In the summer of 2021, The Pokemon Company introduced 3 new alternate art promo versions of Flareon, Vaporeon, and Jolteon’s VMAX cards in Japan. With the popularity of Eevee and its evolutions coupled with stunning artwork, these cards were immediately sought after.
Across nearly every Asian and southeast Asian region that Pokemon cards were printed in, these promo cards were distributed via special campaigns or tournaments. Only in Europe and America were they included as box promos in a retail store product.
Some regions also included an Espeon VMAX card in this promotional line-up, while others kept its distribution separate.
Much of the research and writing work for this article was performed by Rabby250 and Kranz. Major thanks to them and their efforts in documenting this multi-country campaign.
Japan
In Japan, the cards were distributed via a lottery campaign known as the “Summer Pokemon Card Lottery” during the summer of 2021. Traditionally each year during the summer, Japan held “sealed deck” tournaments that awarded exclusive full art promo cards as prizes. This was the case in previous years with the Zekrom SR / HR tournaments, Mewtwo SR /HR tournaments, and the Charizard SR / HR tournaments.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most in-person tournaments were unable to be held. It is thus speculated that these Eevee evolution promo cards were meant to be prizes for the 2021 summer sealed deck tournaments, but were distributed by lottery instead. This is especially apparent by the method of entry, which involved building a deck through an online tool.
Entry
To enter the lottery, Entrants were first required to register at the Pokemon Card Game Player’s Club website and then create a 60-card deck consisting of 40 cards, and at least 20 energy cards.
To create a deck, users were first required to be registered at the Pokemon Player’s Club, with an accompanying name, address, and other contact information added to the “My Page” section so the lottery cards could be mailed to a physical destination.
Registering a deck
First, players would have to search for cards to add to the deck, then tap the appropriate cards they wanted to add. They could then add multiple copies of each card to their deck.
Next, players would have to register a deck by submitting it for a regulation check. If everything was input properly and the deck was legal and complete, a deck code would be displayed. This code was required for the application form.
Additionally, players were encouraged to purchase and play the “Family Pokemon Card game,” a product that contained everything needed to play a game.
Finally, entrants were asked to enter the rules and deck they played in a lottery application form to await results of the drawing.
Stipulations to receive the lottery promotional cards were as follows:
- Up to 1 entry per person, multiple entries will be invalidated
- If the application details are false or if you have multiple accounts on the Players Club, all applicable accounts will not be eligible for the lottery. In addition, participation in future official and official competitions sponsored by Pokemon Co., Ltd. is prohibited.
- A lottery will be held after the deadline, and the winners will be announced when the prize is shipped.
- Prizes will be shipped around the end of October.
- Additional changes may be possible depending on the status of the campaign.
Japan Lottery winners
3000 winners were mailed their copy of the 3 promo cards in October 2021. These arrived in a branded cardboard mailer.
Inside this cardboard mailer was a blue envelope that contained the 3 lottery prizes. There was a window that showed the 3 cards inside.
The envelope’s exterior was sealed with a white sticker. It had the Pokemon TCG: Sword & Shield logo, and a short message which read:
Be sure to check that the cards are visible from the window of the envelope before removing the sticker. Please note that we will not be able to respond to inquiries such as “The 3 cards are missing” after the sticker has been removed.
Translated Envelope message
The cards inside were contained in clear sleeves that were glued to the interior of the envelope mount.
Poke Ball designs can be seen on the interior of the mount once the cards are removed.
Japanese Espeon VMAX
In Japan, the Espeon VMAX alternate art promo card was distributed with a retail product, the Eevee Heroes Eeveelution Set.
The Eevee Heroes Eeveelution Set was a companion product to the Eevee Heroes subset and was available from May 28, 2021 for 11,330 yen directly from Pokemon Center stores. It came packaged with two Eevee Heroes booster boxes, a set of card sleeves, a deck case, and an exclusive full art Espeon VMAX promotional card.
