V Starter Decks (TCG)

A set of nine GX Starter Decks were released during the Sun & Moon Era aimed at introducing people to the TCG. Following the popularity of these products, another set of nine 60-card decks were released in the Sword & Shield Era, focusing on a particular Pokémon V and a selection of Pokémon associated with its type. These decks include:

Grass Venusaur V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ草フシギバナ)

Fire Incineroar V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ炎ガオガエン)

Water Wailord V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ水ホエルオー)

Lightning Pikachu V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ雷ピカチュウ)

Psychic Mew V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ超ミュウ)

Fighting Lucario V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ闘ルカリオ)

Darkness Galarian Slowbro V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ悪ガラルヤドラン)

Metal Duraludon V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ鋼ジュラルドン)

Colorless Eevee V Deck (Japanese: Vスタートデッキ無色イーブイ)

Each deck contains a fixed selection of cards, which together form a numbered master set. These cards consist mostly of reprints from prior Sword & Shield Era expansions and subsets, as well as some Trainer cards from the Sun & Moon Era, which retain their original layout. Unlike the GX Starter Decks however, each V Starter Deck includes a handful of new cards, including the focal Pokémon V. Each deck also comes packaged with a cardboard sheet containing 31 damage counters and a pair of Special Condition markers, plus a card detailing set-up rules with a QR code for the official Pokémon Card Game website. All cards are Non Holofoil.

The V Starter Decks had a similar marketing push to their predecessors, becoming the focus of purchase campaigns and Limited format battles offering exclusive promotional cards. They were also sold at the same price point of ¥500 plus tax. Details of these purchase campaigns are as follows:

• Select retailers gave away a playmat and coin set with the purchase of any two V Starter Decks in a single transaction. The playmat depicts renders of the nine Pokémon featured as Pokémon V in the decks and the coin features Eevee. Nine varieties of the Eevee coin were available, representing the types of the V Starter Decks.
• Participating Denny's restaurants gave away special items between July 10 and August 31, 2020 when ordering either an omelet rice & hamburger plate from the adult menu or a fried shrimp curry from the children's menu. From the start of the campaign, customers could receive either a black or pink A5 clear file featuring the Pokémon V renders. From August 1, customers could also receive a Denny's Select Card Pack, which contained one of five cards sourced from the V Starter Sets: Grookey, Scorbunny, Sobble, Pikachu, or Morpeko.
• Special Pokémon Lotte Candy Assortment bags were sold from July 14, 2020 at participating retailers that came packaged with one of four V Starter Decks (Fire, Lightning, Psychic, or Colorless), an exclusive Pikachu coin, a pack of Pokémon Wafer Choco, a pack of Koala's March Choco, and a pack of Koala's March Strawberry.
• Participating FamilyMart stores ran two campaigns between July 14 and August 3, 2020, one of which was the V Starter Deck Campaign. People could enter lotteries by sending FamilyMart receipts of one or more eligible products worth at least ¥500 to the competition headquarters via post. The lottery for Prize A required two receipts to enter and offered a set of all nine V Starter Decks. The lottery for Prize B required one receipt to enter and offered a ¥500 pre-paid FamilyMart gift card and an Original Zipper Bag featuring an image of a Galarian Slowbro V card. Prize A was given to 10 winners; Prize B was given to 100. All entries were required to be postmarked no later than August 7 to be entered into a lottery. The other campaign was the Original Zipper Bag Campaign, in which people could select a free Original Zipper Bag featuring a Pokémon V card with the purchase of at least three eligible products in one transaction. The bags available from July 14 were Pikachu, Mew, Incineroar, and Duraludon. Eevee, Lucario, Venusaur, and Wailord bags were available to select from July 28.

500,000 copies of the V Starter Decks had been sold in Japan by July 28, 2020, making it the fastest-selling pre-constructed deck in the history of the TCG.[1]