The Pokemon Company has thrown everything it has at scalpers in 2025, and somehow, the bots keep winning. If you’re trying to get your hands on an Elite Trainer Box at retail price, here’s what you’re up against—and whether it’s even worth the fight.
The Current Landscape
Pokemon Center rolled out a virtual queue system in February 2025, borrowing from Japan’s playbook. The idea is simple: during high-demand releases, you wait in a digital line. When your turn comes, you shop. Sounds reasonable until you realize queue sizes routinely hit one to two million people for popular drops.
The most recent ETB release was Mega Evolution—Phantasmal Flames on November 14, 2025. Pre-orders for Mega Evolution—Ascended Heroes opened on November 24, with the actual release slated for February 20, 2026. Both triggered the full queue experience, with wait times stretching anywhere from three to ten hours.
What You’ll Actually Pay
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Pokemon Center sells standard ETBs for $49.99 and their exclusives for $59.99. But good luck getting them at those prices.
The pattern is clear: exclusive versions command three to four times retail on the secondary market. Standard versions see more modest markups, typically 30-70% above MSRP. If you’re buying to collect and open, those secondary prices hurt. If you’re treating cards as investments, the markup on exclusives has held steady throughout 2025.
The Security Theater Problem
Pokemon Center now runs more anti-bot protection than most banks. They’ve got Datadome blocking excessive refreshes, Incapsula filtering suspicious traffic, hCaptcha for verification, and Cloudflare handling DDoS protection. Security researchers note that typical retailers are lucky to have one anti-bot service—Pokemon uses at least three.
None of it seems to matter much.
During the Phantasmal Flames launch, a scalper group reportedly exploited backend systems to purchase at least 42,000 products before the official launch even started. The queue hadn’t begun, and the exclusives were already gone.
Community frustration has boiled over. Pokemon Center sits at 1.5 out of 5 stars on review sites, with collectors describing the experience as “security theater” that primarily punishes legitimate buyers. The common complaint: bots sail through while real people get kicked from queues by overzealous CAPTCHAs.
Should You Even Bother?
This depends entirely on what kind of collector you are.
The Patient Hunter: If you don’t mind spending hours in a queue with no guarantee of success, Pokemon Center drops can occasionally work out. Some collectors report success after waiting an hour or two. But you’re gambling your time against increasingly long odds.
The Practical Buyer: Standard ETBs from retailers like Target, Walmart, and GameStop avoid most of this drama. You’ll pay MSRP or close to it, skip the queue nightmare, and still get the cards. You just won’t get the exclusive promos and premium accessories.
The Premium Seeker: If you absolutely must have Pokemon Center exclusives, budget for secondary market prices. Waiting two to three months after release usually sees some price stabilization, though exclusives rarely drop below 2x MSRP.
The Bigger Picture
This mess traces back to the 2020-2021 boom when Logan Paul opened a $200,000 box of first edition cards to millions of viewers. Pokemon card transactions on eBay jumped 574% in a single year. Things got bad enough that Target suspended in-store card sales nationwide in May 2021 after a customer pulled a gun during a dispute.
The Pokemon Company responded by printing over 18 billion cards in 2021-2023—more than 18% of all Pokemon cards ever made. It helped temporarily, but the Surging Sparks release in late 2024 and Prismatic Evolutions in January 2025 reignited the frenzy.
What’s Coming Next
The Collector Chest drops December 5 for $29.99—a lower-stakes release that shouldn’t trigger massive queues. The Ascended Heroes ETB in February 2026 will be the next major test of Pokemon Center’s systems.
Some retailers overseas have gotten creative. Japan and Singapore Pokemon Centers remove shrink wrap at checkout to tank resale value. Some UK stores charge double for sealed products. Whether The Pokemon Company brings these tactics to North America remains to be seen.
The Bottom Line
For everyday collectors who want to open packs and enjoy the hobby, skip the Pokemon Center chaos. Standard ETBs at regular retailers offer the same cards without the headache. The exclusive promos and premium accessories are nice, but they’re not worth hours of your life and a probable strikeout.
If those exclusives matter to you, set aside extra budget for secondary market purchases—and maybe wait a few months for prices to settle. The current system rewards either extraordinary luck or willingness to pay the scalper tax.
The Pokemon Company is clearly trying. But until they solve the bot problem at its source, collectors are stuck playing a rigged game.
