The history of Pokémon Elite Trainer Boxes, from the first ETB to the first promo
By Pikajo | Camp Onion
I have a question.
At what point did a box designed to give Pokémon players some dice, Energy cards and somewhere to put their stuff become a collectible worth thousands of pounds?
Because I went looking for the answer.
And then I made a mistake.
I kept looking.
It turns out Pokémon Elite Trainer Boxes, better known as ETBs, have a ridiculous amount of history hiding inside them.
The first Pokémon ETB didn't have sleeves.
Pokémon changed the second one after asking people what they thought of the first.
It took more than three years before anybody got a promo card in one.
Some Pokémon sets simply didn't get an ETB at all.
Europe eventually got ETBs that North America didn't receive in the same form.
And despite how normal they feel today, Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes didn't even exist for the first eight years of the ETB's life.
Oh, and the very first one?
Sealed examples now sit in the sort of price territory where you might want to be sitting down before looking them up.
So yes. We need to talk about the humble Elite Trainer Box.
Because apparently it isn't very humble at all.
And we're starting right at the beginning.
When was the first Pokémon ETB released?
The first Pokémon Elite Trainer Box was the Black & White: Plasma Storm Elite Trainer Box, released on 6 February 2013.
It contained seven Plasma Storm booster packs and 40 Basic Energy cards, alongside dice, markers, dividers and other TCG accessories. Unlike the Pokémon ETBs we know today, however, it had no card sleeves and no promotional card.
The ETB format changed with Plasma Blast later that year, while the first guaranteed ETB promo card wouldn't arrive until Generations in 2016.
But that's the sensible answer.
The actual story is much better.
The First Pokémon Elite Trainer Box: Plasma Storm, 2013.
It all started with Lugia. And seven booster packs.
6 February 2013.
Black & White: Plasma Storm had arrived, Macklemore's Thrift Shop was number one in the UK, and somewhere inside The Pokémon Company somebody had decided Pokémon players needed a new kind of box
Enter: The Elite Trainer Box.
There had never been one before.
No Base Set ETB hiding in somebody's loft.
No Neo Genesis ETB.
No mysterious Japanese 1998 prototype your mate's cousin definitely saw on eBay.
Plasma Storm was number one.
And compared with what we buy today, it was a slightly odd little creature.
Inside the first Pokémon ETB you got:
7 Plasma Storm booster packs
40 Basic Energy cards
6 damage-counter dice
1 competition-legal coin-flip die
2 Special Condition markers
4 dividers
A Player's Guide
The reusable storage box
a separate little deck box
And absolutely no card sleeves.
None.
Those 65 matching sleeves that now feel almost compulsory when you picture a Pokémon Elite Trainer Box?
Not there.
Seven packs is correct too.
Nobody has nicked one.
This wasn't a damaged modern ETB.
This was simply what an Elite Trainer Box was in February 2013.
Except Pokémon apparently wasn't entirely convinced either.
Because after releasing it, they did something rather sensible.
How the Pokémon ETB Changed With Plasma Blast.
Pokémon basically went: so... thoughts?
Feedback was collected after Plasma Storm .And by the time the second Pokémon Elite Trainer Box arrived, things had changed.
Plasma Blast launched on 14 August 2013.
This time, Pokémon increased the booster count from seven to eight.
The separate little deck box disappeared.
And in came:
65 card sleeves.
There it is.
The beginning of the ETB format most of us would actually recognise.
Which means every time you open a modern ETB, pull out another packet of sleeves and place them lovingly into The Drawer Of Sleeves We Will Definitely Use One Day, you're looking at a decision that can be traced right back to the earliest days of the product.
I love that.
The Pokémon Elite Trainer Box didn't arrive fully formed. We basically helped beta test it. And Pokémon changed it.
THE TINY DETAIL
Plasma Storm and Plasma Blast also tell us something important about old Pokémon ETBs.
Don't judge their contents using today's rules.
A genuine old ETB can have fewer booster packs, different accessories or things missing that you would expect in a modern box.
Sometimes the explanation isn't: FAKE.
Sometimes the explanation is simply: Pokémon hadn't invented that bit yet.
Did Every Pokémon Set Get an ETB?
Hang on. Where's Plasma Freeze?
This caught me out.
If you assumed every Pokémon TCG expansion after Plasma Storm received an Elite Trainer Box, welcome. There's room over here.
Plasma Freeze didn't get one.
Neither did Legendary Treasures.
The neat relationship we now have, where a major Pokémon expansion appears and an ETB trots along beside it, hadn't been established yet.
Then XY arrived. And Pokémon tried something else new.
The First Pokémon Set With Two ETBs.
Xerneas or Yveltal?
5 February 2014.
The XY expansion arrived with two Elite Trainer Boxes.
One featuring Xerneas. One featuring Yveltal.