Hong Kong & Taiwan
In Chinese-speaking regions (Hong Kong and Taiwan), the Eevee evolution promos were distributed via a tournament series at Official Pokemon Gym stores.
A series of “sealed” tournaments called the Eevee Evolution Championship were held at local card game stores in Taiwan and Hong Kong to promote the latest expansions.
Unlike traditional tournaments where players brought their own decks, “sealed” tournaments involved building entirely new decks on the day of the competition. Participants would open 15 packs of latest expansions, Skyscraping Perfect (S7D) or Blue Sky Stream (S7R), on the day of the tournament. They would then use the cards within along with basic energy cards to construct a 40-card deck.
These sealed tournaments awarded the Chinese versions of the alternate art Eevee Evolution promo cards, but unlike the Japanese lottery, players weren’t able to get them all at the same time.
Sealed Tournament Rules
Tournaments in both Taiwan and Hong Kong followed the official sealed tournament rules.
Deckbuilding
- Bring approximately 15 basic energies of each type to the event
- Choose an expansion (in this case, Skyscraping Perfect or Blue Sky Stream), and then open 15 booster packs of that expansion
- In roughly 45 minutes, construct a 40-card deck with the basic energies and the cards opened from the boosters. A recommended balance was 15 Pokemon, 10 Trainers, and 15 Basic energy. However, players had freedom to build whatever deck they wanted as long as it was legal (up to 4 non-basic energy cards with the same name, at least 1 basic Pokemon).
Battle
- Single-elimination tournament OR Knock-out style tournament
- 25 minute time limit
- Games played with 4 prizes
Hong Kong
Hong Kong held its Eevee Evolutions Championship events from August 8 to September 26 in 2021 at Pokemon Gym stores.
The Hong Kong competition ran for three sessions in the following timeframes, with each session awarding a different VMAX Prize card:
- Session 1: August 16 – August 29, 2021 (Vaporeon VMAX)
- Session 2: August 30 – September 12, 2021 (Jolteon VMAX)
- Session 3: September 13 – September 26, 2021 (Flareon VMAX)
All participants of any of the tournaments would receive a Gym Trainer promo card.
Entry Rules
- Participants are only able to enter once in a 7-day period, and any registrations found to be duplicates or fakes will be disqualified and not able to participate in the rest of the events.
- Participants must bring an ID card or other ID verification to register.
- Absences are only allowed for unavoidable events such as an election.
- Random deck checks will occur during the competition. If the deck is found to be illegal in any way, the participants are disqualified and cannot participate in the rest of the events.
- Participants agree to release their likeness such as pictures, videos, and legal names to be used for marketing and publicity.
- Organizers reserve the right to revise, change, and cancel the event without prior notice.
Taiwan
Taiwan held its own Eevee Evolutions Competition at gym stores in three event periods later in the fall from October 5, 2021 to November 14, 2021. These competitions rewarded the same promo cards as the Hong Kong competitions, since both regions used traditional Chinese cards.
Similar to Hong Kong, there were 3 event sessions, each awarding a specific Eevee evolution VMAX promo card.
- Session 1: October 5 – 17, 2021 (Vaporeon VMAX)
- Session 2: October 18 – 31, 2021 (Jolteon VMAX)
- Session 3: November 1 – 14, 2021 (Flareon VMAX)
Taiwan’s tournaments were held in two stages. During the first “knockout” stage, players split into groups of 4 players and would compete within each of these groups in single elimination matches. Those who passed this stage and made it to the finals were rewarded with a Gym Trainer promo card.
The final winner would receiver the appropriate Eevee evolution VMAX promo card depending on the event session the tournament was held in.
Entry Rules
- Only 1 registration was allowed per event per participant. Any duplicate or false registration information would disqualify the competitor from all 2021 and 2022 Pokemon official contests.
- Participants had to bring their own ID cards or other documents to register.
- Any absences must be communicated to organizers prior to the competition.
- Random deck checks occurred during the competition to ensure decks are legal to play, and any illegal decks disqualified the participant.
