The Pokémon Summer Slowdown Is Cancelled!

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Well guys, it looks like the Pokemon summer slowdown has been cancelled, which honestly a lot of people didn't think we get to that point. A lot of people thought with uh the three sets before the 3rd anniversary that we would have this kind of downturn stagnation, but it looks like that's not going to be the case with the reveal of the Abyssal Eye Guards. How's it going y'all? I'm no with Poke Play, and today I'm going to be talking to you about how uh Chaos Rising and Pitch Black are going to help prevent the Pokemon Summer Slowdown. uh which we kind of have some more concrete information to go with on that since the Abyssal Eye Arts were just revealed and we'll kind of walk our way through those as well. Uh but anyway, real quick, I went ahead and added some products to my store. Uh please feel free to check it out. Link is in the description and in the comments down below. But anyway, let's go ahead and kind of hop into it.

[00:00:42]First thing we're going to do is we're going to look at the uh uh secret rares that came out for Abyssali. Just going to kind of not touch over all of them.

[00:00:50]I'm just going to kind of hit up some of the noteorthy ones that I know. One of which right here is the Gold right here.

[00:00:55]Uh it looks really pretty. Uh you've got this cool kind of artwork behind it and stuff like that. I know a lot of people are saying, "Hey, Gold looks like uh it's fat or she looks like she's pregnant." But uh honestly, even with that, like, you know, I think this is probably going to be a somewhat popular card. Another one that's really drawing a lot of people's eye is the slow bro right here. Like just this kind of slowb bro uh uh art with uh him kind of being kind of front and center. You got the design stuff around it. like a lot of people really enjoy the whole slowpoke, slow bro, slow king line. And so I have a feeling that this is actually going to uh drive some kind of uh a lot of kind of uh one for getting this card. Another one which kind of sticks out is we have the thievil right here. Uh the background definitely kind of goes with the motif, but honestly to me it looks a little bit goofy, so I don't know how well it's going to perform. But one of the cards that uh was revealed that I kind of want to get my hands on is this one right here. like the artwork uh for the background. It's very simple, but I love how it's kind of faded in the background with the sunlight peeking through and kind of like the imposition of the glare right there with the bird uh with the Pokemon front and center as well. So, definitely kind of a really really cool card. Now, some of the cards that, you know, a lot of people want to kind of get to in addition to those. So, it looks like first off that Abyssal Eye uh pitch black for the English set is going to have quite a few IR cards that seem like they're a lot more desirable than quite a few of the ones in Chaos Rising, even though Chaos Rising again had more desirable cards than its predecessor did. Perfect order. Kind of looking over here. Looks like we have a copy of the uh EX cards for all the mega rares that happen. Uh we've got the addition for Rampardos right here. Mega Extrail EX. Uh, one of the cards right here, the trainer Misty's energy. This card know, you just know it's probably going to do really, really well. Uh, Misti cards in general do really well. I think this is one of the first ones uh, in recent memory that actually has Misti kind of front and center. And so, I think this is going to end up being a pretty like high value card that a lot of people are going to want to shoot for. Really quickly, looking at the uh, SIS, we have the Mega Zera Aura. And honestly, this card looks really cool with all the lightning and stuff kind of flashing off of the Meazer Aura. I'd be really interested to see what it looks like in person. That way we can actually see the texture and stuff like that because that's just going to add a whole another layer. But just looking at the picture right here, uh, it looks pretty cool. Uh, did kind of quick glance for all these. Didn't look like there any kind of hidden Pokemon in there, which, you know, with the craze of hidden Pokemon and cards right now, that would really kind of elevate the cards level.

[00:03:23]Next one we have right here is the uh mega Shandelure uh EX which we have seen the uh yeah I think this is the first one that was kind of revealed the S for uh it looks cool. I mean Shandelure is a little bit plain but I like it. I'm interested again to see kind of what it looks like in real life. I'm curious to see if there's any actual defined details on the back of the card cuz sometimes when they take these like 2D scans or pictures of the cards often times it doesn't really translate that well that well especially for these higher quality cards. A big example is kind of the gold cards for um that have been coming out in the Mega Evolution sets. Like they look honestly downright kind of horrible in a lot of the scans that are taken of it, but then when you see them in person, you're like, "Okay, this looks a lot better than what it looked like online."

