The Pokémon World Championships 2024 closing ceremony in Hawaii provided a taste of what’s to come in the world of Pokémon. This included the return of Owner’s Pokémon, a concept we’ve explained below.
As is customary for the World Championships, The Pokémon Company shared teasers for upcoming releases and updates across the Pokémon franchise. Pokémon TCG was one of those to take center stage and the confirmation of Owner’s Pokémon returning is certainly big news.
If you’ve not been involved in the Pokémon TCG for previous releases of Owner’s Pokémon or have forgotten how it works, we’ve got an explainer below.
What are Owner’s Pokémon cards in Pokémon TCG?
Owner’s Pokémon, advertised as Trainer’s Pokémon in the teaser for the 2025 set, are variations of Pokémon within the TCG that have a specified trainer from the games or anime attached to them.
Although the announcement at the Pokémon World Championships 2024 in Hawaii said these cards would be Trainer’s Pokémon, that could be due to translation and may be adapted for a western release of the set to avoid confusion with existing Trainer cards within the TCG.
Owner’s Pokémon were initially considered separate from other Pokémon of the same type in previous releases. For example, Lt. Surge’s Raichu can only evolve from Lt. Surge’s Pikachu and not from any other variation of Pikachu.
The teasers for the new set’s cards show the same format will be followed, with cards displayed with an evolution method—for example, Marnie’s Grimmsnarl was shown to evolve from Marnie’s Morgrem.
What Owner’s Pokémon will be released?
The teaser trailer at the World Championships in Hawaii only offered a small glimpse of the cards in the set. The cards shown are listed below:
- Lillie’s Clefairy ex
- Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex
- N’s Zoroark ex
- N’s Reshiram ex (two cards, one alternate art).
The set will also include Marnie’s Morgrem and N’s Zorua, shown on the cards above through required evolutions. That means the set will include Marnie’s Impidimp to complete the evolution line.
Although The Pokémon Company teased the above cards, they may not be included in the base set and may be reserved for special decks. For international releases, cards may become promos in items like Collection Boxes or Elite Trainer Boxes.
Pokebeach already reported that two pre-constructed decks will be released, including Marnie’s Morpeko and Grimmsnarl ex and Steven’s Beldum and Metagross ex. The former is interesting, as it suggests the Grimmsnarl shown in the trailer will be exclusive to the starter deck in Japan.
No further details have been shared about what the set will include but the Owner’s Pokémon revealed so far span across three separate generations, so we can expect a wide variety of Pokémon and Owner’s to feature—and the mechanic could also be spread across several releases.
When does the Owner’s Pokémon set release?
In Japan, the set is called Battle Partners and is expected to be released on Jan. 24, 2025. Several Japanese releases preceded it, including Paradise Dragona, Supercharged Breaker, and Terastal Festival.
The official date or title of the international release has not been announced. However, we expect the set to be released in March 2025. As usual, the set will be released in Japan months before an international release.