- Participants had to agree to release their likeness to be used in media such as photos, videos, and other materials for marketing purposes.
- Organizers reserved the right to revise, change, interpret and cancel the event without prior notice.
Hong Kong & Taiwan Prize Distribution
Because each of the tournaments was scheduled ahead of time at each Official Pokemon Gym store, it’s possible to estimate the total number of copies for the Chinese cards.
For Hong Kong, it is estimated that 110 of each Eevee evolution VMAX promo card was distributed.
For Taiwan, it is estimated that only about 323 Vaporeon VMAX, 325 Jolteon VMAX, and 326 Flareon VMAX promo cards were given out based on the number of gym store participants signed up for each allocated event date range
In total, this means the estimated distribution for each of the Chinese promos is as follows:
- 433 Vaporeon VMAX
- 435 Jolteron VMAX
- 436 Flareon VMAX
Chinese Espeon VMAX
Traditional Chinese copies of alternate art Espeon VMAX were given out as winner’s prizes in Battle for Espeon VMAX, a tournament series separate from the original Battle for Eevee Evolutions tournaments.
Battle for Espeon VMAX games were played in a tournament-specific format:
- Decks must contain 60 cards and are legal in Expanded format.
- Each deck must contain at least 6 cards with “Eevee or a Pokémon evolved from Eevee” in their names. Players must reveal their decks to their opponents and officials after games for them to confirm that this rule is being followed.
- Games are played with 6 prize cards on each side.
Players would receive a copy of alternate art Espeon VMAX by winning 4 games, or booster packs if they won 3 games or less.
Hong Kong Battle for Espeon VMAX
In Hong Kong, Battle for Espeon VMAX was a series of tournaments held by Pokémon TCG Gyms across the two-week event period. The series was originally planned to start on January 10, 2022, but eventually postponed to July 11, 2022 due to COVID-19-related social distancing measures enforced by the local government. Tournament details were announced through a Facebook post by Hong Kong officials.
43 Pokémon TCG Gyms participated in the event, with each Gym holding one single-elimination tournament per week, adding up to a total of 86 tournaments held for the event. Each tournament allowed up to 16 players to compete, and the winner of each tournament would receive a copy of alternate art Espeon VMAX while other players received booster packs.
Players were required to enroll into the tournament they wished to compete in, and participant lists were published weekly for players to check for availability.
The total number of alternate art Espeon VMAX cards distributed in Hong Kong was never announced officially but can be estimated as 86 based on the number of tournaments.
Taiwan Battle for Espeon VMAX
In Taiwan, Battle for Espeon VMAX was a side event of the Pokémon TCG Regional League 2021-22 Taipei tournament, which was held in Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center during January 8 and 9, 2022. Tournament details were published in a PDF file.
The event was divided into 18 Swiss-system tournaments, 1 for child participants, 1 for junior participants and the remaining 16 open to all participants. Each tournament could have up to 240 participants with each participant playing up to 4 games. Although the number of alternate art Espeon VMAX cards distributed in this event was never announced officially, we can estimate the number of copies officials planned to distribute to be around 270 based on the tournament format described.
Thailand
In Thailand, alternate art copies of Flareon VMAX, Vaporeon VMAX and Jolteon VMAX were distributed in the Battle for Eevee Evolutions tournaments. The event was held as a Remote Pokémon TCG event by Gen4 – the official distributor of Pokémon TCG in Thailand at the time of the event – with local card merchant LYNX Trading Post acting as the organizer. This meant that players would play virtually from home with each other using online tools.
The event was originally planned to be held on each Tuesday to Saturday between September 28, 2021 to November 6, 2021 with each day having one session held at 6:00 PM local time and another session held at 8:00 PM. However, the event schedule had eventually been extended to November 20, 2021, and games on November 4 had been canceled.
All participants of these tournaments received a Gym Trainer promo card.
