Important takeaways
- Pokemon TCG cards return to McDonald's, featuring a variety of Pokemon.
- McDonald's and Pokemon have a long history of promotions for fans.
- The promotion in France offers 15 different Pokemon cards, with a potential release in the US in late 2024 or early 2025.
Pokemon TCG is returning to McDonald's stores and now fans can find out which cards will be available through the promotion. Although there will be a variety of Pokemon, Pokemon TCG The McDonald's promotion seems to feature a surprising number of Dragon-type Pokémon.
Pokémon and McDonald's have a long history together at this point, with the restaurant chain bringing cards, toys and Pikachu Happy Meal boxes to customers everywhere. Previously, players could get exclusive Pokémon in the game by bringing their Nintendo handhelds to McDonald's stores and accessing their Wi-Fi. Although these promotions have largely disappeared, many fans eagerly await each one Pokémon promotion held at the fast food chain, and this one is unlikely to be any different.

Family
A Pokemon TCG Pocket Type is getting the short end of the stick
Pokemon TCG Pocket has some pretty obvious balancing issues at launch, but one Pokemon type in particular is doing a bit worse than the others.
As reported by PokeBeach, the Pokemon TCG is returning to McDonald's restaurants in France, from December 4th to January 21st. The restaurants will give away booster packs containing four cards, from a total pool of 15 cards. Each pack is guaranteed to have one holo, with six possible holos to get, printed on the exclusive McDonald's confetti holofoil. The Pokémon packages may contain the following Pokemon TCG short:
- Charizard
- Pull desk
- Dragonite
- Dramp
- Eevee
- Hate
- Hydreigon
- Jigglypuff
- Coraidon
- Miraidon
- Pikachu
- Quagsire
- Rayquaza
- Roaring Moon
- Umbreon
Typically, these campaigns arrive at different times in different areas, rather than being rolled out worldwide at the same time. It's possible that McDonald's isn't offering the cards right now in the US because they've already offered big promotions, including the return of the McRib sandwich. This promotion even includes a unique offering of half a liter of McRib BBQ sauce, which can create a customer crush. Combining it with the usual fever Pokémon cards may not be ideal. As such, these cards will most likely either arrive shortly before the end of the year or sometime in early 2025.
Interestingly, the release of Pokémon card goes against the usual pattern of McDonald's. Typically, new cards arrive in the US first and then in France, with initial predictions showing the cards arriving in US restaurants in October. That month came and went with no mention of them, but McDonald's was running a special Chicken Big Mac promotion at the time. For the same reasons as before, it probably wouldn't be wise to run two potentially popular promotions at the same time, so Pokémon may have pushed back in the chain's home country.

Pokemon TCG
Pokemon TCG (Trading Card Game) is a collectible and strategy based card game based on Nintendo's Pokemon series. Two players face off, battling one Pokémon at a time and trying to knock them out to claim one of six prize cards. The cards have also become highly collectible with some notably selling for thousands of dollars.
- Original release date
- October 20, 1996