Blaziken 014/108: the rarest fire of the 2007 World Champions Pack
Most Japanese Pokémon sets were sold in every toy shop and convenience store in the country. The World Champions Pack was not. Released on 5 July 2007, it could only be ordered online, for roughly two weeks, by players registered in Japan’s official card-game programme. That is why its holo Blaziken, card 014/108, is one of the hardest Japanese EX-era cards to find today.
A set made for players, not shops
The World Champions Pack (ワールドチャンピオンズパック) is a 108-card set, the Japanese counterpart of the English EX Power Keepers. Instead of a normal retail launch, it was distributed through a short mail-order window aimed at registered players. Few collectors outside Japan even knew it existed at the time, and many of the copies that were sold went straight into decks.
1st Edition first, then a tiny Unlimited run
Like most Japanese sets of the period, the pack was first printed as 1st Edition. According to long-time collectors, the response was weaker than expected, so only a very small Unlimited print followed. The result is unusual: here the Unlimited cards, without the 1st Edition mark, are scarcer than the 1st Edition ones. Collectors often rank it among the scarcest Unlimited Japanese sets, next to the e-Card series’ first expansion.
The card: Blaziken 014/108
- Type: Fire, Stage 2, 100 HP, holo rare
- Poké-Power – Firestarter: once per turn, attach a Fire Energy from your discard pile to one of your Benched Pokémon
- Attack – Fire Stream (50): discard a Fire Energy from Blaziken and deal 10 damage to each of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon
- Illustrator: Masakazu Fukuda
Firestarter made Blaziken a real engine in the Fire decks of the time, which is another reason so many copies were played rather than kept.
Our copies
We currently have this Blaziken in both versions. Every card is photographed front and back, so you see exactly what you will receive: