Pokémon Scarlet and Violet “Stellar Crown” TCG Expansion Review

The latest main expansion in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Trading Card Game line, ‘Stellar Crown’, has been released. It brings along certain changes to the gameplay mechanic as well as some awesome-looking cards with powerful attacks.

Released on September 13, 2024, one of the things I liked about the Stellar Crown expansion set is that it includes a respectable number of cards. The entire set has 175 cards along with 9 Promo cards. That’s not bad at all for someone wanting to complete the entire set without spending a whole lot of money on what is essentially… hmmm… pieces of cardboard.

The base set has 142 cards with the rest of the line being made of 13 Illustration Rares, 17 Special Illustration Rares, and only 3 Hyper Rare or Gold cards, with the Hyper Rare Terapagos EX card being the one that most want (from what I can tell after observing the Pokémon TCG fandom). There are also only 3 ACE SPEC rare cards.

So, yeah, even if you aren’t able to draw every card yourself from various Stellar Crown products, you should be able to complete the set by buying the required individual cards after the hype simmers down. That’s always my go-to. I get that people like the excitement of opening card packs themselves. But then again, that kind of excitement comes with a whole lot of expense. Being a Pokémon TCG collector isn’t a cheap hobby.

For the purpose of this review, I opened a bunch of Stellar Crown products, one of each, to see how the odds of receiving a ‘Hit’ card panned out for me. So, let’s go over the breakdown.

Stellar Crown 1-Pack Blisters

The 1-Pack Blisters are available in two variants. One has the Horsea promo while the other has the Porygon 2 promo card. Each Blister pack comes with a coin featuring Dragonite and a single pack containing 10 additional cards.

I didn’t get a single Hit from the 1-Pack Blisters. But then again, those are understandable odds. I suggest getting them for the promo cards and that’s it.

Stellar Crown 3-Pack Blisters

The 3-Pack Blisters come with the Latias promo card and the Tinkaton promo card. I have no idea why the other one wasn’t a Latios promo to give us the ever-welcome Latias and Latios pair, but oh well.

The odds of getting a hit out of 3 packs are quite high when it comes to the Stellar Crown line. I got a Garganacl EX from the Latias pack and the Tinkaton pack gave me two hits with a Crabominable Full Art Illustration Rare card and a Special Illustration Rare Lapras EX.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of money opening more expensive Stellar Crown products (the Elite Trainer Box and the Booster Bundle) but still want the quick dopamine hit of pulling a good card or two, I recommend grabbing a couple of the 3-Pack Blisters.

Stellar Crown Booster Bundle

The Booster Bundle, containing 6 packs, was a flop for me. I only got a Medicham EX. Sigh!

I would suggest staying away from it.

Stellar Crown Elite Trainer Box

As for the ETB, with how the current expansion packs have been going, you are supposed to see at least 2-3 hits per Elite Trainer Box. And that’s how I fared.

From the 9 packs that I opened, I received a Garganacl EX, a Greninja EX, and a cool-looking Zeraora Full Art Illustration Rare.

I would recommend getting the Stellar Crown ETB at least once because it comes with Stellar Crown-themed gameplay items and the Noctowl promo. And those things are nice to own if you are a collector. However, after that, I would recommend investing in those 3-Pack Blisters because they seem to have better odds of pulling hits at a more affordable rate compared to the ETB.

As for my gripe with the ETB, the way the box had shoved the Noctowl Promo card along with the Dividers didn’t sit right with me. At least, give the Noctowl a separate plastic sleeve.

So, yeah, I opened 23 packs across a variety of Stellar Crown products to share my opinions about the latest expansion set. In the end, my collection (not counting the repeats) included 109 cards out of 142 from the Base Set and 3 cards from the 33 Expanded Set. That brought the total to 112 unique cards in my collection out of the 175 required to complete the entire set.

Not bad. Not bad at all… again, from just opening 23 packs.

I do feel that Stellar Crown having better odds at pulling ‘Hits’ will make it quite the welcome addition to the Pokémon TCG fandom. However, the higher pull rates might also decrease the value of certain cards down the line. At his point, Stellar Crown is giving double-edged sword vibes.

Stellar Crown Gameplay

As someone who plays Pokémon TCG (mostly the highly convenient online version), I do find the gameplay changes accompanying Stellar Crown to be quite interesting. The biggest change is the introduction of the Stellar Tera-type Pokémon. These cards are accompanied by art showcasing the Pocket Monsters encased in Stellar Tera-type energy. And they come with two types of attacks.

The first attack is linked to the Pokémon’s actual Type. For example, the Stellar Tera-Type Lapras EX card has an attack called Power Splash costing only a single Water energy. However, for you to use the Larimar Rain attack, you will need to include in your deck a Psychic and Metal energy along with the Water energy.

Such type of expanded Energy card usage can be quite exciting for players who are all about versatility in their decks and have tons of Energy retrieval tricks up their sleeves to quickly fulfill Energy card requirements for powerful attacks.

Another major gameplay change is the ability to expand the Bench. Usually, each player is able to place up to 5 Pokémon on their Bench. However, with the Stadium/Trainer Card called Area Zero Underdepths, players can now have up to 8 Pokémon on their Bench if they have a Terra Pokémon in play.

This particular Stadium Card pairs excellently with the new Terapagos EX as its Unified Beatdown Ability (requiring only two Colorless Energy cards), allows it to do 30 damage to an opponent for each of your Benched Pokemon. If played right (and from what I can understand), you can execute a 240 Attack against your opponent for only 2 Energy. Certain players are going to have fun with this one.

So, yeah, I found the Stellar Crown expansion set to be good as both a collector and as a TCG player.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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