This was the first time a single Pokémon TCG expansion had received two different ETB designs. And Pokémon made another small contents change.
Basic Energy increased from 40 to 45 cards. That number would hang around for a long time.
The Elite Trainer Box was settling into itself.
We then got Furious Fists with Mega Lucario.
Phantom Forces with Mega Gengar.
Primal Clash with separate Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre boxes.
Roaring Skies brought Mega Rayquaza.
Ancient Origins had Hoopa Unbound.
BREAKthrough had two Mega Mewtwo designs.
BREAKpoint gave us Mega Gyarados.
Fates Collide brought Mega Alakazam.
But something was still missing from every single one.
Something that feels so normal in an ETB today that I genuinely hadn't appreciated how long we went without it.
Early Pokémon ETBs Didn't Have Promo Cards.
Imagine buying a modern Pokémon Elite Trainer Box and discovering there isn't a promo card inside.
Not: The stamp is missing.
Not: I got the wrong one.
Just: There is no promo.
That was normal.
Plasma Storm? No promo.
Plasma Blast? No promo.
XY? No promo.
Furious Fists, Phantom Forces, Primal Clash, Roaring Skies, Ancient Origins, BREAKthrough, BREAKpoint and Fates Collide?
Nope.
For more than three years, an Elite Trainer Box was packs and accessories. The guaranteed ETB promo simply didn't exist.
Then Pokémon's 20th Anniversary happened. And somebody finally had an idea.
What Was the First Pokémon ETB With a Promo Card?
Meet the card that changed ETBs
Shaymin-EX. XY148.
The Generations Elite Trainer Box first appeared through Pokémon Center on 1 July 2016, before reaching wider English-language retail on 14 September 2016.
It was already unusual.
Generations was tied to Pokémon's 20th Anniversary, and its ETB contained 10 Generations booster packs rather than the eight we'd become used to. But the really important bit was Shaymin.
For the first time in the history of the Pokémon Elite Trainer Box, opening one guaranteed you a promotional Pokémon card.
WAIT, WHAT?
Before somebody pushes their glasses up their nose and begins typing:
Actually, that Shaymin artwork had already...
Yes. I know.
The artwork had appeared in Japan earlier in 2016. So Generations wasn't the worldwide debut of that artwork.
But XY148 Shaymin-EX was the first promotional card guaranteed inside an Elite Trainer Box.
Tiny distinction.
Important distinction.
Exactly the sort of thing this rabbit hole is absolutely full of.
And the Generations ETB itself would eventually become one of the heavyweight sealed Pokémon ETBs. A completed UK eBay sale we found during our research in July 2026 reached approximately: £2,547.25.
Two and a half grand.
For an ETB.
Suddenly keeping the box doesn't seem quite so silly, does it?
Although if you opened one in 2016, enjoyed the packs and then recycled the packaging, I am absolutely not here to emotionally damage you.
Yet.
Did Every Pokémon ETB Get a Promo After Generations?
Absolutely not.
Because that would be far too straightforward.
Generations didn't establish a new rule that every Pokémon Elite Trainer Box needed a promo card.
The ordinary expansion ETBs carried on without them.
Steam Siege? No promo.
Evolutions? No promo.
Sun & Moon? No promo.
Guardians Rising? No promo.
Instead, Pokémon started doing something slightly different. The guaranteed promo became particularly associated with special expansion ETBs.
And that's where things start getting interesting.
Special Set Pokémon ETBs Start Doing Things Differently.
Shining Ho-Oh enters the box
Shining Legends arrived in October 2017.Its Elite Trainer Box contained ten Shining Legends booster packs and:
SM70 Shining Ho-Oh. Another guaranteed ETB promo.
Then Dragon Majesty followed in September 2018 with SM125 Naganadel-GX.
A pattern was emerging.
Normal expansion? Usually no promo.
Special expansion? Much more likely to have one.
And then 2019 gave us an ETB promo that became almost inseparable from the product it came in
Hidden Fates and the Rise of the ETB Promo.
The stained-glass birds
Hidden Fates. If you've spent any amount of time around Pokémon cards, you've probably seen this one.
Moltres.
Zapdos.
Articuno.
All three rendered in that stained-glass style on SM210 Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno-GX.
The Hidden Fates Elite Trainer Box released on 20 September 2019 and contained ten Hidden Fates booster packs alongside the guaranteed promo.
And this is where I think something changes. Because the promo isn't merely a bonus anymore.
It's part of the identity of the ETB.
You can picture the Hidden Fates box.
You can picture the birds.
They belong together.
Pokémon had found another reason for somebody to want the Elite Trainer Box itself rather than simply calculating how many booster packs were inside.
THE TINY DETAIL
You'll sometimes see 23 August 2019 quoted as the Hidden Fates ETB release date.
That's not the ETB date.
