them were previewed in English at Worlds.
Trainer’s Pokémon originally debuted in 2000’s Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge. For example, Misty’s Magikarp evolves into Misty’s Gyarados (you can’t evolve them into — or from — regular Magikarp or Gyarados). There were also Trainer cards that provided support to each Trainer’s Pokemon, like Cerulean City Gym.
Most sets that featured Trainer’s Pokémon were purely comprised of them. This included 2000’s Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge, 2001’s Pokémon VS, 2004’s EX Team Magma vs. Team Aqua (with a few exceptions), and 2015’s Double Crisis.
2004’s EX Team Rocket Returns was the only major exception, using a mix of Rocket’s Pokémon, regular Pokémon, and Dark Pokémon.
Trainer’s Pokémon saw spiritual successors in Generations IV with Pokémon SP and in Generation V with Team Plasma cards. Sets with these mechanics saw regular Pokémon mixed-in as well.
We will continue to get Trainer’s Pokémon throughout 2025 as the TCG waits for Legends: Z-A to arrive. Currently there isn’t new video game content to promote, so the TCG is reintroducing this beloved mechanic to keep things fresh.
Our next English set, SV10, will release in May. We suspect it will combine the cards from February’s Steven’s Metagross ex & Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex decks, March’s Heat Wave Arena featuring Cynthia’s Garchomp ex, and April’s The Glory of Team Rocket featuring Rocket’s Mewtwo ex. None of these sets have been revealed in Japan yet.
In June, Japan is getting a Black Bolt and White Flare set featuring all 156 Unova Pokémon. This may become our second special set of 2025 after Prismatic Evolutions.
Journey Together Product Preview:
The Elite Trainer Box will feature an N’s Zorua promo; as usual, the Pokemon Center version will include an additional stamped copy.
Each booster box of this set is now called an “Enhanced Booster Box” and includes a copy of an N’s Reshiram promo with a Journey Together stamp. This means box toppers are back! The price of the booster box will remain the same. (In Europe it’s possible there will be booster boxes without the promo, but we’re still investigating this.)
The TCG will also print this set in a new language: Latin American Spanish! Set names, attack names, and Pokedex entries will be better localized for Latin American fans.
