This New UPC is Shaking Up The Market

When news of this product dropped, I immediately sat down to write a hit piece:

“This is just another lazy cash grab UPC, as bad as the Greninja ex and Terapagos ex UPCs.”

But…

The more I wrote, the more I turned myself around.

Maybe… my initial reaction was overblown.

Maybe… this is The Pokémon Company’s perfect UPC format…

Because, this new Team Rocket’s Moltres ex UPC solves one of my biggest issues with nearly all other products from The Pokémon Company International:

Stealing cards from sets to create promo cards for pointless new products.

Even the best examples of Pokémon TCP products, like the Charizard and 151 UPCs, were great because of their incredible promo cards. But 2 of the 3 promo cards in the Charizard UPC should have been included in Crown Zenith. And both the actual cards in the 151 UPC should have been included in the 151 set.

The Pokémon Company International does this all the time in order to come up with different products. To them, it’s more important to have crappy products they can stock on Target’s shelves than maintain the integrity of a set.

I think it’s it’s a shame.

But, this is such a core feature of their business model, I suppose it must be profitable, right? But why doesn’t the Japanese business release all kinds of collection box products that include cards that should have been included in their sets?

I guess we’ll never know.

The Team Rocket’s Moltres ex Ultra-Premium Collection is Different

As I said: this started as a hit piece.

I thought this new UPC product was a lazy cash grab. And I still do… but, maybe this is a better kind of lazy.

Unlike other UPC and collection box products, the Team Rocket’s Moltres ex UPC doesn’t steal cards from sets to create it’s promos. In fact, all of the promo cards included in this new box are reprints of cards that were already released back in May 2025 as part of the Destined Rivals set.

Each of the standard ex, full art ex, and SIR ex cards in this box have been available to collectors for months.

But the UPC release has one major difference: these promos have a Destined Rivals stamp on them.

This is similar to how the Pokémon Center exclusive ETBs have a Pokémon Center stamp on them: it’s technically a different card, with a different supply based on the print runs of these products with the unique stamped promo.

And, so far, these Pokémon Stamped promos have been wildly popular, with examples like the Pokémon Center stamped Charmander from the Obsidian Flames ETB seeing it’s price 5x from $20 to $100 or more for a raw example.

The strategy of releasing stamped promo cards isn’t new, but releasing a stamped version of a popular chase card months after it’s release is. And the full market impact of this strategy has yet to be seen.

On the one hand: the Team Rocket’s Moltres ex SIR is a stunning card that deserves its status as one of the top chase cards from the Destined Rivals set. Including a stamped version of it in this new box is a great way to make this gorgeous card availble to more collectors.

A promo of this quality is always a treat.

And, because it’s a stamped version, it should be treated as a different card: the existence of this stamped version doesn’t change the rarity of the SIR chase card from the set.

But, the market disagrees.

Since this product’s announcement, the TCGPlayer market value of Team Rocket’s Moltres ex SIR card from the Destined Rivals has dropped off a cliff, falling from $180 USD to $136. Clearly, the market thinks the accessibility of this new stamped promo will reduce demand for the set card, and there’s been a surge of new selling activity as collectors and investors try to get what they can for it today.

And this is a sensible reaction: it’s likely that many collectors who want a copy of this card will be happy to add the stamped promo version to their collections instead of going after the likely far more rare SIR from the set.

I said this might be The Pokémon Company’s perfect UPC product, because it doesn’t sacrifice a set to create an unnecessary new product.

But this new stamped promo strategy sacrifices something else: the market value of an existing chase card.

All just to create an unnecessary new product.

Is this better? Only time will tell.

Either way, it’s an interesting move from The Pokémon Company and I, for one, am excited to get my hands on one of these boxes.

As usual, thank you so much for tuning in to the TCG Buyers Club Newsletter. My name’s Grey, I buy cardboard, and I’m on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.

Cheers 🍻

P.S. I have shot a new video providing a detailed update on the parts of my Pokémon collection I’ve been selling (including exactly how much money I’ve made)… There’s a lot of editing still to do but a new video is coming soon!