[00:04:05]You've got the what's probably going to be the number one chase card for it, the Dark Right here. And honestly, got to give him props. Uh Akira went ahead and did it again. Like this was kind of the big thing that was contingent for hey if pitch black was going to do well or not was how well the artworks compared and how well is mega dark going to look cuz honestly a lot of people kind of think even myself that hey the mega dark looks kind of goofy but honestly this card even in the 2D skin it looks amazing. I love the whole like you know kind of dark swirls in the background like energy and stuff like that. Uh it's kind of hard to tell with the card, but I'm curious and kind of hoping if there's like a hidden, you know, base form for Dark Cry uh hidden somewhere in the background. Like I think that would be super super cool. Uh and I'm super excited to see what the texture for this card looks like. Like this just looks like it is a amazing card. Uh and this is kind of the best we could have hoped for for Mega Dark Rry and Pitch Black is a kick-ass part of my language. uh dark cry mega dark cry chase card that's going to actually entice people and want people to collect the card even though the Pokemon itself looks really goofy and I think they've nailed it with this one. Super excited to see what it looks like uh in person with all the texture and stuff like that. And honestly like I think this is going to be the I think this going to be like my chase car for the set as well. Like I love dark cry and I I don't know this car just it just looks really amazing. Again, props out to Akira Igawa. uh they just absolutely killed it with this artwork and this design. Now, there's a couple other ones that are right here. You've got the uh uh Mora I always mispronounced. Mora Pico Morapoco Morapico EX.

[00:05:41]So, again, a cool card. Uh wasn't really too much of a fan of this Pokemon, but I know there are quite a few people that are. So, that's awesome that it got a sir. Uh and I think it's going to end up doing really well. One thing I did notice about Abyssal Black real uh Abyssal Black uh Pitch Black real quick and Abyssal Eye is I don't see any Mega Exodil exir which is interesting because from what I recall that's supposed to be one of the four main featured Pokemon.

[00:06:04]So maybe just hasn't been revealed yet or what. And the last card we're going to kind of look at right here is the Gold Dark Right right here. And honestly, this is the this is one of the first times where the actual picture of the card that's come across actually looks pretty good and has all the final kind of like details it looks like and stuff like that. Now, it's still not like, you know, I don't think it's going to be that highly desirable for Chase card. It's definitely going to be I think the number two value card on the set, at least initially, uh before some of these other SS kind of edge it out, but I don't know. Honestly, the gold looks really cool. It's just I'm not much of a fan of the gold cards for whatever reason. And it seems like that's the case for a lot of people as well. Uh, and then kind of one last thing, you got uh these two cards right here, which actually form a connecting artwork. Uh, and by the way, all these pictures are on Poke Beach. Big shout out to them.

[00:06:51]They're the ones who kind of broke this news. So, uh, really appreciate that because it just gives us a lot of stuff to kind of uh, fan over and get excited for as Abyssal Eye is about to come out.

[00:07:01]And then Pitch Black comes out later next month. But anyway, so it's Pitch Black has a lot of really good cards that everyone kind of really enjoys. Uh, and this is kind of the best thing that we were hoping for. Like this is one of the main driving factors for, hey, is Pitch Black going to cause a little bit of a market downturn or stagnation just like Perfect Order did. Uh, and honestly, just based upon the artwork that we're seeing for this, I don't think it's going to be the case. I think it's going to be uh just as popular as Chaos Rising is going to be when it comes out in two days. Uh, if not maybe more so, just because, you know, a lot of people really love and try to collect the uh Akira Agawa cards. Uh, so I think Pitch Black has definitely kind of risen up to the challenge and and kind of hit the benchmark that it looks like we're going to need uh if we wanted the uh summer slowdown to kind of be cancelled and continue making its moves up. And honestly, it can't do it alone. Uh, everyone thought that perfect order, Chaos Rising, and Pitch Black, all three of them were going to be bad and we're going to cause the market to stagnate and really exacerbate the summer slowdown. We kind of saw Perfect Order, even though Perfect Order still hasn't really dipped below $200 for a booster box. Chaos Rising, everyone kind of discounted that initially, but now like everyone's like, "This is actually looks like it's going to be a pretty decent set." Like it has a lot of hype for it.

[00:08:15]Everyone loves Greninja and has Greninja Chase card. Uh it's selling really really well as well. Uh as well like uh talked about some of my past videos, but Perfect Order from the when it was first listed for pre-order up until now. So, almost a full month after it's been out, uh, it's sold about 2,000 copies on TG Player, over the span of like three and a half months. And if you look at Chaos Rising, it's only been out for just over a month. Uh, it's Japanese version, that is. Uh, and it's it's sold like crazy.