Hidden Fates products began releasing on 23 August. The Elite Trainer Box followed on 20 September 2019.
Same expansion. Different product date.
Tiny? Yes.
The sort of detail I have now become incapable of ignoring? Also yes.
Some Pokémon Sets Still Didn't Get an ETB.
Even by this point, an Elite Trainer Box wasn't completely guaranteed.
Detective Pikachu, for example, didn't receive one.
Neither did the earlier Double Crisis mini-set.
So if you're attempting to build a complete Pokémon ETB collection by simply working through every English Pokémon expansion in order, you're going to spend some time searching for boxes that never existed.
Please learn from my tabs.
Champion's Path and the Pokémon ETB Boom.
Then 2020 happened. Charizard entered the chat.
And things started getting a bit silly.
To understand why the Champion's Path Elite Trainer Box became such an ETB moment, you need to remember what Pokémon collecting felt like in 2020.
Demand was enormous.
Products were difficult to find.
People who hadn't thought about Pokémon cards for years were suddenly interested again.
And into all of that, on 25 September 2020, Pokémon released an Elite Trainer Box with Gigantamax Charizard slapped across the front.
Inside? Ten Champion's Path booster packs.
And a guaranteed: SWSH050 Charizard V.
Of course there was.
Pokémon had essentially located the enormous red button marked CHARIZARD and hit it repeatedly. The demand was real enough that Pokémon publicly acknowledged product availability concerns around Champion's Path.
And it demonstrated something important about what the Elite Trainer Box had become.
The box mattered now.
The artwork mattered.
The guaranteed promo mattered.
The packs mattered.
People weren't necessarily buying an ETB simply because it was a convenient way to get some boosters, dice and sleeves.
The whole thing had become desirable.
And that is an enormous change from where we started.
How Pokémon ETBs Changed From 2013 to 2020.
Go back to February 2013.
Plasma Storm.
Seven packs.
No sleeves.
No promo.
A little deck box.
A practical bundle of Pokémon TCG accessories inside reusable storage.
Then look at September 2020.
Champion's Path.
Ten packs.
Charizard covering the box.
A guaranteed Charizard promo.
Huge collector demand.
People wanting the Elite Trainer Box as a product in its own right.
In just seven years, Pokémon had taken the ETB from an experimental player product to something collectors were actively hunting.
But Pokémon still had one very big idea left.
A different type of Elite Trainer Box. One sold directly by Pokémon.
More premium.
Different contents.
Extra booster packs.
Exclusive accessories.
And, eventually, exclusive stamped promotional cards.
The Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box. There was just one problem. When Pokémon finally launched the first one... they put the wrong number of booster packs inside it.
Of course they did.
Next Week at Camp Onion...
The First Pokémon Center ETB Was a Disaster
Now things get really interesting.
We're heading into the strange Sword & Shield Elite Trainer Box Plus products that Europe got in a different form from North America.
We're finding out why UK collectors couldn't simply order the earliest Pokémon Center ETBs directly.
We're meeting Evolving Skies and Celebrations.
And we're going right back to Chilling Reign, when Pokémon launched the first Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box in history.
It was supposed to contain ten booster packs.
It did not contain ten booster packs.
Pokémon had to apologise.
There were replacement boosters.
There were free cards.
And the mistake created a weird little collector detail that still matters if you're buying one today.
See you next week.
Pokémon ETB FAQs
What does ETB mean in Pokémon?
ETB stands for Elite Trainer Box. It is an official Pokémon TCG product containing booster packs alongside playing and storage accessories such as card sleeves, Basic Energy cards, dice, dividers and a reusable box. Exact Pokémon ETB contents have changed considerably since the product first appeared in 2013.
What was the first Pokémon Elite Trainer Box?
The first Pokémon ETB was the Black & White: Plasma Storm Elite Trainer Box, released on 6 February 2013. It contained seven Plasma Storm booster packs and did not include card sleeves or a promotional card.
How many booster packs were in the first Pokémon ETB?
The first Plasma Storm Elite Trainer Box contained seven booster packs. The second ETB, Plasma Blast, increased this to eight.
What was the first Pokémon ETB with card sleeves?
The Plasma Blast Elite Trainer Box, released in August 2013, introduced the familiar pack of 65 card sleeves. The first Plasma Storm ETB did not contain sleeves.
What was the first Pokémon ETB with a promo card?
The Generations Elite Trainer Box was the first to contain a guaranteed promotional card. The card was Shaymin-EX XY148. The ETB first appeared through Pokémon Center in July 2016 before reaching wider English-language retail that September.
Does every Pokémon set have an Elite Trainer Box?
No. Particularly during the early history of Pokémon ETBs, some expansions did not receive one. Plasma Freeze, Legendary Treasures, Double Crisis and Detective Pikachu are examples covered in this guide.
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