Pokémon bundles Surging Sparks boosters with Battle Academy boxes

For more than a year, buying booster packs on the official Pokémon Center website has required extraordinary luck or a bot. New stock listings quickly overwhelm the site, producing error messages or unresolved queues, and strict purchase limits only help those who can get in before bots scoop the stock in milliseconds.

Today’s U.S. restock of Surging Sparks—the set widely seen as the start of the current frenzy—appeared without promotion and sold out before most people noticed. Rather than offering the usual 36-pack boxes at around $160, the company bundled each booster box with a bulky Battle Academy and listed the pair at $180.

The Battle Academy is a hefty $20 introductory box that includes a chunky playing board, push-out cardboard counters, and three 60-card decks with special numbered cards that lack the standard Pokémon card back and contain no holos. It hasn’t been updated in years and still uses the late 2010s Pokémon V cards, leaving it effectively worthless to many collectors.

United States