The Pokemon Company International has announced plans to produce Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic, a deluxe playset that features preconstructed decks and accessories for the game and will be released late this year.  Classic is being developed in a partnership between The Pokemon Company, Creatures Inc., and the design firm nendo.

Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic is intended to offer a complete experience for the game.  It includes three preconstructed decks that feature popular and iconic cards drawn from the game’s history as well as some brand-new cards.  The three decks are focused around Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise.  The decks were not designed with deck-construction in mind, and are meant to be used as static decks.

The set comes with a folding game board that has a fabric surface to help players organize their cards during the game and a storage compartment large enough to hold all three decks.  It also has a “toolbox” with game accessories, including stackable metal damage counters, 3D poison and burn markers, metal orbs to use in place of Pokemon coins, and three sets of card sleeves sporting a Poke ball motif.

Click Gallery below to see images of the components.  (Images are not final and the components may change.)

The cards included in Classic will not be suitable for use in tournament play and will be available only in English.  MSRP and release dates have not been announced.

In May, the company will release new Battle Decks (see “Two New ‘Pokemon TCG’ Battle Decks Are Headed to Retail”), a new boxed set (see “Go Full Throttle with ‘Pokemon TCG:  Cyclizar Ex Box”), and a series of mini tins (see “New ‘Pokemon TCG’ Mini Tins Incoming”).