[00:08:44]Like, uh, it's at 1,700 sales. So, uh, the hype is definitely there for Chaos Rising. Uh, and that's going to help kind of bring this Pokemon market out of the, uh, stagnation that's kind of been at with, uh, at least ever since Perfect Order came out, uh, with new sets. So, uh, both of those things kind of work in combination. I think that's just going to help propel, uh, the Pokemon market, so we don't have that summer slump. Uh, a lot of people were discounting those sets and, uh, again, the artwork for Pitch Black seems to show otherwise. uh the some of the artwork in the main chase card for Chaos Rising has kind of shown otherwise. I mean, you even have people like Nostalgenomics reporting when they've done uh like two days so far of their ripping ships for uh you know, kind of release week for Chaos Rising. They're like he's like, "Hey, Chaos Rising has sold so many packs like their pack numbers have outsold the number of Ascent Hero packs that have come out." Which partially I think is due to the scarcity of Ascent Hero packs right now. Part of it I think is due to uh and the other part of I think is due to Chaos Rising being such a new set.

[00:09:49]But again, even despite that, like when Perfect Order was a new set, it didn't get anywhere close to matching the amount of sales that Asa Heroes did. Uh at least for Nostalgia and other ripper shippers like that. So that is a very good kind of uh detail I think lends credence to the fact that hey, it's going to kind of propel us out of the uh the summer slowdown that we have. And then the last thing that I kind of noticed is uh on both these sets, one they're small sets, but it seems like they might both be kind of short printed at least until after the third anniversary comes out.

[00:10:21]Like a lot of people with DRO have kind of been reporting that, hey, their second wave for Perfect Order never arrived. Uh uh there's a lot of speculation. I don't think it's been fully confirmed why, but a lot of people have been saying, hey, the reason why is because Pokemon needed to uh they were behind for getting Chaos Rising to come out. And so they need to kind of focus on uh uh getting all those kind of ducks in a row taken care of for that before they release the second wave for Perfect Order. And if we see the same sort of thing when Pitch Black's about to come out, if we see that Pokemon is like, "Hey, we're not going to uh release a second wave for this, we're going to hold on to it." Whether it's because they're holding on to it or they don't have it printed, uh and they're instead going to choose to uh release Pitch Black uh on time.

[00:11:03]like that scarcity that you're going to have with two really popular sets. I think this is going to propel those prices forward and again lead us out of the summer slowdown. Like perfect order, it's not doing too bad. Still holding at 200 and it's considered a pretty bad set. Chaos Rising is pretty hype. It's got a great chase card like Fantasmal Flames. So I think it'll probably settle somewhere in between the price point for a perfect order and somewhere between the price point of Fantasmal Flames. So, probably anywhere between 275 to like 325, I think, is where it's going to end up settling down at. Uh, and then you have uh pitch black, which again is going to be, it looks like another great set just like Chaos Rising. It's not going to stagnate like uh Perfect Order did. And it's also going to be, I think, at a higher price. And so when you add that on top of the scarcity that we at least know that we uh are probably going to have or that we at least know we have a perfect order and that we anticipate, hey, following this trend line, we're going to have for Chaos Rising and Pitch Black as well. Uh really desirable cards and uh sets paired with low scarcity uh is just a recipe for uh massive kind of market jumps and market climbs. Great case and point for that we saw was Ascenda Heroes. Ascend of heroes the same thing. It is a great killer set.

[00:12:14]It's got amazing cards. Uh it's got a god pack, which these don't, but it's got a lot of really good things going for it, which is why people want to get it. Uh and it has that scarcity aspect.

[00:12:23]We haven't had uh any additional reprints outside of like, you know, the kind of tiered weight thing they did for various products. Uh and and we see what's happening as a result. The ETBs for Ascended Heroes are 180, knocking on $190 right now. The poster collection is now like $170, $175.

[00:12:43]Uh, all this just just kind of goes to show that these now confirm pretty decent, pretty popular sets that we're going to be getting in Chaos Rising and Pitch Black, plus the scarcity thing, which is looking like it's going to be a factor.

[00:12:58]Again, all that in addition to everything else is going to contribute to us not having a summer slowdown. So, if you ask me, in my opinion, uh, I think the summer slowdown is officially cancelled. like it looks like the poker market is still going to be hot, still going to be blazing, and it's going to continue its climb even despite the historical uh trend that we've had of the summer slowdown happening every year. Anyway, that's kind of my thoughts on the matter. Kind of let me know what your thoughts are. Uh how excited are you for the pitch black card uh pitch black cards and kind of let me know, hey, what's your kind of uh first let me know kind of what's your big chase you're shooting hoping for hoping to get for that set. Uh, and then also just kind of let me know uh what your thoughts are in terms of, hey, do you think the summer slowdown might be canceled as well, whether it's due to any of the reasons I've stated so far, or maybe it's because you've uh uh thought or considered about something else that I have and that I've neglected in my kind of analysis. I really appreciate your thoughts and your input.

[00:13:52]Uh, but anyway, as always, I'm Noah with PokePlay. Thank you all for tuning in and I hope to catch all of y'all next time. See you.