Entry
To enter, a player had to purchase 10 packs of either Skyscraping Perfect (S7D) or Blue Sky Stream (S7R) from participating stores, and use the receipt to register a slot with LYNX Trading Post between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM if the player wished to join the 6:00 PM session, or between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM if joining the 8:00 PM session.
There were 32 open slots for each session, which were further divided into 4 groups of 8 players. If the 32 slots weren’t filled before the admission closes, the last players registered who were not able to form 8-player groups will have their reservations canceled and allowed to register another session. Each receipt could only be used to register once, and players were not allowed to register in both sessions of the same day.
Sealed Tournament Rules
The Thailand tournaments followed a similar sealed tournament ruleset like the Hong Kong and Taiwan tournaments. However, each player only needed to purchase 10 booster packs instead of 15, and the tournament was played via a Swiss-style system instead of single elimination.
Players were also required to set up their own remote play environments where they would play their games during the event by following the official Remote Pokémon TCG guidelines.
Deckbuilding
- Bring approximately 15 basic energies of each type to the event
- Choose an expansion (in this case, Skyscraping Perfect or Blue Sky Stream), and then open 10 booster packs of that expansion
- In roughly 45 minutes, construct a 40-card deck with the basic energies and the cards opened from the boosters. A recommended balance was 15 Pokemon, 10 Trainers, and 15 Basic energy. However, players had freedom to build whatever deck they wanted as long as it was legal (up to 4 non-basic energy cards with the same name, at least 1 basic Pokemon).
Battle
- 3-round Swiss-style tournament
- Players were split into 8-player groups for the tournament.
- 25 minute time limit
- Games played with 4 prizes
Thai Prizes
Apart from the participation promo card, players would receive a random assortment of Pokemon Gym promo cards depending on placement. The eligible promos were the following cards:
Promos from this pool were distributed via the following methodology:
- Players in 1st place received 6 cards.
- Players in 2nd place received 4 cards.
- Players in 3rd and 4th places received 3 cards.
- Players in 5th and 6th places received 2 cards.
- Players in 7th and 8th places received 1 card.
Winners of each group likely received a random Eevee Evolution VMAX promo card, though details on actual distribution of each card is not well documented.
The tournament document specified that officials were planning to release 100 copies of each card in the tournaments, and reserved an additional 250 copies each for future events. On the other hand, the event schedule originally planned would result in 30 game days x 2 sessions per day x 32 slots / 8 slots per group x 1 card given out per group / 3 different cards = around 80 copies of each card given out to participants if all sessions were fully attended.
However, LYNX Trading Post announced the participant lists of each session through Facebook posts.
From the available Facebook posts we can count the number of players and calculate the number of cards actually given out, as shown in the table below:
From the table we can see that the actual number of cards given out was 189, or 63 copies each if the cards were distributed equally. It is currently unknown whether the remaining cards allocated for the Battle for Eevee Evolutions event (around 37 copies each) or the extra copies reserved for other events (250 each) were eventually released to the public.
Espeon VMAX
Thai copies of alternate art Espeon VMAX were first revealed officially in the official Thai card database of Pokémon TCG Trainer’s website as 073/S-P. However no events were ever announced to distribute them, thus making them unobtainable.
Indonesia
Indonesia would be the final region to hold tournaments that rewarded the Eevee Evolution VMAX promo cards. From November 5 – December 30, 2021, a series of sealed tournaments called the Eevee Evolution Championship was held at local card game stores in Indonesia.
Unlike other regions, the Indonesian tournaments would also award the Espeon VMAX promo, making it the only region where all 4 Eevee evolution VMAX promos were available from the same tournament series.
The promo distributed depended on when the tournament was held. Similar to to the Hong Kong and Taiwan tournaments, there were multiple event periods that each rewarded a different promo card.
- Session 1: November 5 – 18, 2021 (Vaporeon VMAX)
- Session 2: November 19 – December 2, 2021 (Jolteon VMAX)
- Session 3: December 3 – 16, 2021 (Flareon VMAX)
- Session 4: December 17 – 30, 2021 (Espeon VMAX)
Similar to other regions, all participants received a Gym Trainer promo card.
