Are you looking for a gift for someone who plays Pokemon cards? Is so, you’ve come to the right place. In this gift guide, we’ll talk about the best gifts for Pokemon TCG Players. We’ve updated this article for Christmas 2023, so you can go ahead and pick up the perfect gifts.
If you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick recap. Two of these are gifts that you simply can’t go wrong with, plus there’s also an amazing gift for beginners.
| Gift | Quality | |
|---|---|---|
 | Booster Box | Best Overall |
 | Elite Trainer Box | Cheaper Option |
 | Battle Academy | Best for Beginners |
Before we start, just know that you’re awesome for doing the research! It’s great to have someone in your life, who really supports you and your hobbies – and puts a lot of thought into their gifts.
With that in mind, we’ll help you find a gift that will make one Pokemon card player extremely happy. So let’s get right too it.
The Best Overall Gift: Pokemon Booster Box
One of the best gifts for a Pokemon card player is surely a booster box. This is — as the name suggest — a box full of boosters. Each box contains 36 boosters.
Each booster contains 10 cards:
- 5 common cards
- 3 uncommon cards
- 1 rare or super rare card
- 1 holofoil card
Opening a booster box is totally awesome. Just imagine getting a gift and then finding 36 more little gifts in there. It’s great, and it’ll make any fan of Pokemon cards happy.
It’s usually the best idea to get the newest edition. They’ll have the freshest cards, which are very exciting for all kinds of Pokemon players. The newest one is Paradox Rift, released on November 3, 2023. This is going to be the newest set for a while, as the next one won’t be released until late in January 2024.
You can find other great Pokemon booster boxes here.
Best Medium Priced Gift: Elite Trainer Box
If you’re looking to spend less, while still giving a very cool gift, then the Elite Trainer Box might be the right choice.
One of the newer ones (Paradox Rift) contains:
- 8 Paradox Rift booster packs
- 65 card sleeves featuring Scream Tail (or Iron Bundle, depending on the box)
- 45 Energy cards
- 6 damage-counter dice
- 2 acrylic condition markers
- 1 coin-flip die
- 1 player’s guide
- 1 rulebook
On top of that, it contains a code card, which players can redeem in Pokemon TCG Live.
Everything comes packed in a nice and sturdy box. It’s a really welcome addition, as it can hold all the cards that come with it and additional ones as well. Besides, four dividers are also included – to keep everything organized.
Additionally, you can find more suggestions for Best Elite Trainer Box here.
Best Gift For Beginners: Battle Academy Bundle
Maybe your kid has some friends that play Pokemon, but doesn’t have any cards yet and doesn’t know the rules well. Or maybe, you just want to get your kid into a game that you used to play.
Whichever the case, if you want to give someone a gift that will teach them how to play Pokemon cards, Battle Academy Bundle is probably the best option. It designed with brand-new players in mind.
First, it comes with three different decks, each one includes a special powerful and quite popular Pokemon (Cinderace V, Pikachu V, or Eevee V). This means that you have enough decks for a two player game, plus an additional one, so players won’t get bored too quickly.
Second, you get a rulebook and two tutorial guides, that’ll help you get the gist of the game.
Third, you also get 4 booster packs, so you can improve your decks, once you master the basics of the game.
So if you’re buying a gift for a Pokemon card game player, who’s just starting out, Battle Academy Bundle is the perfect choice.
Gift for Online Pokemon Players: League Battle Deck
Another great option you have when buying a gift for someone who plays Pokemon cards is a whole pre-built deck. One of its advantages as compared to the previous gift ideas is that it’s a ready-to-play deck. If someone has a smaller collection, they might like a full deck better, then just separate booster packs.
There are lots of different options, above you saw a deck featuring Mew, which is quite a popular Pokemon. However, if you know that your giftee especially likes Pikachu, you might want to go with Pikachu and Zekrom-GX League Battle Deck, although that one is a bit older.
For that reason, it’s also great for anyone who plays Pokemon Online, as the deck comes with a code that you can use in the app to get a copy of the deck online. You can find more information about the best Pokemon Theme decks here. (These are similar to the Battle decks.)
For Pokemon Movie Fans: Detective Pikachu Case File
Did your giftee love the Detective Pikachu movie? In that case, you can have a pretty easy job of picking the gift.
Each Detective Pikachu Case File contains cards that feature different Pokemons from the movie:
- 1 foil promo card
- 1 foil oversized card
- 4 Detective Pikachu 4-card boosters
- 2 regular boosters
- 1 code for Pokemon Online card for the pokémon trading card game online
So each Case File contains 46 cards total. There are three different versions of this product. Above, we featured the one with Charizard, which we think is probably the best of the bunch and could be a real collector’s item sometime in the future. Nevertheless, you can also get any of the following two:
You can also just buy all three case files, as they truly are a great gift for any Pokemon player, especially if they enjoyed the movie.
Something Different: Deck Box With Changing Colors
Each deck of cards needs a deck box. Certain products contain a deck box, but it might be a flimsy one. That’s why getting a proper deck box is a great choice.
You might think that a box is a lame gift. However, that’s not the case with the Sidewinder ChromiaSkin Deck Box. It comes from Ultimate Guard, which is known among card game players for its great quality. The interesting part comes from the ChromiaSkin technology, which makes the deck box change colors on touch. How cool is that?
If you want to know more about it, you can find an in-depth ChromiaSkin Deck Box review here.
Small Additional Gift: Card Sleeves
Sleeves are great. They protect cards from wear and make them easier to shuffle. Some Pokemon cards can be quite valuable, so it’s important that they don’t get damaged, during play sessions.
That’s why sleeves can be a really nice gift for someone who plays Pokemon cards. These are also great if you’re looking for a more budget friendly gift.
We have two options that we’d like to show you. One comes with traditional Pokemon art, but has lower quality, while the other doesn’t feature Pokemon art, but is more durable.
Sleeves With Pokemon Art: Ultra Pro
These sleeves depict the popular Charizard. The art looks pretty cool, but the quality isn’t the greatest. The sleeves will split very quickly. Usually the wear is pretty noticeable, even just after a couple of games.
If you’d rather gift sleeves of a higher quality, there’s another option.
The Best Quality Sleeves: Dragon Shield
Dragon Shield is the golden standard for card sleeves of various card games. Their sleeves are pretty close to indestructible. Sure, they can get dirty after using multiple years, but you can clean them pretty easily.
Our playgroup has been using their yellow sleeves for over 7 years now, and in all this time maybe two of them have split.
The downside is that they don’t have official Pokemon art, which can be a bummer. Nevertheless, you can browse their Art Sleeves, which feature many amazing designs, including dragons. These will probably appease Pokemon players.
Practical Gift: Pikachu Hoodie
Finally, we wanted to mention a product which isn’t specifically card related. However, many Pokemon card game players are also fans of the Pikachu.
So if that’s true for your giftee, you might get them something that’s both fun and practical – a Pikachu hoodie. There are various options you can get, so make sure you’ll pick the right size.
Wrap-Up
Let’s wrap it up, like you’ll wrap up your gift. To quickly recap, we’d recommend a Booster Box or an Elite Trainer Box, if you’d like to spend less, but still provide a cool gift. You can also try to find some discounted products in our Best Black Friday 2023 Pokemon Card Deals article.
Finally, if you’re still not sure what to get, just ask the giftee about Pokemon cards. They’ll surely love to talk about their hobby and about products they would like to have.
You can also check our other Gift Guides:
That’s all about gifts for Pokemon card game players. Hopefully, you found what you were looking for — and remember, the best gift is the quality time spent with our loved ones. So maybe ask them to teach you how to play Pokemon cards, they’ll surely love it, and you might like it too. It’s a great game.
If you have any additional questions about the gifts, ask us in the comments below. We’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.
This was a great present for my son. thank you so much.
How do I find a shiny charzar gx card for a present?
You could try your luck with the Hidden Fates boosters. However, if you want to have a guaranteed one, you’re probably better of just buying one.
What about the best gift for someone who collects (vs plays) pokemon cards? Would the recommendations be the same?
Yeah, mostly the same, as most Pokemon players are also collectors. The newest Pokemon booster box is usually the best one for both Collectors and players. Collectors like opening the newest cards, and players might still be missing cards from the latest expansion. If you want to get something specific for a collector something like XY Evolutions would be totally amazing, although it’s quite pricey. For a player, you might also get them a specific card that they’re missing, however, it can be hard to find the right one sometimes. So with all that considered, the newest edition is the safest choice.