Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration — every wave, where it sells

The all-foil 30th anniversary expansion launched September 16, 2026, with additional product waves landing October 2, October 30, November 6 and December 4. This is the wave schedule, where each wave sells, and how to be there when restocks flip.

What 30th Celebration is

30th Celebration is The Pokémon Company's commemorative expansion for 30 years of the Pokémon Trading Card Game — an all-foil set that launched worldwide on September 16, 2026. The launch lineup included the expansion's booster packs and Elite Trainer Boxes, a poster collection featuring over 160 cards from the set, and foil promo cards of the Kanto legendary birds: Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.

It's a collector-driven anniversary line, which is why demand behaves like a sneaker drop: waves sell through, retailers gate the hottest items, and the calendar extends into December.

The wave schedule

Where it sells

30th Celebration launched at Pokémon Center online and across the major retail chain on September 16. The retailer mix since launch, per reporting and community coverage:

Walmart has used a purchase raffle for the Elite Trainer Box — the September 23 raffle opened at 2 PM PT. Target restocks have included community-reported very large ETB volumes (tens of thousands of units — community-reported, not officially confirmed). Best Buy gates hot sets behind invites. Costco's rotating bundles occasionally include anniversary product. Pokémon Center runs its queue.

Why it keeps selling out

Anniversary sets concentrate demand: everyone from long-time collectors to resellers wants sealed anniversary product, the set is all-foil (raising per-pack value), and the wave structure means supply arrives in discrete bursts that the market clears quickly. Raffles, queues and invites are the retailers' crowd control — and they also mean the 'sold out' state flips back to 'buyable' repeatedly as waves land and carts cancel.

That's the restock opportunity: October 2, October 30, November 6 and December 4 are all fresh supply events, and between them, canceled carts and reallocations keep flipping individual listings.

How to catch the restocks (without living on refresh)

The manual version: watch the product pages during the reported windows (Target weekday mornings ET, Walmart evenings, Costco.com same-day waves), keep carts warm, and be there for wave dates. The playbooks on this site cover each retailer's sequence in detail.

The CAESAR MONEY version: an alert the moment any monitored listing flips — with the retail price, the live market comp and the profit spread attached, so you know before you commit whether the ETB you're about to fight a queue for is actually worth the fight. $6.99/mo after a 7-day free trial.

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