However, the Indonesian tournaments also gave each participants a V-UNION pack. This pack would contain a Professor Burnet promo card, along with the 4 cards for a random V-UNION Pokemon (Greninja, Mewtwo, or Zacian).
Sealed Tournament Rules
Tournaments in Indonesia followed the same official rules for sealed tournaments as Hong Kong / Taiwan, but were simple single-elimination tournaments instead of also have a knock-out style of tournament. These were outlined in an official PDF distributed alongside the tournament announcement.
Deckbuilding
- Bring approximately 15 basic energies of each type to the event
- Choose an expansion (in this case, Skyscraping Perfect or Blue Sky Stream), and then open 15 booster packs of that expansion
- In roughly 30 minutes, construct a 40-card deck with the basic energies and the cards opened from the boosters. A recommended balance was 15 Pokemon, 10 Trainers, and 15 Basic energy. However, players had freedom to build whatever deck they wanted as long as it was legal (up to 4 non-basic energy cards with the same name, at least 1 basic Pokemon).
Battle
- Single-elimination tournament, winners of each match move onto the next round
- 25 minute time limit
- Games played with 4 prizes
Entry Rules
- Register via the card shop or LGS hosting the Championship for Eevee Evolution Championship.
- Participants may only use Booster Packs purchased at the card shop or host LGS on the day of the event.
- Organizers should be notified in advance if a participant cannot make the competition.
Indonesian Prizes
The Eevee Evolution VMAX promos were awarded to the top-ranked players based on the number of participants and placement in these tournaments.
| Number of Participants | Grand Prize |
| 4 – 7 people | Awarded to 1st place |
| 8 – 11 people | Awarded to 1st and 2nd place |
| 12 – 15 people | Awarded to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place |
| 16 – 19 people | Awarded to 1st through 4th place |
| And so on.. | And so on… |
Essentially, every 4 players would add another promo card to the prize pool for each event.
America & Europe
In America and Europe, the Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon alternate art Eevee Evolution VMAX promos were released as box promos in special collection boxes in retail stores on December 3, 2021.
Additionally, these collection boxes included the alternate art versions of Vaporeon V, Flareon V, and Jolteon V that were in the Eevee Heroes Japanese set as promo cards.
The American version of the box retailed for $39.99 USD. Each American Pokémon TCG: Eevee Evolution VMAX Premium Collection included:
- 1 etched promo card featuring Vaporeon VMAX, Jolteon VMAX, or Flareon VMAX
- 1 full-art card featuring Vaporeon V, Jolteon V, or Flareon V
- 1 etched oversize card featuring Vaporeon VMAX, Jolteon VMAX, or Flareon VMAX, suitable for display
- 1 colorful pin featuring Vaporeon, Jolteon, or Flareon
- 6 Pokémon TCG booster packs
- 1 large metallic coin
- A code card for the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online
The European versions featured a slightly different box design, 1 less booster pack, and didn’t have the metallic coin. They retailed for £37.99.
The alternate art Espeon VMAX card was released as a secret rare in the Fusion Strike set when released in western territories, so it did not have its own collection box set.
Sources
Again, a huge thanks to Rabby250 and Kranz for their work in a bulk of this article’s writing and research.
- https://www.pokemon-card.com/info/2000/20000610_001231.html
- https://asia.pokemon-card.com/tw/archive/special/card/eevee_fight_event/index.html
- https://www.facebook.com/Pokemon.TCG.Official.HongKong/photos/727050545350141/
- https://www.facebook.com/Pokemon.TCG.Official.HongKong/photos/735094334545762/
- https://www.facebook.com/Pokemon.TCG.Official.HongKong/photos/a.120605365994665/852194709502390/
- https://www.pokeguardian.com/740395_vaporeon-vmax-jolteon-vmax-flareon-vmax-premium-collection-revealed-special-art-cards
